The Sunday Simcha

Joining the Sunday Simcha as its new host in June 2019, Palm Harbor-based Cantorial Leader and Jewish educator/concert/recording artist Joy Katzen-Guthrie moved to the Tampa Bay Region in 1981 from her native Memphis after receiving degrees in Broadcast Communications and Music from Stephens College in Columbia, MO. Joining Temple B'nai Israel in Clearwater, she became an active volunteer with the temple, JCC, Jewish Federation, and other Jewish organizations. She joined WPLP News/Talk Radio as Traffic Director, then Executive Producer and Operations Manager; announcer-producer and Public Affairs Director for WXCR Classics 92 and Traffic Reporter for WDAE/W101. With her husband, Mark Guthrie, she operates Tune-of-the-Century Music.® She remains a busy studio and voiceover artist.

Joy served as Cantorial Leader for Temple Shir Shalom of Gainesville, Temple Bnai Israel of Clearwater, and Cong. Beth Am of Tampa in addition to serving as a visiting concert/cantorial artist and scholar in residence nationally. She has been a longtime instructor/concert artist for OLLI at Eckerd College, USF OLLI and many adult learning programs presenting programs of Jewish interest, music history, theatre and cinema scores and many other subjects related to entertainment.

Joy served as a creator and scholar in residence for seven Jewish heritage tours to China and Turkey in addition to developing Jewish heritage tours around the world in conjunction with several travel agencies. She has been a contributor to the Encyclopedia Judaica and speaks widely on the subject of the Jews of China.

Her love of Israeli and global Jewish music fuels her programs, both traditional and contemporary in all genres including Ashkenazic, Chassidic and Sephardic, Yemenite and African, European, Latin American, Oriental, American, liturgical, stage, and folk. Her programs are often themed to holidays and experiences of Jewish life, composers, performers, and genres. She hopes to expand the aesthetic experience of Jewish music and culture historically and shares her enthusiasm with listeners.

Joining the Sunday Simcha as co-programmer/host in May 2022, Rande Friedman hails from Chicago, where in his words, his parents wanted to raise the family in worse weather—so they moved to Buffalo when he was two. Rande worked in the family shoe stores in both Buffalo and then in Tampa Bay. After 25 years in retail, he became what he says is his perfect profession, a realtor.

Within Tampa Bay's Jewish community, Rande’s main claim to fame is through his creation of the Greater Seder event in 2005, when Rande proposed the production of a musical comedy Seder and immediately drew support. He and friends and colleagues formed a troupe, “The Kosher Hams,” and have since entertained thousands while raising money for The Tampa Jewish Family Service’s Food Bank.

With his background in musical comedy, his love of speaking, interviewing, comedy, and his easy-going nature, Rande Friedman adds another dimension to the Sunday Simcha.

After serving for 13 years as hosts of The Sunday Simcha, Shlomo and Jordyn Schwersky retired as hosts in June 2019.

Shlomo moved to Clearwater in 1972 and has been an active member of the Jewish community ever since, and a WMNF volunteer beginning in 1984 when he first hosted WMNF’s morning show and afternoon drive time show. He joined Kevin Frye as co-host of the Sunday Simcha in December of 2010 until Kevin's untimely passing in 2016, when he took over as host of The Sunday Simcha with his daughter, Jordyn, who joined the program as a contributor in 2014.

Jordyn Schwersky was born and raised in the Tampa Bay Area and has been an active member of the Jewish community since attending pre-school at the Golda Meir Jewish Community Center. She received her Bachelors degree in Journalism and spent five months working as a reporter at the Jerusalem Post in Israel. Jordyn began her stint with the Sunday Simcha by joining Kevin and Shlomo as a guest host until she became Shlomo's official co-host in 2016. She has been honored to bring her voice to the Tampa Bay airwaves.

Both Shlomo and Jordyn devoted themselves to expanding the WMNF Sunday Simcha music programming, particularly with regard to current and rising artists. Their devotion to Jewish music, Jewish culture, and Israel shines through everything they do and has added a unique and fulfilling distinction to the Simcha that has made it a favorite with listeners around the world, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.

In August 2020, Shlomo took over as President of the Board of Directors of the Jewish Federation of Florida's Gulf Coast. He has been a Federation Board Member for more than a decade and is a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and B'nai B'rith International, as well as a former board member of Temple B'nai Israel of Clearwater.

Kevin Frye served as host of The Sunday Simcha from 2005 (taking over the show after Mike Eisenstadt's passing), until his own passing in December 2016 at only age 48.

How does one describe an individual as vital, gifted, and beloved as Kevin Frye? "He was a teacher who touched countless lives in his career, a dedicated man of faith, and wonderful friend to so many," said his friend and colleague John Stephan to Creative Loafing magazine in 2016. The words only begin to capture what Kevin was to all of us.

He came to the Tampa Bay Area in 1972 from his native New York, graduating from USF with a Master's Degree in Music Conducting after undergraduate studies in trumpet performance.

And boy could Kevin make that trumpet sing! His instrument and his voice became a centerpiece of The Mike Eisenstadt Band for more than 15 years until Mike died—after which he took over the band, serving as its Director until his death 11 years later. He was also a dedicated member of the Florida Wind Band, as well as Orchestra Director at Madison Middle School, where his love and enthusiasm for music influenced everyone who met him and served as an inspiration to his students.

Kevin was devoted to the Tampa Jewish community, not only through music, but through participation in community events and synagogue life. He was a gift to The Sunday Simcha, keeping it alive after all of us were stunned to lose Mike, and he brought continuing joy to all in the Tampa Bay Community and to listeners of the Simcha around the world.

The name Mike Eisenstadt remains a legend in the Jewish community of Florida and well beyond. Mike not only brought joy through Jewish music, but was renowned in Jewish life and community life in Tampa Bay. No matter where he went around town, it seemed as if everybody knew Mike. Originally from Bristol, Rhode Island, he caught the music bug from his multi-generation family of klezmer musicians. The “Buckler Family Band” gathered for many a family simcha and community event.

But it was The Tampa Jewish Federation's need for music entertainment for a fundraising gala in 1988 that inspired the creation of The Mike Eisenstadt Band—which for the next 27 years under Mike's direction became the band that everyone Jewish (and many others) in Florida called for a Simcha—locally in the Tampa Bay Area, as a touring and recording group, and as one of the state's most successful rock'n'roll party bands.

But klezmer was Mike’s musical love. Taking over as producer and host of The Sunday Simcha in December 1985 after the departure to Miami of Oded Salpeter, the program's original host (1980-1985 as The Jewish Sound), Mike renamed the two-hour broadcast The Sunday Simcha in 1986 after asking listeners to suggest a new name. From more than 100 submissions, he selected the name The Sunday Simcha and devoted himself wholeheartedly to WMNF Radio and his radio audience.

A highlight of Mike's shows was his "Mazel Tov" section at 11:45 AM. The segment became increasingly popular as more and more listeners called or wrote Mike to provide their "mazel tov's." Including announcements of meetings, events, and news of interest to the Jewish community, Mike expanded The Sunday Simcha to the role of community bulletin board. Frequent guests visited the show to discuss a wide variety of issues, ideas, and concerns of the Jewish community. Combined with diverse Jewish music and comedy, the program was great fun to hear and gained a tremendous audience. All in a pre-internet/email era, by the way—when Mike invited listeners to mail in their announcements, news, ideas, and comments to the station's street address, then on Nebraska Avenue—and a steady stream of them did.

As an authority on Jewish humor, Mike served as a lecturer for the Florida Humanities Council as well. He and his wife Debbi were founding members of Congregation Kol Ami in Tampa, where Mike was a constant presence and served a term as President. In 2001, after 25 years as a volunteer Jewish community activist, Mike took over as Director of Community Relations for the Tampa Jewish Federation. Additionally, he was a member of the Board of the Tampa Jewish Federation and Jewish National Fund as well as a co-founder of Tampa PRIMER (Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting).

Then there were the trips to Israel that Mike and Debbi organized and led. Many in the community experienced the fun, insight, and discovery anew of Israel through traveling with Mike.

In 2003, Mike and his band recorded a first collection, "Ta'am," that included contributions from Cantor Moshe Friedler, at Bill Dudley's studios north of Tampa (Yes, that's host of WMNF's Live Music Showcase, Bill Dudley). In late 2004, as he battled cancer, he and his band joyfully recorded his CD "Chazak!" ("Strength!") at Morrisound Studios in Tampa and enjoyed a massive CD release party in early 2005 in which the entire Jewish community and many more turned out.

When Mike passed away in September of 2005, the entire Tampa Bay community and Sunday Simcha listenership felt a gaping hole. Just before he died, the Tampa Jewish Federation honored Mike and Debbi for their contribution to the Tampa Bay community. After his death, in 2006, WMNF Radio dedicated the “Mike Eisenstadt Live Music Studio”—still so named today—an integral part of life at WMNF Radio and the studio from which live broadcasts continue to emanate.

For eleven years after Mike's death, Kevin Frye took over as bandleader and retained the name "The Mike Eisenstadt Band” to carry on Mike's legacy and music. After Kevin Frye's untimely death in 2016 and again after the passing of one of the band's devoted longtime pianists, Bonnie Lefkof (Bonnie Lynd) in 2018, the surviving members of Mike's band have continued to perform individually, though the collective joyous force that was The Mike Eisenstadt Band now lives only in unending memory and in the joy of his recordings. It is possible still to view the band's website as it remained before Kevin's death at http://www.eisenstadtband.com.