JEWISH TV HAS VALLEY HOME SHERMAN OAKS PATHFINDER LAUNCHES 24-HOUR NETWORK.

Byline: DANA BARTHOLOMEW

Staff Writer

SHERMAN OAKS -- When the nation's first 24/7 Jewish cable TV network burned through the wires Thursday, Phil Blazer's eyes lit up like a menorah.

His Jewish Life TV -- a beacon for Jews around the world -- had just kicked off its broadcasting debut with a cable show hooked into the former Leisure World.

"I'm ready to cry -- amazing, I'm not kidding," said Blazer, 63, from his Sherman Oaks studio, eyeing a cable monitor filled with an interview with Olympic gold medalist Mark Spitz.

"We'll be the spokesmen for the Jewish people ... right here in Los Angeles. We're the spark."

The JLTV channel, launched on the Internet last Fourth of July and via satellite in December, will now educate viewers on Jewish life around the clock.

Programming includes Jewish news and sports, movies, music, documentaries, magazine shows, children's fare and community programs coast to coast, broadcast from studios in Sherman Oaks, New York and Jerusalem.

Classes for all ages

With thousands of Jewish children in rural towns with no access to any form of Jewish education, the station aims its School Judaica classes for every age group.

Each day, JLTV broadcasts some feature on the Holocaust. It even forecasts the weather -- in Yiddish.

Jews who have waited decades for their own full-time TV channel now have a home on the tube.

"I was watching television and seeing 10 Christian stations, two black stations and a multitude of Hispanic stations. Where was our Jewish network, our Jewish channel, with our abundance of culture, education and chutzpah?" asked Blazer, who hatched his idea 18 months ago and has since garnered millions of dollars in support from Hollywood to Tel Aviv.

When he "hit the switch" on his JLTV network at 1 p.m. Thursday, its Jewish star logo flashed into up to 18,000 homes at Laguna Woods Village, formerly Leisure World, in Orange County, where one-quarter of the residents are Jewish. An independent cable channel there was the first to pick up the network.

That's where Jerry and Marilyn Gross, formerly of Van Nuys, ran to their TV set. Shabbot candles flashed on the screen. Then up came Blazer's "To the Point" interview with Spitz.

"This is so exciting -- this is the best thing that's ever happened in Leisure World," said Marilyn Gross, 62, during the broadcast. "I came into the house and there it is. I'm so thrilled."

The network is expected to air over Time Warner cable in Los Angeles this fall and be broadcast in 50 states, as well as stations as far afield as Hamburg, Germany.

With 6 million Jews across the U.S., including 600,000 in greater L.A., backers believe it'll be a hit with Jews and non-Jews alike.

"This is important," said Branko Lustig, the Academy Award-winning producer of such films as "Schindler's List" and "Gladiator," a JLTV board member who called to offer his congratulations.

"If we had (this) station in 1942, the Holocaust would have never happened," said Lustig, 76, an Auschwitz survivor. "Jewish TV here in America -- it's like having a piece of Israel ... a window to the world for all Jews."

Jewish action figure

Its stocky founder, a graduate of Van Nuys High School who resides in Sherman Oaks, has long been known as a Jewish action figure.

A broadcaster for 42 years of his "Jewish Soul" radio program, he once turned down an offer to play with the Detroit Tigers to go to college in Minnesota and spin r&b with Wolfman Jack.

A staunch advocate for Jewish causes, he led a rally against Nazis in Skokie, Ill., and once got in a brawl with white supremacists in Panorama City. He has a tooth scar on his hand to prove it.

A humanitarian, he persuaded then-Vice President George H.W. Bush to airlift nearly 1,000 black Jews imperiled in Sudan. He's also flown Elizabeth Taylor and other Tinseltown royalty to entertain troops in Israel.

TV talk-show host. Playwright. Publisher of the National Jewish News. Father of four. The lantern-jawed activist has also authored such books as "Wrestling with the Angels: A History of Jewish Los Angeles."

Now he's prepared to broadcast such Jewish TV noshes as "Fiddler on the Roof" and the first Jewish documentary, "Isaac, the Pawnbroker," circa 1907 Hollywood.

"They said it couldn't be done -- and the rescue of Ethiopian Jews couldn't be done," said Blazer, founder and president of Blazer Communications. "(But) all these things can be done.

"It means if you want to do something bad enough, you can do it."

dana.bartholomew(at)dailynews.com

[phone]

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Phil Blazer kicks off Jewish Life TV, a network due to air over Time Warner cable in L.A. this fall and be broadcast in 50 states as well as internationally.

(2) Program producer Craig Durst works in an editing bay at Jewish Life TV, a 24-hour network launched Thursday.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer