RADIO SHOW HAS AN ENCHILADA AND BAGEL FLAVOR

Veteran Latino broadcast chef Daniel Ajzen has introduced a new dish to the menu of El Cajon radio station KMJC-AM (910).

It’s called “Shalom Amigos,” it’s served each Sunday from 11 a.m. to noon, and it’s described by Ajzen as the audio equivalent of “a bagel with an enchilada flavor.”

The “bagel” is layered with Jewish news, personality interviews, music, folklore and assorted other cultural offerings. The “enchilada flavor” comes from Ajzen’s own heritage as a Jew from Mexico.

The idea behind “Shalom Amigos,” Ajzen said, is to combat centuries of anti-Semitic feelings by increasing public awareness of secular Judaism--its people, its culture, its history, its traditions.

Ajzen, 37, who grew up in Mexico City’s sizable Jewish community, got started in his endeavor by persuading the editor of Mexico City’s leading daily newspaper to hire him to write about international, national and local Jewish news--a task simplified by the fact that “at the time, nobody else was doing it,” he said.

A few months later, Ajzen produced 13 hourlong radio shows about Jewish music and history that aired once a week on a non-commercial (and non-paying) university radio station. Public response was so great, he said, that as soon as the series was over, it was broadcast a second time.

“Mexico City has always had a considerable Jewish population, but our own surveys showed that nine out of 10 listeners to our series were non-Jews,” Ajzen said.

“That proved to me, and others in the radio business, that Jewish culture is of interest to everyone. And in the 24th week, someone from the top commercial radio station in Mexico City asked me to produce a similar weekly series for them--this time, for pay.”

That series, “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” recently observed its 14th anniversary on that station. Twice, it has been honored by the Mexican Journalists Assn. as the best cultural program in Mexico, winning the association’s prestigious Sol de Oro, or “Golden Sun,” award in 1985 and again in 1986.

By the time Ajzen left Mexico City a year ago to start working on an American offshoot, “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” had become the sixth-rated radio show in all of Mexico, Ajzen said.

“Shalom Amigos,” which took Ajzen nearly a year to develop, is broadcast entirely in English, with certain commercials and announcements repeated in Yiddish.

Shows have included an interview with local Jewish community leader Garry Neimann, a discussion of Jewish laws, a reading of the Syrian folk tale “The Large Stone and the Small Stones,” and interpretations of traditional Hebrew folk songs by a Mexican mariachi band.

“I decided to introduce this program in San Diego because eventually I’d like to see it syndicated all over the world, and this is a very good place to start,” Ajzen said.

“For one thing, San Diego has the fastest-growing Jewish community in the country, outside of Miami. For another, San Diego is right across the border from Tijuana, which has a very influential Jewish community of its own.

“And, finally, people in San Diego are a lot more open than anywhere else in the country. They’re willing to listen, to take a chance with something new.

“So hopefully, they’ll take a chance with us.”