WHYY Radio Sunday Specials

The best specials and series to inform, entertain and keep you company.

Listen Sundays at 6 p.m. on WHYY radio.

April 13
Their Music Survives
Their Music Survives: The Resilience and Revival of Jewish Music from the Holocaust features six dynamic musical projects bringing this music—and the Holocaust stories behind it–to new audiences ranging from sold-out Carnegie Hall crowds to Pittsburgh high-school students.

The documentary, based on two years of reporting in the U.S. and Tel Aviv, comes at an auspicious moment: Anti-Semitism is raging here and across the globe just as nearly all the eyewitnesses to the Holocaust’s horrors are gone. The devastating loss of Holocaust survivors, the silencing of their incredibly powerful stories and calls for constant vigilance, is beyond frightening. Many Jews and others are terrified that the Holocaust and its lessons could eventually be forgotten, or relegated to a few anodyne textbook paragraphs.

Against this backdrop, the music and projects featured in Their Music Survives offer new ways to pass Holocaust memory to future generations when that need is greatest. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel put it best: “To listen to a witness is to become a witness.” In that sense, the Jewish music and musicians highlighted in Their Music Survives makes witnesses of all who are touched by it.

April 20, 27; May 4, 11, 18
Terrestrials
Terrestrials is a show for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. In each episode, host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) will introduce you to a creature or earthly phenomenon that will defy your expectations of how nature is supposed to work. Along the way, you’ll encounter a chorus of experts, including scientists, surfers, hip hop artists and…a “Songbud” named Alan (indie punk musician Alan Goffinski) who creates original songs for key moments of confusion, discovery, or awe.

May 25
Americans Reconnect: Talking Across the Political Divide
Americans Reconnect: Talking Across the Political Divide, stands out amidst a firehouse of media stories that not only seem to accept polarization as an inalterable truth but, at times, even stoke it. By contrast, this program focuses on solutions to polarization. The production team spent more than a year researching and reporting on how people can maintain relationships despite stark political differences, offering hope for a divided electorate that Americans can still come together.

June 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
Call to Mind
Each broadcast hour focuses on a timely mental health topic and explores emerging research, shares stories of people living with mental illness, and features interviews with top experts.