GROSS: Larry, do you know lots of mohel jokes? So we asked him to tell a few to conclude the episode. We knew we could count on Larry for some good mohel and circumcision jokes. A mohel is a Jewish man who performs the Jewish rite of circumcision on baby boys a few days after their birth. On that episode of our show, we had on the author of a book about the history of circumcision, and then I spoke with a mohel. We're going to remember him by listening to the time he told a few on our show back in 2001. Name the subject, and he'd probably know a joke about it. Larry loved to tell jokes, old jokes with punchlines, and to send emails with jokes. Some of us on FRESH AIR got to know Larry back in the days when we often sent our guests to his home recording studio in Manhattan to record their end of the interview. In an email from Larry's daughter Jennie, she wrote that he grew up listening to the radio, and when she arrived at his side Wednesday night shortly after his passing, there was static on the radio by his bed. He later hosted shows that were carried on many NPR stations including the 'Bob & Ray Public Radio Show' that brought the comedy duo back to radio, 'Bridges,' a, liberal-conservative dialogue - Larry was the liberal - and 'Only In America,' the story of American Jews in which one of his interviewees was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As his obit in The New York Times says, he helped shape the station into a vibrant, eccentric, alternative radio haven. Starting in 1966, several years before NPR existed, he hosted a free-form morning show on the noncommercial radio station WBAI in New York. We're going to end today's show by remembering Larry Josephson, a pioneer of listener-supported radio.

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