The Frieda Vizel Podcast

Video format of this interview: https://youtu.be/lzVUnyxpcEE The most beautiful media content created about the Hasidic community is, arguably, the Israeli hit TV show Shtisel. It was co-created by Yehonatan Indursky, who grew up Haredi in Jerusalem, left the community, and is now in some sort of place of return. He calls it "living on the border," the most interesting place to be. You might have...

Link to video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/teadpfXWCO4 Martha Ross grew up Old Order Amish in Middlefield Ohio, left it, and now does YouTube videos about it on the channel  @AmishTransformed  . Please check out her fundraiser for her husband's much needed dental work here: https://gofund.me/d49b3276 Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-viz...

Link to video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/MnFddZtaWdQ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support .

This is the song to advertise the Tzohar organization, which I have referenced in the episode comparing the Netflix Unorthodox show to this song. Here is the video: https://youtu.be/78XBSSDdwjo?si=aXMAEQ4pOPnYhbwZ I am sharing the music since it's essentially and ad and it will help create a fuller resource/reference to my commentary Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/pod...

Video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/78XBSSDdwjo The stories we tell affect the ways we process events around us. How we make sense of things like someone's departure from a community. Every society has their own stories; their own mythologies, their own tropes. In this video, I do an analysis of two different societies and their tropes, by comparing the Netflix show Unorthodox with the...

Video link: https://youtu.be/28lP8j8swA0 Please support Rochel Yenty Bodek's wonderful work by donating: https://insightbeyondeyesight.org/donate Rochel Yenty Bodek is a Hasidic woman who lost her sight as a young woman due to a genetic condition. She has faced tremendous challenges as a wife and mother in the Hasidic community and has risen to the challenge with tremendous resilience. In this int...

Link to video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/hKN0_75EuqE Anna Shternshis is a Professor of Yiddish studies and the director of the department of Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto and the author of "Soviet and Kosher", "When Sonia Met Boris" and the forthcoming "Jews in the soviet union: post war life, hopes and fears". In this interview we talk about the fascinating history...

Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/pVfY5wZlPec There's a whole emerging world of Hasidic theater, acted by men, and including a cast and stories of men only. This has been a tiny element of the Hasidic world for years - it definitely wasn't a viable career for anyone until recently. In recent years, the Hasidic theater scene has exploded. So much talent is coming to the fore. It was so m...

Video version of this interview here: https://youtu.be/kMxyRkjljm8?si=hcjjD0_-izvquKxB Today's interview is about psychedelics, Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, and one extraordinary woman's journey! Please join me for the interview with Bruchy Moskovics. Bruchy was raised in the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel. Her story is like no one's I've ever heard, and the way she tells it will take you to another wo...

Video link to this interview: https://youtu.be/ctuFi83643E Antonia Lassar is a Jewish comedian who grew up with very little Judaism. She later became interested in various forms of religion, going on a seeker's journey for community with soulful musical connection. She loves singing and is a professional comedian. Our journeys couldn't be more different, yet we have so much in common in our apprec...

Video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/blLciT0egb4 Jessica Roda just published the book "For Women and Girls Only" on Orthodox Jewish women's performances. You can find her book here: https://amzn.to/4jKRJgj In this long form discussion we talk about what's happening in the scene of Orthodox Jewish women's performances. Because of modesty rules, women are not allowed to perform in front...

Video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/HoTzWaF7dU8 So many stories about the Hasidic Jews of the village of Kiryas Joel come from people who have left it. Or, often it will come from village official PR people who tell a very rosy story. In this interview, we get an exclusive peak into an everyday woman walking an exceptional line; risking everything in her community to express her voic...

Video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/dlp7-4Aq1tM Modi Rosenfeld is a brilliant and wonderful Jewish comedian whose work I've long been a huge fan of. He is able to talk to any audience, a skill that few have. It's incredible to me that his audience spans from the very secular to the very religious, including Hasidic Jews, which is part of his bit. In my latest interview I talk to Modi...

Video link: https://youtu.be/J1XGAMK4wng Happy Chanukah! This Chanukah I want to share some of my childhood memories by reading to you an unpublished essay about my childhood memories of Chanukah in the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel. Wishing all who celebrate the holidays very happy holidays! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/su...

Video version of this posting: https://youtu.be/Gk917OpgS_Q It is the tradition that before a Hasidic young man gets married, he attends a private session with an older rabbi who guides him in matters of sex and intimacy. Since sex is not a topic openly discussed in this society as it is considered immodest, this one lesson is potentially the first time the young groom learns about sex and the opp...

Video version here: https://youtu.be/AUdw8W71Gv8 *Sensitive content warning. This conversation contains adult themes.* Peggy Greenfield is a certified relationship and intimacy coach who grew up in the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg, and now serves this population. Peggy is not in the community herself anymore, which gives her a unique vantage point from which to tackle challenges of sex...

Video link: https://youtu.be/Ovl9HbcTuUI This is a discussion about the documentary 'City of Joel', with the filmmaker Jesse Sweet. It's a documentary about a turf war in the insular Hasidic Village of Kiryas Joel. Kiryas Joel is a Satmar village in Orange County New York, and it's where I lived for the first twenty-five years of my life. The documentary includes amazing footage of the village I g...

Video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/vbwZcttuNOQ Miriam Anzovin is a Jewish content creator who does videos about the Talmud, Jewish lore reactions and even holiday themed makeup tutorials. She is a warm, funny and witty Jewish woman and I find a friend in her in the content creation journey. Join me for a discussion with the wonderful Miriam about her background, about her relationsh...

Video version of this interview here: https://youtu.be/5-RsTIrIbmo Lea Kalisch has a dream to sing at the Superbowl, in Yiddish, with a shtreimel. She is a singer of many genres, but some of her Yiddish songs reflect a longing for a simple, religious world. "I am a shtetel Neshama (soul), a Jew from yesterday. I should have been a fruma, my hashtag is 'oyvey'." We hear so many stories of people fr...

Youtube video: https://youtu.be/aTkJpC3h7cg Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support .

Join me for an interview with the Hasidic Yiddish influencer Raizy Fried. Please check out the youtube version of this video here: https://youtu.be/oycLsS4ulyg In my work documenting the Hasidic community, I've gone to great lengths to bring out of the shadows the story of women in this world and their voices. It has been incredibly difficult, as much of the female sphere is modesty and behind a c...

Link to video version of this conversation: https://youtu.be/O-ov6vTAAqQ?si=uqY1x8Yt-8woN-TD In this video I talk to Hasidic Jew Rabbi Mendel Hersh Paneth about the community's complicated relationship to animals. People's fear of dogs, the way that animals are slaughtered for kosher purposes and the ritual of kapores. Stay tuned for additional discussions with Rabbi MH Paneth.  Become a supporter...

*Note: the play discussed here contains violence* For the video version of this interview see here. In this long-form interview, I talk to theater director Igor Goylak about a powerful production titled 'Our Class'. It's a play that tackles timely themes of the human capacity for evil, antisemitism, and the long arc of history. I saw the play in Brooklyn and it's now playing in Manhattan. Igor is...

For YouTube version see here: https://youtu.be/DQgG_Pzxazg Baily is a character of a Hasidic woman who spends her summers in the bungalow colonies in upstate New York. In this episode, she shares the trials and tribulations of the experience. This segment is comedy, in the great tradition of the Catskills being a place for comedy. Leah Forster is a brilliant comedian who has spent years entertaini...

Andrew Jacobs directed the beautiful documentary 'Four Seasons Lodge' about holocaust survivors who spent every summer in the Catskills in a bungalow colony, connecting and loving life. The documentary follows them during their last years, as they are in their 80s, navigating the end of their time together. They are full of laughter, love, humor, sorrow, and memories of the horrors they went throu...