The Frieda Vizel Podcast

Video link to this conversation: https://youtu.be/KCS9vAundms How do you tell the history of Jews in Poland? Why is there so much debate about this from Polish people? I ask the curator of the Polin museum about her work at the crux of this debate: when telling the story of Polish Jewish history for the museum.  Watch part 1 for Barbara's life story here: https://youtu.be/xXqmG4rI-sE Become a supp...

Video link: https://youtu.be/qdQi26lBQ7Q Today I have the great honor and pleasure of speaking with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, a renowned scholar of Jewish culture, folklore, and performance studies. She is best known for her work exploring how Jewish history and heritage are presented in museums and public culture, and she served as the chief curator of the core exhibition at the POLIN Museum...

Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/gwCyNjr2vU0 Today I am talking to Doran from the channel  @TheEasyWayDMS  about philosophical subjects. What is antisemitism? How does it form and change? What are the guises it comes in? In a world in which there's so much muddled dialogue about antisemitism, I thought it was important to have a nuanced, thoughtful conversation. I invite your comments...

Video link to this conversation: https://youtu.be/uQ8YqHA_id8 📸 Videography: Upperdeck Film / https://www.instagram.com/upperdeck_film/  ✂️ Edited: Lee Kupac / @mayo.nap  👰 Wedding footage: Shmilly Feldman / https://www.instagram.com/chasidish_lifter/ More content with Pearl: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhW2QoO54ycylVdMte0xOgmKWkyksKzyv&si=hOy-eozSCg2cWErr Become a supporter of this p...

Video link to this monologue: https://youtu.be/A1aOTCsYQfM Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support .

Video link to this conversation: https://youtu.be/92Q4LAxh_Ug A year ago, Pearl sparked one of the most heated discussions on this channel. As a Satmar Hasidic woman, she shared her views on the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, Israel, and Zionism—views that many viewers strongly disagreed with. The response was intense. In this conversation, I sit down with Pearl again and ask her how she feels about th...

Link to video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/aeVekOqP7-Y The tables have turned! The wonderful, renowned Orthodox Jewish podcaster Dovid Bashevkin, host of 18forty, who interviewed me for his podcast, returned the favor and joined me for a candid conversation about the inside-outside perspectives. He inside, I outside, together we have an interest in the same thing from different angles...

Video link to this interview: https://youtu.be/fV8LeAiQQe8 Join us for an insightful conversation with Dr. Yossi David, a leading researcher in social biases, migration trauma, and media influence. We delve into how leaving insular communities mirrors migration challenges, the impact of fiction and AI on perception, and the importance of trust and skepticism in society today. Key topics discussed:...

Video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/vUl5DjWhCBk Lovina's personal story: https://youtu.be/GHF0lQS2CHs Former Swartzentruber Amish teacher Lovina Zook takes us inside the world of Amish education, sharing detailed insights into what a typical school day looks like in one of America's most closed communities. From the one-room schoolhouse structure to the daily routines, strict dress cod...

Link to the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/GHF0lQS2CHs Lovina Zook, a former Swartzentruber Amish woman who left her community at age 18 with only $24 to her name. Lovina shares her compelling story of growing up in one of the strictest Amish settlements, without electricity, running water, or any exposure to technology, where she raised her 12 younger siblings as the oldest girl....

video link:  I feel I am completely incoherent here but also raw in a way I felt I wanted to share anyway. I’ve organized my thoughts in many videos in ways that I think (hope) is clear and accessible. Here’s where you see a bit of the me behind the analysis. The personal and analytical as I sit and reflect and process a story that I think is exceptional and beautiful and imperfect and problematic...

Video link: https://youtube.com/live/XDNed30Yqng?feature=share Riki and I recently talked children's games and had fun on my living room floor: https://youtu.be/uvwSkTZbjOo She will come over to my place, hopefully on May 5 and at 5pm we will go live together from my computer. Please chat with us in the comments, or watch it later if you can't make it! Follow the brilliant performer  @riki_rose  o...

Link to the video version: https://youtu.be/uvwSkTZbjOo You can buy kugelech here: https://amzn.to/3YbJPTH Can you play this game? Do you know these chants? In this video, I explore kugela (plural: kugelach)—a simple game of five stones that carries centuries of history. With Yiddish singer Riki Rose, we try to play, reminisce about childhood games, and uncover a whole world of “oldies” that once...

Video version of this segment: https://youtube.com/live/_5ZJi2noZOg?feature=share Naomi Seidman shares about her research on Jewish love and romance, her own marriage and the loss of her beloved pet. We discuss her book "The Marriage Plot" which you can get here: https://amzn.to/4vIkgtb Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support .

Video link to this conversation: https://youtu.be/qjtlgrLe92w Meet Samuel Marks, a young collector whose passion for rare Judaica brings overlooked corners of postwar Hasidic history vividly to life. In this first interview, we get to know Samuel through the objects he studies, preserves, and loves. Raised in a secular Jewish family and now a law student, Samuel has built a remarkable collection o...

A 26-year-old collector opens his personal library to reveal the dramatic, human stories hidden inside antique Jewish Talmuds. In this video, Samuel Marks takes us through his personal collection of Talmuds from different eras, using each volume to tell a larger story about how the Talmud was printed, censored, altered, and preserved under extraordinary historical pressure. Samuel is a self-taught...

Video of this interview: Melissa Weisz grew up in Hasidic, Yiddish-speaking Boro Park and left the fold well before the OTD phenomenon became famous. I believe she left the fold before me, and I'm of the old timers now! I have been waiting for the opportunity to share her story with my viewers. Here, we finally get Melissa's story live. Please come if you would like to see this live and ask questi...

Video link to this interview: https://youtu.be/bk6Q2RIN_mE "You're not shutting me up." - Jewish comedy icon Judy Gold, 2026 Judy Gold is a lot of things. She's an icon, she's a comic, a writer, a gay woman who was at the forefront of fighting for LGBT rights. But one of the things that is her foremost descriptor is: Jewish. She was never a comic who was also Jewish. But always a Jewish comic. Her...

Link to video version of this episode: In this episode, I’m joined by historian Glenn Dynner, who was my professor years ago and played a pivotal role in getting me started as a tour guide. Our conversation focuses on Polish Jewish history, Hasidism, and how Jewish life in Poland developed under pressure, change, and violence. Before we begin, here are Glenn’s books, which come up throughout the i...

Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/QuMAGZuI5J0 Frieda and  @_yiddishkeit  discuss the seder with a mix of amazing haggadah illustrations and childhood memories.   CHAPTERS  0:00 intro 2:51 illustrated haggadah  5:49 the opening rituals of the seder  10:33 the steps of the seder 14:14 the symbolism of the matzah, maror, wine  16:37 instructions in Yiddish  21:04 the story of the Exodus  2...

video link to this trip down memory lane: https://youtu.be/S3c7Px2jMRo Hasidic Jews go hard for Passover. The goal is not to come into any contact with bread. But this has turned into a full half-year operation for some, like my family. Here I talk about my childhood memories in Kiryas Joel, preparing for Passover. The methodical cleaning, then opening the Passover kitchen, then cooking everything...

video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/XLDwhIRumwU This is comedy. Baily is the character of the famous Jewish comedian Leah Forster. I love Baily. She is very kind to me and will help me find a husband soon. She also very willingly shares about her Hasidic life. She's now extremely busy preparing for passover. Hasidic Jews go all out cleaning, cooking, shopping for Passover. To make things...

Link to video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/kP_NgV7y_Cs What happens when modern medicine meets a tight-knit Hasidic world? In this long-form conversation, Frieda Vizel speaks with Dr. Lynne Quittell, a pediatric pulmonologist with more than 40 years of experience and decades of close work with Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish families. Dr. Quittell has practiced at world-renowned instituti...

Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/Biqnh3CZIFo I have so many thoughts and feelings about illness and being ex-Hasidic. About losing community support, about how my mother is fighting for her health, about returning to be at her bedside and wanting to be there but also fearing the ptsd of some rituals. This video cropped out of my high holiday season time spent with my mother.  Many than...

Video link to this conversation: https://youtu.be/n8g9RwmGwF8 Dan is a Jewish interpreter who immigrated from the Soviet Union. He believes his Soviet past taught him important lessons about recognizing when society takes a wrong turn. He reached out to me to share his story, and I invited him for an in-depth interview. We discussed his Soviet upbringing, his life journey, and his experiences as a...