The Frieda Vizel Podcast

Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/IK2yCY6yGZQ
Part 1 (this is part 2) of this episode: https://youtu.be/ZMwMkiG0YCY

Did the Hasidic community become more extreme in recent years?

This is a question people often ask. They point to how much more modern and diverse the Hasidic community of New York looks in pictures from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. But what people fail to realize is that the post-Holocaust Hasidic community was still very much a community in the making. It wasn't yet the success it is today. It was...

video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/ZMwMkiG0YCY

In part 1 of 2 of Erika Szabo's life story, we learn what life was like for the post-holocaust generation.

Erika was born in Hungary shortly after the war. She was the real first post holocaust babies. Her father, sadly, was hauled off to prison in communist Hungary. Her mother was left to raise her and younger twins alone - the twins were born prematurely. Finally, after Stalin's death, her father was released from prison. And during the chaos of the Hungarian revolution, the family escaped Hungary via...

For the video link, where we have embedded translations, see this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/IKWcSiy4e08

Mrs. Lefkowitz has spent her life disabled. And what a life she lived! At just 11 months old, in Israel, she contracted polio. It left her completely disabled. She couldn't swallow, she couldn't move, she couldn't speak. She was raised by a deeply faithful Jerusalemite family, and her life story is full of "unexplainable miracles." After doctors gave up on her, her mother dragged her to the tomb of the sage Reb Shimon, where, after an incredibly arduous journey, she...

Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/cBcXWpz0joA

What do you do when you are lucky to find love, but the price of that love is losing your family?

Gittel Schwartz's story is at the crossroads of happiness and heartbreak. As a young child, she lost her father and her large religious family was destabalized, deeply grieving, often confusing. In adulthood, she drifted over to Florida, where she met a man with whom she shared a passion for art, poetry, books. The problem? He was not Jewish. In this interview, Gittel shares her experiences...

Twenty years ago today, I created a pseudonym for myself: Shpitzle Shtrimpkind. A 21-year-old Hasidic mother of a little baby boy, hiding furiously behind my alias. My first post was an attempt to defend my community. Within a month or two, I experienced a profound internal shift I couldn't stop or undo. It led me on a road of so much heartache, discovery, curiosity, friendship, loss, love, joy, and sorrow. If I had known then what I know now, I don't know that I would have ever created Shpitzel Shtrimpkind. But it happened. Life happens, whether we have courage for...

video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/9BwmSQ0Vwsk

Imagine a world where there are only women! That's the world of the filmmaker Malky Weingarten. Malky makes movies for Orthodox Jewish women and girls. This means no romance, no men on set, very kosher plotlines. What does it take to create these movies, and what motivates Malky? By her own admission, her target audience is tiny! And yet, she keeps going. She is passionate and brings artistic, creative, and fun energy to Orthodox Jewish life.

Check out Malky's website at Malky's Media where you can...

Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/Bt0V4N9lGfc

Hasidic groups are led by Rebbes. I come from the Satmar sect, and our rebbe was Moses Teitelbaum. What happened when he passed? The community erupted in a fight over who would take over, and Satmar split in two. There are now two Rebbes, Reb Aaron and Reb Zalmen Leib.

Satmar is just one sect. There are other huge sects with intense succession stories. In this episode, I speak to the scholar Samuel Heilman who spent 50 years studying Orthodox Jews. He wrote the book "...

Video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/guXQwZ9h_5U

Dr Archelle from the podcast "Speak Up for Your Health" interviews youtuber Frieda Vizel about her experience growing up in the Hasidic community and experiencing the community's attitudes towards health.

Find Dr. Archelle on her webside: https://www.archellemd.com/
Follow Archelle's podcast Speak Up for Your Health: https://www.archellemd.com/speakupforyourhealth
Dr. Archelle's book: https://amzn.to/4ydzmr0
For more on Frieda and health, here are some relevant videos:
Reflections on my mother's illness: https://youtu.be/vCljrs_AgJQ<...

Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/LK2b0mAYKqA

I'm tired of big youtubers conflating all Hasidic groups as one. 

They are so different.

The community in Crown Heights is really different from the communities in Williamsburg.

I visited both Brooklyn neighborhoods in order to show you how they are different.

Credit:
*Videography* -
Cristian Delvalle / https://www.instagram.com/cristiandelvallecaicedo/
Max 
*Edit-* 
Steve Milligan / https://www.instagram.com/shootitsteve/
Lee Kupac / https://www.instagram.com/alice.kpc & https://readymag.web...

video link to this interview: https://youtu.be/NtFI3NL4dFE?si=zOhqSNq6aijFxcc4

In September 2026, the Satmar community experienced a major historic event. After decades of the community being split into two rival factions, the two brothers who led the rival factions met again. But not just anywhere, but at the White House. After so much time of hurt and estrangement, the rabbis wished each other a sweet year before heading into the White House to meet with the president, Trump, and advocate on behalf of their Jewish community. 

This is a great time to l...

Video link to this podcast: https://youtu.be/_UjXlnOVdug

In September 2026, news broke that Hasidic Rabbis will meet with president Trump. This was revealed when the Satmar Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum stepped up to his congregation on Shabbos and pre-emptively told his community that although he accepted an invite to sit with the president, he doesn't want the teenage boys to get too into it and excited about it. In this video, I unpack, from my own personal experience, what I think motivated the speech, what I think motivates the visit, and a little context on the Hasidic community's...

Video link to this interview: https://youtu.be/Yy4Tzw-UAUc

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Video link to this interview: https://youtu.be/vEkKjydfG3g

The Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel is an unusual community in the state of New York. It's all Hasidic, very insular. It is shaped around the Satmar Hasidic code of behavior which includes speaking Yiddish, strict gender roles, and insularity from secular society. The community is so gendered that growing up male versus growing up female are completely different experiences. I, as this channel host, have shared much about the female experience. However, there is little I know about the male experience. Through my network of people from...

Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/vUhamjWR_vA

In this video, I provide a translation and analysis of a powerful Yiddish speech by the Grand Rabbi of the Satmar Hasidic sect, Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum. He addresses what he describes as the "new Satan" threatening today's generation: Artificial Intelligence.

I offer a unique context as someone who grew up in the community. I share personal stories, including a poignant encounter at my son's opsherin, to illustrate the complex relationship between Hasidic leadership, tradition, and the relentless march of technology.

In this video, we...

Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/mW6PTwWUVAU

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 questions. It will also be available for view later.

Follow Melissa on her socials!
https://www.instagram...

Video link: https://youtu.be/xBBW-b4yNfw

Gita got married, like many Hasidic Williamsburg girls did. In an arranged match, when she was not yet twenty. Her marriage lasted until death did them part. Decades together, seven children, forty grandchildren, and about as many great-grandchildren. What does it mean for a woman of such a traditional, pious world to lose her husband, the backbone of her life and family? Gita is a story of resilience, everlasting love, and the language to express it all through food. From her shabbos morning coffee on the porch, from where she watches...

Video link to this interview: https://youtu.be/LV99eySK-24

Fifteen years after their marriage was arranged, a couple reflects on their lives together. They met once for forty minutes and then got married a year later, without any contact during the engagement. Are they happily married? In hindsight, what do they take away from their way of having met? 

🔗 Follow Brachi and Avi on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brachif/
🔗 Brachi's Shabbos table decor business is here: https://hod-hadar.com/
🔗 Hod Hadar Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hod_hadar_/

Did you enjoy this...

Link to video version of this interview: https://youtu.be/7CBHWJwmAJI

Many people know Pessy from her popular Yiddish comedy videos, where she lovingly and hilariously captures the world of Hasidic women. She was one of the first creators to bring that world to social media through a female lens, and her sharp observations and humor have earned her a devoted following.


But behind the comedy is a remarkable personal story.
Pessy grew up in a Hasidic family in Monsey and spent much of her childhood carrying responsibilities that no child should have to...

Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/ixZOxV5BuCI

Eddy Portnoy is back by popular demand, after our wonderful discussion on the history of Yiddish language. Eddy is the exhibit curator at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and does amazing Yiddish/Jewish curations.

Today’s subject is juicy but educational, eye-opening, and enlightening.
We are diving into the shocking and largely forgotten story of the National Desertion Bureau, a real organization founded in New York in 1911 to track down runaway Jewish husbands who abandoned their wives and children during the great wave of Jewish im...

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 supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support.

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 of the History of Polish Jews, the landmark institution that tells the thousand-year history of Jews in Poland.

Barbara's own story, and her relationship with her father, is part of...

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 and thoughts.

For more on this subject, see these videos:
Everyone is talking about Jews: https://youtu.be/A1aOTCsYQfM
My experience with antisemitism as a...