Episodios

  • Watching and reacting to the Tyler Oliveria viral video on Kiryas Joel

    Watching and reacting to the Tyler Oliveria viral video on Kiryas Joel
    Jan 16 2026
    Video version here: https://youtu.be/ZlWRN4jo-CA

    As someone who grew up in Kiryas Joel and left the fold, I have a lot to say on this Hasidic village. There's good and bad. There are issues, and yes there are valid criticisms on its relationship to the welfare system, although this doesn't take away from the facts: that this is a community where the vast majority of men are gainfully employed and work incredibly hard. The stereotypes of this community as "welfare queens" whose men study torah and don't work is so damaging and not true. @TylerOliveira 's recent video will so deeply reinforce these misconceptions. I've done a video where I went through the phone book and showed the extensive numbers of businesses Hasidim are into. It's so sad that his platform will create so much misrepresentation.

    This is my first take reaction to his video. Please forgive my early morning rants and rambles. I am watching it raw with you. I find it quite upsetting and ignorant. I hope my deep feelings that this community is complicated, imperfect, should be criticized but is also often misrepresented comes through. This is long - well Tyler's video is long.

    Please watch some of my other videos, especially my video on how Hasidim earn a living.
    https://youtu.be/UXXOGYqbK5o

    What it was like for me to grow up in Kiryas Joel
    https://youtu.be/uHu_17N9GdE

    My interview with Fradel Newman, lifetime resident of Kiryas Joel
    https://youtu.be/HoTzWaF7dU8

    Interview with civil rights lawyer Michael Sussman, who can really speak for some of the dark side
    https://youtu.be/jcz0xmkm10s

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    1 h y 38 m
  • 1977 Yiddish Girls' Reader / A quiant relic

    1977 Yiddish Girls' Reader / A quiant relic
    Jan 13 2026
    Video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/qUDGHnwTUPw

    Follow along with the pdf of the story here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JCIYkr489nAvNDZQapUJ9UzTdmeCpt-8/view?usp=sharing

    Let me read to you some Yiddish from 1977 and unpack the values and worldview of the Hasidic young girls through the moral lessons presented in this book. See how they were introduced to social values of obedience, kindness, respect to the elders, safety, trust in each other, modesty, and more.

    Please let me know what you think I missed.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support.
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    35 m
  • The original dissidents of Kiryas Joel | Michael Sussman

    The original dissidents of Kiryas Joel | Michael Sussman
    Jan 11 2026
    Video link to this interview: https://youtu.be/jcz0xmkm10s

    The Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel’s early days in the 1970s and 80s were anything but quiet. They were marked by infighting, lawsuits, dissidents, and a legal battle so consequential it’s still taught in American law schools today.

    In this interview, I speak with lawyer Michael Sussman, the man who came to represent some of Kiryas Joel’s most outspoken internal critics during its formative years. Though he was neither Hasidic nor Orthodox, Sussman became deeply entangled in the village’s internal struggles—so much so that, to many of us growing up there, his name became part of the folklore. There was even a dissident synagogue nicknamed the Sussman Shul.

    This conversation explores the early legal wars that shaped Kiryas Joel: battles over governance, power, dissent, and most famously, the creation of a public school for children with special needs. That case—Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet—went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and sits at the uneasy intersection of religious freedom and the separation of church and state.

    I also approach this story personally. Kiryas Joel is where I grew up and spent 25 formative years of my life. I married at 18, became a mother to my son Seth shortly after, and absorbed these conflicts as background noise to childhood—names, sides, “politics” that hovered at the edges of daily life. As an adult, I’ve returned to this history with new questions and a deeper curiosity about how insular religious subcultures navigate American law.
    This interview is part of a broader attempt to document the oral histories of Kiryas Joel’s early years. I have made repeated efforts to reach figures from the other side of these disputes to record their recollections as well, but so far without success. That invitation remains open.

    If you want to go deeper into this story, here are essential resources:
    Book — American Shtetl
    https://amzn.to/49Lmz5z

    Documentary — City of Joel
    https://amzn.to/4soIDKC

    Archival footage collected by dissident Joseph Waldman:
    https://www.youtube.com/@thekingofaron

    Website for Michael Sussman:
    https://www.sussman.law/

    This is a story about Kiryas Joel, but it’s also a story about America: about pluralism, law, dissent, and the price of making space for radically different ways of life under one constitutional roof.


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    1 h y 18 m
  • The oral histories of Bukharian Jews | Abe and Mazal

    The oral histories of Bukharian Jews | Abe and Mazal
    Jan 4 2026
    Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/koTlTNYXoxI

    This video is the extended sit-down conversation from my visit with the Bukharyan Jewish community in Forest Hills, Queens. In this segment, Abe Fuzaylov and his mother-in-law Mazal slow things down and tell their stories—about family, memory, food, and what it means to carry a Central Asian Jewish heritage into New York.

    Bukharyan Jews once lived for centuries in relative isolation in Central Asia. Today, very few remain there, but the culture is alive and evolving in new places. New York is one of them.
    In the broader visit, I toured the neighborhood with Abe from @BukharianBites, visited the restaurant Nadezhda in Queens, and cooked a Chanukah treat called Hushquiliq with Mazal. This video focuses on the conversation itself—the personal history behind the food.

    🔗 Follow Abe on Instagram: Bukharian Bites
    https://www.instagram.com/bukharianbites/
    🔗 Abe on Substack
    https://substack.com/@bukharianbites
    🔗 Abe on YouTube
    https://www.youtube.com/@UCtWCGTdaMOF2eDiSJOXZ7yA

    ➡️ The short vlog about my trip to Queens to explore this community:
    https://youtu.be/m2NT3r7rs20
    ➡️ My earlier video on Bukharyan Jewish tandoori bread baked in a clay oven:
    https://youtu.be/UH3PnRYYquM?si=wZmb88p-6u9WHcLb


    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support.
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    1 h y 7 m
  • My most candid conversation yet | On the Avrum Rosenzweig show

    My most candid conversation yet | On the Avrum Rosenzweig show
    Dec 24 2025
    Video version here:
    https://youtu.be/1j7yKcjT4K8

    Follow Avrum's wonderful podcast here:
    https://www.youtube.com/@avrumrosensweigshow

    Follow Frieda on Youtube here:
    https://www.youtube.com/friedavizelbrooklyn

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support.
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    1 h y 1 m
  • Laughing through cancer | Leah Forster

    Laughing through cancer | Leah Forster
    Dec 7 2025
    Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/bY7w9icDKgU

    Leah Forster is, as they say in the Hasidic community, “one in a million.” She’s funny, she sings, she’s creative, and she’s been on a spiritual journey for years. She’s an out lesbian woman from the Hasidic community who is now in no box, under no one’s label. She has one daughter. Over the last year, her daughter has been battling a terrible tumor.

    Leah agreed to sit down with me to talk about her experience. In true Leah fashion, the conversation didn’t go where I expected, and we had a long, winding talk about all sorts of things, including illness, suffering, and faith. But many other things as well. My takeaway was that it’s often hard to talk about difficult things while they are happening. I pray for Leah’s daughter’s complete recovery, as well as for my mother’s. My mother has been doing so much better, and I thank you all so much for the prayers. Please pray for Leah’s daughter’s continued recovery.

    Please check out more of Leah!
    She has a new book out: https://amzn.to/4pEJYuG
    Find her on Instagram (she’s back!): https://www.instagram.com/leahforster/
    My previous interview with Leah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQgG_Pzxazg&t
    My first interview with Leah: https://youtu.be/92nDFiyfVU8 I love talking to comedians, and

    I’ve interviewed quite a few others, including Danielle Jacobs, Riki Rose, Modi Rosenfeld, Antonia Lassar, and of course, Leah! Please check them out here: https://studio.youtube.com/playlist/PLhW2QoO54ycxK9b4GLY9oGn38tXRPT0vQ/videos

    Thanks so much to all of you for brightening and lightening dark days.

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support.
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    1 h y 22 m
  • Bonus, livestream: Why I posted and then pulled the video of the bride dancing

    Bonus, livestream: Why I posted and then pulled the video of the bride dancing
    Dec 7 2025
    video link: https://youtube.com/live/OjxrGU4Ajbc

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support.
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    39 m
  • Bonus, livestream: We Had Never Touched. Then Came Our Wedding Night. | Rachel Elitzur Opdoc discussion

    Bonus, livestream: We Had Never Touched. Then Came Our Wedding Night. | Rachel Elitzur Opdoc discussion
    Dec 6 2025
    Video link: https://youtube.com/live/8IEgx00P7OE

    A livestream about the NYT op doc about the Wedding Night for Orthodox Jewish couples. Watch the opdoc here:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/opinion/ultra-orthodox-jewish-wedding-night.html

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