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The Frieda Vizel Podcast

The Frieda Vizel Podcast

Di: Frieda Vizel
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Welcome to in-depth conversations on Hasidism, Judaism, NYC, culture, education, religion and more!

This podcast is hosted by popular Youtuber Frieda Vizel, who has been studying the Hasidic community for more than ten years.

This is the podcast version of the video conversations which are also published on Youtube. Please reach out with feedback.

Here's the youtube channel if you prefer to see the host and guests! :)

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support.Frieda Vizel Giudaismo Scienza Scienze sociali Spiritualità
Episodi
  • The National Desertion Bureau | Eddy Portnoy

    The National Desertion Bureau | Eddy Portnoy
    Jul 12 2026
    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 immigration from Eastern Europe to North America.

    For more on this below.

    Here are some links:
    -My previous interview with Eddy: https://youtu.be/tq8y3KkAWTk?si=-KdfW3UJBkiMdrh_
    -The Yivo Exhibit: https://www.yivo.org/National-Desertion-Bureau
    -📘 THE BOOK ON THIS: Wives without Husbands: Marriage, Desertion, and Welfare in New York, 1900–1935 by Anna R. Igra https://amzn.to/4tGvhbZ

    Popular stereotypes about Jewish husbands tend to be flattering: loyal, hardworking, stable, family-oriented. Which is exactly why so many people have never heard of this dark social crisis that unfolded inside immigrant Jewish communities during the early 20th century. Behind the romanticized image of the immigrant success story was another reality entirely: crushing poverty, overcrowded tenements, fractured families, emotional collapse, and men disappearing without a trace.

    The problem became so widespread that Yiddish newspapers like the legendary The Forward published daily columns called “The Gallery of Missing Husbands,” complete with mugshots and descriptions of men who vanished and left their families destitute. There were even Lower East Side psychics who specialized in helping women locate missing husbands.
    From 1905 through the 1960s, the National Desertion Bureau investigated more than 18,000 cases, working with courts, police departments, charities, and governments to track down deserters, force support payments, and sometimes even jail offenders. The surviving files read like tragic little novellas filled with betrayal, desperation, ruined finances, abandoned children, and impossible choices made during an era of massive upheaval.

    The archives at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research contain roughly 17,000 surviving case files from the Bureau, many of which formed the basis for the exhibition *Runaway Husbands, Desperate Families: The Story of the National Desertion Bureau*, curated by Eddy himself.
    In this episode, Eddy walks us through this extraordinary hidden chapter of Jewish history and helps unpack what these stories reveal about immigration, masculinity, poverty, shame, survival, and the fragile reality behind nostalgic immigrant mythology.

    Before we begin, I want to thank those of you who are channel members and help make this work possible. Members get early access to videos before they are released publicly. I deeply appreciate all of you, members, subscribers, commenters, and everyone who participates in these conversations and helps keep this channel alive.


    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support.
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    52 min
  • Jews and Poland; how we tell Polish Jewish history | Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

    Jews and Poland; how we tell Polish Jewish history | Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
    Jul 8 2026
    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.
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    15 min
  • At 83, this Jewish icon has a story to tell | Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

    At 83, this Jewish icon has a story to tell | Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
    Jul 5 2026
    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 the Polish Jewish story. For many years, her father shared memories of his life in Poland with his Canadian-born daughter. Later, during a period of depression, he began illustrating those memories in a remarkable series of paintings. Those paintings became the foundation for a book Barbara created, preserving both his experiences and a vanished world.

    Please check out part 2 where we talk about Barbara's work in Poland as the chief curator of the Polin musuem. https://youtu.be/KCS9vAundms

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