Frieda Vizel (born 1984) is an American YouTuber, blogger and tour guide. Vizel offers tours of

Williamsburg Williamsburg may refer to: Places *Colonial Williamsburg, a living-history museum and private foundation in Virginia *Williamsburg, Brooklyn, neighborhood in New York City *Williamsburg, former name of Kernville (former town), California *Williams ...

, a

Hasidic Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those aff ...

neighborhood in the New York City borough of

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. Similarly, her YouTube focuses on informational videos about Hasidic life and customs.

Early life

Vizel's paternal grandfather became

Satmar Satmar (; ) is a group in Hasidic Judaism founded in 1905 by Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum (1887–1979), in the city of Szatmárnémeti (also called Szatmár in the 1890s), Kingdom of Hungary, Hungary (now Satu Mare in Romania). The group is a b ...

following

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

, and her father grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her parents moved to upstate New York shortly before she was born. She is of

Hungarian-Jewish The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived i ...

descent. Freidy Vizel was raised in Kiryas Joel, a

Jewish community in New York. She was the fifth of 15 children in her family. She spoke

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

as her first language, and began learning English in first grade. Vizel struggled from a young age to fit in in the community, noting in 2022 that "the female space was very suffocating" to her. After completing 11th grade, and therefore school in Kiryas Joel, Vizel got a job with an insurance agency. She became engaged at age 18, after meeting her fiancée once a few hours beforehand; the two married seven months later. She had her son when she was 20. As a young mother, Vizel began to buck against the community expectation of shaving her head after marriage, feeling it infringed on her personal autonomy and that it did not have a basis in scripture. She began to question other aspects of community life and custom following continued pressure from the community. She and her husband began watching films from outside the community, but he was unwilling to bend community rules farther, and refused when she asked him to move to Monsey, a less restrictive Satmar community. When she was 25, she left the community with her son. In 2010, she divorced her husband, retaining custody of her son. The two moved to Monsey, later choosing to move to Brooklyn. Vizel has maintained relationships with her family.

Career

In 2006, Vizel began writing a blog about Hasidic life under a pseudonym. After leaving Kiryas Joel, Vizel obtained an undergraduate degree online. In 2011, Vizel became a student at

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York, United States. Founded as a Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in 1926, Sarah Lawrence College has been coeducational ...

in their women's history master's degree program. Vizel has offered tours of Williamsburg professionally since 2013, and began giving tours full time in 2017. As of 2022, she was the only professionally licensed tour guide focusing on Williamsburg's Hasidic community. Her tours focus on "the Hasidic lifestyle and the reasons behind the community’s insular nature", and she purposefully tries to avoid critique or judgment of Hasidic culture. She begins her tours with a discussion of Hassidism's roots in Eastern Europe and the impact of the Holocaust on the community. Her tours also include visits to Hasidic-owned stores and

delis A delicatessen or deli is a grocery that sells a selection of fine, exotic, or foreign prepared foods. Delicatessens originated in Germany (contemporary spelling: ) during the 18th century and spread to the United States in the mid-19th centur ...

. In 2022, Vizel was interviewed in the first episode of the

Shalom Hartman Institute Shalom Hartman Institute is a Jewish research and education institute based in Jerusalem, that offers pluralistic Jewish thought and education to scholars, rabbis, educators, and Jewish community leaders in Israel and North America. The institu ...

's podcast ''Heretic in the House''. Vizel's YouTube channel offers explanations of Hasidic life and custom. She also films tours of Hasidic homes and interviews with Hasidim. Vizel has criticized media portrayals of Hasidic Jews, such as Netflix series ''

Unorthodox Unorthodox may refer to: Music * Unorthodox (band), an American doom metal band * ''Unorthodox'' (Edge of Sanity album), 1992 * ''Unorthodox'' (Snow Tha Product album), 2011 * "Unorthodox" (Joey Badass song), 2013 * "Unorthodox" (Wretch 32 so ...

'', arguing they are sensationalist and ignore the complexities of Hasidic communities.

Personal life

In 2017, Vizel moved to

Flatbush Flatbush is a neighborhood in the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood consists of several subsections in central Brooklyn and is generally bounded by Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Prospect Park to the nort ...

, Brooklyn with her son. After leaving Kiryas Joel, Vizel joined another Orthodox community, but has since left Orthodox Judaism altogether. She also anglicized her birth name, Freidy, to Frieda. She has described the extent of her religious practices as doing "a little bit of

shabbos Shabbat (, , or ; , , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Friday–Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical stories describing the cre ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vizel, Frieda Living people 1984 births 21st-century American educators 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women educators 21st-century American women writers 21st-century people from New York (state) American bloggers American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent American secular Jews American women bloggers Educational and science YouTubers Educators from Brooklyn Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish bloggers Jewish educators Jewish women writers Jewish YouTubers Kiryas Joel, New York People from Orange County, New York People from Flatbush, Brooklyn Tour guides of New York City Writers from Brooklyn YouTubers from Brooklyn Former Hasidim