The Frieda Vizel Podcast

Video version: https://youtu.be/MyGxlBywfAc

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Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/css7bPGITTE

This video is le’ilui nishmas (dedicated to the souls) of the dear people lost at Bondi Beach, and dedicated to their loving families in mourning. May the families find moments of light in these unbearably hard days. My heart is with them.

In this conversation, I speak with Sydney resident Rabbi Yosef Eichenblatt, who shares his oral history of the Chanukah 2025 attack in Sydney, an event his family lived through and one in which his daughter’s life was miraculously saved.

Rabbi Eichenblatt speaks not only about fear and shock, but about what came after. He recalls the night following the attack, sitting at home with his family, shaken and uncertain, and consciously turning toward faith rather than retreat. Drawing deeply on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, he describes an approach rooted in responsibility, hope, and the idea of being a messenger to spread light, especially after darkness.

This is a testimony shaped by loss and danger, but also by profound optimism, a belief that light is not passive and that faith asks something active of us, even in the most fragile moments.

Rabbi Yosef Eichenblatt on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/mindfulrabbi/

Video from the day of the attack:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSR06KeEg2i/

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Video version here: https://youtu.be/F9xzvdkMXMI

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.

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video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/RK7_--5f0Tc

What happens when intimacy is expected before it’s understood?

The Wedding Night is a striking and deeply intimate documentary by Orthodox filmmaker Rachel Elitzur. It explores a rarely discussed reality inside ultra-Orthodox Jewish life: couples who marry after only a handful of supervised dates, then face the expectation of consummating their marriage on the wedding night.

The film grows out of Elitzur’s own traumatic wedding-night experience, which led her to seek out others with similar stories. Many participants felt unable to appear on camera, so their voices are heard anonymously, paired with carefully staged reenactments performed by actors. A very unusual method of storytelling. In the shorter version published in the New York Times in December 2025, the actors were totally removed.

📰 Here is a shorter version of this story appeared in The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/opinion/ultra-orthodox-jewish-wedding-night.html
🎥 Here is the full extended documentary The Wedding Night can be watched here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lOnex1o5h8&t=5s
🎬 Instagram link to filmmaker: Rachel Elitzur
https://www.instagram.com/elitzurachel/

This film connects to broader conversations I’ve explored on this channel about sex, intimacy, silence, and expectation in Orthodox and Hasidic communities:

• How Hasidic teens learn about sex
https://youtu.be/Gk917OpgS_Q
• My own painful experience leaving an arranged marriage
https://youtu.be/GvLO9Vhid44
• An intimacy coach shares delicate, rarely voiced perspectives
https://youtu.be/AUdw8W71Gv8
• Pearl, a Hasidic woman, speaks about her own and her children’s matchmaker marriages
https://youtu.be/yQ_GgbC9RD4

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Video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/naUJMITJ5sY

The article is here: https://friedavizel.com/2014/06/06/a-church-in-kiryas-joel

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