The Frieda Vizel Podcast

A 26-year-old collector opens his personal library to reveal the dramatic, human stories hidden inside antique Jewish Talmuds.

In this video, Samuel Marks takes us through his personal collection of Talmuds from different eras, using each volume to tell a larger story about how the Talmud was printed, censored, altered, and preserved under extraordinary historical pressure. Samuel is a self-taught collector whose engagement with Jewish texts grew out of immersive learning in Hasidic spaces, particularly within the Satmar community in Williamsburg.

Raised in a secular Jewish family in Boston, Samuel later reconnected deeply with Jewish learning and history. He is currently a student at the University of Michigan Law School and is not a professional academic, historian, or dealer. His knowledge comes from close study of primary texts, printing history, and the material culture of postwar Hasidic life in America.

This Talmud tour explores not only rare editions, but the human, political, and emotional forces that shaped them. Among the stories discussed:

• How expensive and technically complex it once was to print the Talmud, including the challenges of typesetting its dense, layered layout
• How Jewish owners signed their Talmuds, turning them into personal historical documents
• The dramatic saga of Christian censorship, which led to missing passages, partially removed pages, and forced insertions of Christian propaganda
• Copyright disputes that shaped competing editions and caused the text to evolve differently across printings
• The forgery of the so-called lost Yerushalmi Talmuds
• The story of a young girl named Ella who helped typeset a Talmud and signed her name inside, noting that she was looking for a husband
• Talmuds printed in the Shanghai Ghetto during World War II
• Talmuds produced in displaced persons camps in Germany immediately after the war, often on discarded or reused paper
• Which tractates were printed most, when, and why, including postwar demand for laws dealing with loss of a spouse and the special status of Bechorot
• How printing errors entered the Talmud, were copied forward, and later identified and addressed
• Why Talmuds ended up so oversized

For more on Samuel’s background as a collector, watch our first interview:
https://youtu.be/qjtlgrLe92w

You can also find a related playlist where I read a 1977 Yiddish book that Samuel scanned for me:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhW2QoO54yczFq9JWHjYsS9xMpgmK7GiS

Thank you to the Youtube channel members for supporting this work and helping make these in-depth projects possible.

Find me here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/friedavizel/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/toursbyfrieda/
Website: friedavizel.com

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

Video link to this conversation: https://youtu.be/qjtlgrLe92w

Meet Samuel Marks, a young collector whose passion for rare Judaica brings overlooked corners of postwar Hasidic history vividly to life.

In this first interview, we get to know Samuel through the objects he studies, preserves, and loves. Raised in a secular Jewish family and now a law student, Samuel has built a remarkable collection of Judaica, with a particular focus on postwar Hasidic materials. His collection includes rare texts and objects related to the Satmar Rebbe - Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, postwar intra-Hasidic disputes, broadsides, early American Hasidic publications, prewar Talmuds, and clothing from before the war.

Because Samuel is currently a student and only has a limited portion of his collection with him, this conversation offers a taste rather than a full survey. Among the items he shares is an old Hasidic hat, which he uses to compare earlier styles with contemporary Hasidic fashion, showing how tradition both holds and shifts over time.

We also discuss a unique Yiddish book from 1977 that Samuel found inexpensively and later scanned in high resolution to preserve it for posterity. One striking page depicts a television labeled “not allowed,” a small but revealing snapshot of a moment before the internet, when communal anxieties centered on large, stationary media rather than the constant, portable screens of today.

Through these objects and stories, we come to understand Samuel’s eye as a collector, the joy he takes in rare finds, and the quiet urgency he feels to rescue fragile materials from being forgotten.

In the following segment, Samuel walks us through his favorite collection of antique Talmuds and explains which editions he deliberately refuses to collect. You can watch that discussion here:
https://youtu.be/jt_AwGwu-_4
Find me here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/friedavizel/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/toursbyfrieda/
Website: friedavizel.com

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

Video of this interview: 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.com/melissaweisz/ https://www.melissaweisz.com/about Here's a trailer to this interview: https://youtube.com/shorts/oiWlef1AHVk?feature=share

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.com/melissaweisz/ https://www.melissaweisz.com/about Here's a trailer to this interview: https://youtube.com/shorts/oiWlef1AHVk?feature=share

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

Video link to this interview: https://youtu.be/bk6Q2RIN_mE

"You're not shutting me up." - Jewish comedy icon Judy Gold, 2026

Judy Gold is a lot of things. She's an icon, she's a comic, a writer, a gay woman who was at the forefront of fighting for LGBT rights. But one of the things that is her foremost descriptor is: Jewish. She was never a comic who was also Jewish. But always a Jewish comic. Her comedy is deeply Jewish. 

Yet since October 7, this has made her work surprisingly difficult. She gets heckled on stage and has lost a lot of the allies she stood side by side with in the fight for marriage equality and her left-leaning politics (including a fierce dislike of Trump). She has continued to be foremost a Jewish comedian anyway. Her style is deeply Jewish, with lots of neurotic mom jokes, a role her own Jewish mother loved to play. "How did we do?" Mom would ask Judy after a show. It was a "we" for mom. 
It's all so Jewish.

In this engaging conversation, I talk to Judy about her values, work, life story, and more.

Check out Judy Gold's website here:
https://judygold.com/
Upcoming show dates here:
https://judygold.com/#timely 
Judy's book here:
https://amzn.to/462Ldwq
Judy on Instagram:
  / jewdygold  

Some parts of the discussion:
-Judy Gold emphasizes the significance of humor in Jewish culture as a means of survival.
Comedy serves as a tool for storytelling and coping with adversity.
-The landscape of comedy has changed, with audiences becoming more sensitive to certain topics.
-Judy's identity as a Jewish comedian is central to her work and personal life.
-She believes in the importance of being unabashedly Jewish in her comedy.
-The challenges of being a Jewish comedian have intensified in recent times.
-Family dynamics play a crucial role in shaping a comedian's material and perspective.
-Judy's early experiences in comedy were influenced by iconic Jewish female comedians.
-Representation in comedy is vital for both the performer and the audience.
-Judy advocates for open dialogue and understanding in the face of political and social issues.

Sound Bites
"I am a proud Jew."
"You're not shutting me up."
"It's important to talk about it."
Follow me on socials
Instagram:   / friedavizel  
Website: friedavizel.com

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

Link to video version of this episode:

In this episode, I’m joined by historian Glenn Dynner, who was my professor years ago and played a pivotal role in getting me started as a tour guide. Our conversation focuses on Polish Jewish history, Hasidism, and how Jewish life in Poland developed under pressure, change, and violence.

Before we begin, here are Glenn’s books, which come up throughout the interview:
The Light of Learning: Hasidism in Poland on the Eve of the Holocaust / https://amzn.to/3LNJYdu
Yankel's Tavern: Jews, Liquor, and Life in the Kingdom of Poland /https://amzn.to/4qogrpM
Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society / https://amzn.to/3ZdZJ0j
We talk about Polish Jewish society as a lived world rather than a static prelude to the Holocaust. Topics include the development of Hasidism, the social and economic role of tavernkeeping, responses to antisemitism, and how violence shaped religious and cultural life. We also discuss women in Hasidic communities, underground Torah study during the Holocaust, and the networks that helped preserve religious leadership and scholarship.

The conversation also touches on Glenn’s research trajectory, how historians approach Polish Jewish history, and why earlier frameworks sometimes fall short when trying to understand how these communities functioned over time.

As with all of my interviews, an audio-only version of this conversation is available on the podcast platform of your choosing.

Thanks for watching and listening.

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