VLOG: from NYC to Poland, as a Jew

Video Description

Today I’m sharing a very personal journal entry from my first trip to Poland. As a Jew. These are thoughts I wrote while they were still raw, on the train from Kraków to Warsaw, trying to process what it meant to finally be in a place that loomed so large in my childhood imagination as the alte heim, the old home. In this video, I take you with me through Kraków, from the Old Town to Kazimierz, from beauty salons to synagogues turned restaurants, from tourist chachkes to quiet, unsettling questions about memory, belonging, and what it means to “return” to a place where Jewish life was once so present and then nearly erased. I’m in Poland as the guest of my friend Naomi Seidman, a Jewish scholar with deep Polish roots, here for the Jewish Culture Festival. She and the University of Toronto helped make this trip possible. Naomi has been many times; this is my first. Along the way, I wrestle with conflicting Jewish attitudes toward Poland, the idea of being “done” with a place, and the strange tension between caricature, reverence, and living memory. This is a travel journal, a meditation, and a record of how the present and past overlap, sometimes cleanly, sometimes painfully. A palimpsest. Edited by the wonderful Lee Kupac / @mayo.nap Love travel vlogs? Check out some of my other travel vlogs: • My trip to Germany https://youtu.be/jfi2jjfu5oE • My trip to Israel https://youtu.be/f6cnYL94PSY • My trip to the Catskills https://youtu.be/-JzYNs1HfLY • My trip to Queens, New York https://youtu.be/m2NT3r7rs20 And stay tuned. There might be a travel vlog coming from my first ever trip to Toronto, which I’m planning for March 2026. More of my work 🎥 My projects with Naomi Seidman (playlist): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhW2QoO54ycw8gnGDBcwrmpEDnNDuG0nd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/friedavizel/ 🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@friedavizel