Homesick for Lubavitch Films 100th Episode at Live Reception
The Homesick for Lubavitch podcast, hosted by Bentzi Avtzon, filmed its 100th episode at a candlelit reception and live Q&A attended by New York-area listeners.
by COLlive Editor · COLliveOn a warm and wet September night, a group of men gathered from the greater New York area to celebrate a project that up to this point had only existed online: the Homesick for Lubavitch podcast.
In an elegant candlelit reception hosted in the La Sala hall and designed by Goldie Avtzon, the guests snacked on crackers, exotic herrings and crudités—a modern spin on farbeisin—and shared l’chaims over scotch. Many of them were meeting each other for the first time, and although they had heard his voice for many hours, many were also meeting the podcast’s host for the first time.
For the first ninety-nine episodes, the podcast was recorded one-on-one in a private space, usually the subject’s own home. But three years after the first episode, the time had come for the podcast to record its one hundredth episode, this time as a live Q&A with an in-person audience.
Homesick for Lubavitch began as a passion project. In his work as a filmmaker, the podcast’s host, Bentzi Avtzon, met all kinds of Lubavitchers and heard them tell their story. “I would hear these fascinating accounts,” he shared during the HFL 100 live podcast, “and I always asked myself, ‘How is it that nobody else is hearing these stories?’ I realized the best way to share these stories was as a podcast.”
This began a podcast that remains one of a kind. Every episode is recorded in a home, where the host and subject sit on two opposite sides of a table. “I wanted it to feel like a conversation one would have at home,” Bentzi tells us, “less produced and more like listening in on a conversation as a fly on the wall.”
The podcast explores Lubavitch identity through the ideas and life experiences of Lubavitchers from different backgrounds and ages. As one of the audience members put it, “The podcast has shown me that there are literally one hundred ways to be a Lubavitcher.”
Taking advantage of his travels as a filmmaker, Bentzi has interviewed people across the country—from New York to New Orleans, Miami, Chicago, Houston, Cleveland, and San Francisco—and has even made a brief London tour across the Atlantic. At the event, he announced that an upcoming podcast tour to Australia is in the works.
For about an hour and a half, Shaul Wolf moderated a Q&A session featuring questions from online listeners and audience members. In many ways, the conversation centered on the journey the podcast had taken everyone on, both the audience and the host.
“People asked me how many episodes I could see being interesting on this topic,” Avtzon said. “I said two hundred will be easy. Well, we’re halfway there.”
He pauses.
“You can see from this event that what began as a podcast is becoming a community. We’re just getting started.”
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