Podcasts about Arab Muslims

Devin: What do you think of as your superpower?Avi: I can't stop. There's no way.When I visited the Beit Dror LGBTQ youth shelter in Tel Aviv last month, it took me a while to appreciate that the most significant risk the kids faced was not emotional stress but actual threats to their lives. In some Arab-Israeli communities, honor killings are still an issue.During our visit, Avi Soffer, the operations manager of the shelter who officially has been given a title that translates literally as “mother of the house,” shared stories I knew I couldn't tell without his help. I invited him to record an episode of the show, which we did shortly after my return. I'm excited to share that with you.AI SummaryLike most people who produce content for a living, I'm experimenting with AI tools. I used one to generate this summary of the interview:Avi Soffer is the operations manager at Beit Dror, the only shelter in Israel that deals with minors ages 14 to 18 who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. Beit Dror's population has changed over the years, with more trans people seeking shelter. There is also a range of ethnic and religious backgrounds, including ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredi), and Arab youth. The youth at the shelter face the threat of honor killing or being disowned by their families, with some incidents of family members attacking the youth. The shelter has a family therapy program that helps bring family members back together, with over 35% of youth returning to their homes. Avi talks about the struggles that marginalized youth face when coming out to their families, and the violence or shunning they may experience. The center provides counseling and life skills training, such as taking care of their bodies and asking for help. One of the biggest challenges is getting parents to accept their LGBTQ children, but Avi is hopeful that attitudes can change. He emphasizes the importance of taking small steps, not seeking external validation and being creative in finding solutions to problems. Anyone interested in his work can reach out to him directly.Saving Lives at Beit Dror“Beit Dror: The meaning of the name is a house of freedom or home of freedom,” says Avi. “It's an LGBTQ youth shelter, the only one in the country for minors.”Avi has been an activist in the gay community since he came out. “I was married. I had two children married to a woman. And I came out at the late 80s.”He notes that there have been remarkable changes in the population served at the shelter over its twenty-year life. Initially, the kids identified as gay and came as they approached 18 years old. Today, most of those served in the shelter are trans and arrive much younger, some not yet 13 years old.The youth most often come from communities outside the large, secular Jewish population. They come from the Haredi ultra-orthodox Jewish, Arab Muslim, Arab Christian, Palestinian and Bedouin communities. In these more religious communities, the disconnect between a family and a trans youth may be too significant for the child to overcome without outside help.Avi shared the story of an extreme example. “We had a kid from a village in the north. She came out as a trans. She was 15.”“One Friday, her brothers came,” he says. “They planned it because they had to drive 2.5 hours. They waited outside, and they stabbed her.”“They stabbed her badly. She was saved by one minute, Avi says.” It's a miracle.”Avi and the team also hope to do the best for the child. Often, this is to help facilitate a safe and happy return to the family, working with social workers. More than 35 percent of the time, this works.“The thing is,” Avi says, “to show them that we are not the devils they think we are.”Over the years, Avi has learned to celebrate small victories. “You have to believe in the small changes that you make. What happens is that sometimes they come back after two years, five years, ten years, and they say, ‘Wow! It saved my life!'”Avi has had a few birthdays. I didn't pin him down, but he's been at this for a while. He just can't quit. That, he says, is his superpower.How to Develop an ‘I Can't Quit' Attitude As a SuperpowerTo help us understand his superpower, Avi shared his story:At first, I was not an activist. I was a so-called straight person. I had a nice career. I'm a designer by profession. I was a jewelry designer. I had an amazing career. I had a wife I met at 14; at 20, we got married. We have two wonderful children. Everything was fine. I didn't even know what—the first time I heard the word gay, I was a father. Back then, there was no word. There was no word. I went to all the therapies. I even went into conversion therapy without even knowing. I didn't know that at that time. Because somebody said, “That's not a problem; we can do this and this and this and we'll solve it. Okay, fine.”It was the 80s; it was so backward. There was no television here. There was no—I didn't—I can't even find the words, as you see, to describe it. Because how would you make a thought without words? I didn't have the words. Then I went to hell. It took me eight years. Then I decided. Okay, I can't leave like this. It's impossible. It took me years to say, “Okay, that's what it is. You're gay. It's simply this. You're homosexual, and that's it.”I was with my wife. We had an amazing relationship. We loved each other. We still do. It has nothing to do with it. But it was very difficult, first, to explain it to myself and then to explain it to the world—that it's even possible with two children back then.A rabbi turned me into an activist. Divorce court. Rabbinates Chief Justice, this stranger. You're ready to laugh your head off. Okay. I went through a horrible divorce. Horrible. Horrible. A lot of things that happened then that cannot happen today. In one of the stages, we reach the discussion of custody. Because I'm a married kind, five months after we separated, I already had a boyfriend. We lived together for 15 Years. And we are business partners, and we are like brothers ever since.So we. There was a court regarding, “Okay, he's a homo. What about the kids?” In Israel, it's religious weddings, marriages. I was charged in rabbinic court. Then there was the recess. The chief justice, a rabbi with a beard down to the floor, leaned to the other and says, in Yiddish. (I am from a Sephardic family.) He leans to the other and says, “Well, if he's this, then he can't see the kids at all. What is the question?”Only he didn't count on the fact that I will be the only person that heard it and the only one who understood Yiddish.I went out from court, and I said, “I don't care about anything. Nobody is going to disconnect me from my children.” I became an activist within a week. I had no idea about it. I said, “No, no, no. They're going through it. They will succeed.” Then I went to the only organization that was in the country. A few months later, I was on the board. A few, two years, later, I was a chairperson. It's in my blood. I can't see myself without it. I always feel I'm always on the front. I'll always take the worst cases because I feel somebody needs to do it. I cannot sit at home. It's not possible. If there's one kid. I'll be there.This intensely personal story explains how Avi became an activist who can't quit. Most of us won't go through an experience that will light a similar unquenchable fire, so I asked him for some coaching tips for developing a can't-quit attitude.He offered three suggestions:First, he reinforced the message he shared earlier about the importance of celebrating small wins. Big progress takes time, but the work happens every day. You've got to see and celebrate the little things.Second, he notes that those little wins may sometimes be big. A young person who spends a week in the shelter and then disappears may return in 20 years, saying, “You saved my life.”Finally, he says, you need to develop resilience to opposition. He explained in this vivid metaphor:Let's say, somebody in the community wants to put a knife in my back. I deal also with politics. It can happen. It's very problematic. My back is full of knives. There's no room to put another one. You have to take one out. And that's it. If you sit and wait for everybody to love you and appreciate what you do, you're bound to fail. It's not going to happen.By following Avi's example and coaching, you can make a can't-quit attitude a superpower enabling you to do more good in the world. Get full access to Superpowers for Good at devinthorpe.substack.com/subscribe

Upon the French invasion of Algeria in 1830, the territory quickly became a placeholder for French dreams, debates, and experiments in social engineering, economic development and even religious culture. Missionaries and Jesuit priests sent to minister to the new French colonial population there commented favorably on Arab Muslims' religiosity, seeing in it both the possibility of effective missionization and an example of how religion and civil society might work together. After decades of failed missionary efforts, violent conquest and conflict, and influential international events, liberal Catholics in Algeria like the Bishop Charles Lavigerie—founder of the White Fathers—had abandoned active evangelization and instead embraced a visceral and violent rejection of racialized Islam as the antithesis of French civilization. These transitionary decades serve as the backdrop to Joseph W. Peterson's wide-ranging and deeply human book, Sacred Rivals: Catholic Missions and the Making of Islam in Nineteenth-century France and Algeria (Oxford UP, 2022). In it, he tells that stories of French Catholic missionaries and the Algerian men and women with whom they interacted, exploring the gray areas between faith and politics, between colonial ideology and colonized experience. Peterson balances micro-historical approaches with an awareness of global events to tell a new story about the role of religion in the development of the French civilizing mission, colonial ethnography and racial pseudo-science, as well as in the construction of regimes of legal difference. Sacred Rivals is deeply readable book and will be of interest to scholars of French Algeria, colonialism, and all those interested in the long and complex history of Christianity and Islam. Sarah K. Miles is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill who specializes in global francophone history and the history of the French Left. If you have a recent title to suggest for the podcast, please send her an email (skmiles@live.unc.edu). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Upon the French invasion of Algeria in 1830, the territory quickly became a placeholder for French dreams, debates, and experiments in social engineering, economic development and even religious culture. Missionaries and Jesuit priests sent to minister to the new French colonial population there commented favorably on Arab Muslims' religiosity, seeing in it both the possibility of effective missionization and an example of how religion and civil society might work together. After decades of failed missionary efforts, violent conquest and conflict, and influential international events, liberal Catholics in Algeria like the Bishop Charles Lavigerie—founder of the White Fathers—had abandoned active evangelization and instead embraced a visceral and violent rejection of racialized Islam as the antithesis of French civilization. These transitionary decades serve as the backdrop to Joseph W. Peterson's wide-ranging and deeply human book, Sacred Rivals: Catholic Missions and the Making of Islam in Nineteenth-century France and Algeria (Oxford UP, 2022). In it, he tells that stories of French Catholic missionaries and the Algerian men and women with whom they interacted, exploring the gray areas between faith and politics, between colonial ideology and colonized experience. Peterson balances micro-historical approaches with an awareness of global events to tell a new story about the role of religion in the development of the French civilizing mission, colonial ethnography and racial pseudo-science, as well as in the construction of regimes of legal difference. Sacred Rivals is deeply readable book and will be of interest to scholars of French Algeria, colonialism, and all those interested in the long and complex history of Christianity and Islam. Sarah K. Miles is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill who specializes in global francophone history and the history of the French Left. If you have a recent title to suggest for the podcast, please send her an email (skmiles@live.unc.edu). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Upon the French invasion of Algeria in 1830, the territory quickly became a placeholder for French dreams, debates, and experiments in social engineering, economic development and even religious culture. Missionaries and Jesuit priests sent to minister to the new French colonial population there commented favorably on Arab Muslims' religiosity, seeing in it both the possibility of effective missionization and an example of how religion and civil society might work together. After decades of failed missionary efforts, violent conquest and conflict, and influential international events, liberal Catholics in Algeria like the Bishop Charles Lavigerie—founder of the White Fathers—had abandoned active evangelization and instead embraced a visceral and violent rejection of racialized Islam as the antithesis of French civilization. These transitionary decades serve as the backdrop to Joseph W. Peterson's wide-ranging and deeply human book, Sacred Rivals: Catholic Missions and the Making of Islam in Nineteenth-century France and Algeria (Oxford UP, 2022). In it, he tells that stories of French Catholic missionaries and the Algerian men and women with whom they interacted, exploring the gray areas between faith and politics, between colonial ideology and colonized experience. Peterson balances micro-historical approaches with an awareness of global events to tell a new story about the role of religion in the development of the French civilizing mission, colonial ethnography and racial pseudo-science, as well as in the construction of regimes of legal difference. Sacred Rivals is deeply readable book and will be of interest to scholars of French Algeria, colonialism, and all those interested in the long and complex history of Christianity and Islam. Sarah K. Miles is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill who specializes in global francophone history and the history of the French Left. If you have a recent title to suggest for the podcast, please send her an email (skmiles@live.unc.edu). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Upon the French invasion of Algeria in 1830, the territory quickly became a placeholder for French dreams, debates, and experiments in social engineering, economic development and even religious culture. Missionaries and Jesuit priests sent to minister to the new French colonial population there commented favorably on Arab Muslims' religiosity, seeing in it both the possibility of effective missionization and an example of how religion and civil society might work together. After decades of failed missionary efforts, violent conquest and conflict, and influential international events, liberal Catholics in Algeria like the Bishop Charles Lavigerie—founder of the White Fathers—had abandoned active evangelization and instead embraced a visceral and violent rejection of racialized Islam as the antithesis of French civilization. These transitionary decades serve as the backdrop to Joseph W. Peterson's wide-ranging and deeply human book, Sacred Rivals: Catholic Missions and the Making of Islam in Nineteenth-century France and Algeria (Oxford UP, 2022). In it, he tells that stories of French Catholic missionaries and the Algerian men and women with whom they interacted, exploring the gray areas between faith and politics, between colonial ideology and colonized experience. Peterson balances micro-historical approaches with an awareness of global events to tell a new story about the role of religion in the development of the French civilizing mission, colonial ethnography and racial pseudo-science, as well as in the construction of regimes of legal difference. Sacred Rivals is deeply readable book and will be of interest to scholars of French Algeria, colonialism, and all those interested in the long and complex history of Christianity and Islam. Sarah K. Miles is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill who specializes in global francophone history and the history of the French Left. If you have a recent title to suggest for the podcast, please send her an email (skmiles@live.unc.edu). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

This is not just absurd, this is outrageous. The world funds literal genocide eduation, Arab Muslim children are taught to hate and kill Jews, just last week a 13 year old and a 14 year committed terror attacks killing and injuring innocent Jews, and yet the world goes crazy bashing Israel because the Israeli goverenment approved Jewish building of homes in Judea & Samaria? Examples of recent exposure of the Palestinain Authority receiving international funds to educate evil: https://unwatch.org/exposed-un-teachers-call-to-murder-jews/ https://icjw.org/about-icjw/international-representation/unrwa-stop-teaching-hate/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/unrwa-textbooks-still-include-hate-antisemitism-despite-pledge-to-remove-watchdog/ Resources on the Palestinian Authority Textbook Project https://www.cfnepr.com/205640/congress-discussion

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

“I am not a heart surgeon, but mending broken hearts is my true calling.” Dr. Omar Reda is a global trauma expert, author, and public speaker. This week he joins us on the Shadows Podcast to take us through his journey of pain and joy, suffering and hope. In this episode, Dr. Reda discusses the tribulations of his adolescent years in Libya. At an early age, his family suffered unimaginable losses, ultimately leading him to become a doctor. What was it like moving to the United States and facing discrimination and profiling as a young Arab Muslim man five months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001? Dr. Reda endured tremendous trials and tribulations throughout his life, but he explains how he's maintained such a positive mindset to this day. Listen to this episode: www.linktr.ee/ShadowsPodcast www.theshadowspodcast.com Watch on The Shadows Podcast YouTube Channel - @TheShadowsPodcast) Daughter Father Bonding Project YouTube Channel - @daughterfatherbondingproje3481 For all information on the amazing work Dr. Omar Reda is doing, head over to https://www.dromarreda.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/shadows-podcast/support

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Too few people know that parts of the Arab world and Iran were once home to large Jewish communities. This Mizrahi Heritage Month, let's change the story, with the final episode of the first season of The Forgotten Exodus, the first-ever narrative podcast series devoted exclusively to the rich, fascinating, and often-overlooked history of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewry. Thank you for lifting up these stories to celebrate Mizrahi Heritage Month. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to listen to the rest of The Forgotten Exodus, wherever you get your podcasts.   __ Home to one of the world's oldest Jewish communities, the story of Jews in Iran has been one of prosperity and suffering through the millennia. During the mid-20th century, when Jews were being driven from their homes in Arab lands, Iran assisted Jewish refugees in providing safe passage to Israel. Under the Shah, Israel was an important economic and political ally. Yet that all swiftly changed in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which ushered in Islamic rule, while chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” rang out from the streets of Tehran.   Author, journalist, and poet Roya Hakakian shares her personal story of growing up Jewish in Iran during the reign of the Shah and then Ayatollah Khomeini, which she wrote about in her memoir Journey From the Land of No. Joining Hakakian is Dr. Saba Soomekh, a professor of world religions and Middle Eastern history who wrote From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women between Religion and Culture. She also serves as associate director of AJC Los Angeles, home to America's largest concentration of Persian Jewish immigrants.  In this sixth and final episode of the season, the Hakakian family's saga captures the common thread that has run throughout this series – when the history of an uprooted community is left untold, it can become vulnerable to others' narratives and assumptions, or become lost forever and forgotten. How do you leave behind a beloved homeland, safeguard its Jewish legacy, and figure out where you belong? __ Show notes: Listen to The Forgotten Exodus and sign up to receive updates about future episodes.  Song credits:  Chag Purim · The Jewish Guitar Project Hevenu Shalom · Violin Heart Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Oud Nation”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Haygaz Yossoulkanian (BMI), IPI#1001905418 “Persian”: Publisher: STUDEO88; Composer: Siddhartha Sharma “Meditative Middle Eastern Flute”: Publisher: N/; Composer: DANIELYAN ASHOT MAKICHEVICH (IPI NAME #00855552512), UNITED STATES BMI Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989. “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Persian Investigative Mystery”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Peter Cole (BMI), IPI#679735384 “Persian Wind”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Sigma (SESAC); Composer: Abbas Premjee (SESAC), IPI#572363837 “Modern Middle Eastern Underscore”: Publisher: All Pro Audio LLC (611803484); Composer: Alan T Fagan (347654928) “Persian Fantasy Tavern”: Publisher: N/A; Composer: John Hoge “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. ___ Episode Transcript: ROYA HAKAKIAN: In 1984, when my mother and I left and my father was left alone in Iran, that was yet another major dramatic and traumatic separation. When I look back at the events of 1979, I think, people constantly think about the revolution having, in some ways, blown up Tehran, but it also blew up families. And my own family was among them.  MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. This series, brought to you by American Jewish Committee, explores that pivotal moment in Jewish history and the rich Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations as some begin to build relations with Israel. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience. This is The Forgotten Exodus.  Today's episode: Leaving Iran MANYA: Outside Israel, Iran has the largest Jewish population in the Middle East. Yes, the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2022. Though there is no official census, experts estimate about 10,000 Jews now live in the region previously known as Persia.  But since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Jews in Iran don't advertise their Jewish identity. They adhere to Iran's morality code: women stay veiled from head to toe and men and women who aren't married or related stay apart in public. They don't express support for Israel, they don't ask questions, and they don't disagree with the regime. One might ask, with all these don'ts, is this a way of living a Jewish life? Or a way to live – period?  For author, journalist, and poet Roya Hakakian and her family, the answer was ultimately no. Roya has devoted her life to being a fact-finder and truth-teller. A former associate producer at the CBS news show 60 Minutes and a Guggenheim Fellow, Roya has written two volumes of poetry in Persian and three books of nonfiction in English, the first of which was published in 2004 – Journey From the Land of No, a memoir about her charmed childhood and accursed adolescence growing up Jewish in Iran under two different regimes.  ROYA: It was hugely important for me to create an account that could be relied on as a historic document. And I did my best through being very, very careful about gathering, interviewing, talking to, observing facts, evidence, documents from everyone, including my most immediate members of my family, to do what we, both as reporters, but also as Jews, are called to do, which is to bear witness. No seemed to be the backdrop of life for women, especially of religious minorities, and, in my own case, Jewish background, and so I thought, what better way to name the book than to call it as what my experience had been, which was the constant nos that I heard. So, Land of No was Iran. MANYA: As a journalist, as a Jew, as a daughter of Iran, Roya will not accept no for an answer. After publishing her memoir, she went on to write Assassins of the Turquoise Palace, a meticulously reported book about a widely underreported incident. In 1992 at a Berlin restaurant, a terrorist attack by the Iranian proxy Hezbollah targeted and killed four Iranian-Kurdish exiles. The book highlighted Iran's enormous global footprint made possible by its terror proxies who don't let international borders get in the way of silencing Iran's critics.   Roya also co-founded the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, an independent non-profit that reports on Iran's human rights abuses.  Her work has not prompted Ayatollah Khameini to publicly issue a fatwa against her  – like the murder order against Salman Rushdie issued by his predecessor. But in 2019, one of her teenage sons answered a knock at the door. It was the FBI, warning her that she was in the crosshairs of the Iranian regime's operatives in America. Most recently, Roya wrote A Beginner's Guide to America: For the Immigrant and the Curious about the emotional roller coaster of arriving in America while still missing a beloved homeland, especially one where their community has endured for thousands of years. ROYA: I felt very strongly that one stays in one's homeland, that you don't just simply take off when things go wrong, that you stick around and try to figure a way through a bad situation. We came to the point where staying didn't seem like it would lead to any sort of real life and leaving was the only option. MANYA: The story of Jews in Iran, often referred to as Persia until 1935, is a millennia-long tale. A saga of suffering, repression, and persecution, peppered with brief moments of relief or at least relative peace – as long as everyone plays by the rules of the regime. SABA SOOMEKH: The history of Jews in Iran goes back to around 2,700 years ago. And a lot of people assume that Jews came to Iran, well at that time, it was called the Persian Empire, in 586 BCE, with the Babylonian exile. But Jews actually came a lot earlier, we're thinking 721-722 BCE with the Assyrian exile which makes us one of the oldest Jewish communities.  MANYA: That's Dr. Saba Soomekh, a professor of world religions and Middle Eastern history and the author of From the Shahs to Los Angeles: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women between Religion and Culture. She also serves as associate director of American Jewish Committee in Los Angeles, home to America's largest concentration of Persian Jewish immigrants. Saba's parents fled Iran in 1978, shortly before the revolution, when Saba and her sister were toddlers. She has devoted her career to preserving Iranian Jewish history.   Saba said Zoroastrian rulers until the 7th Century Common Era vacillated between tolerance and persecution of Jews. For example, according to the biblical account in the Book of Ezra, Cyrus the Great freed the Jews from Babylonian rule, granted all of them citizenship, and permitted them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their Temple.  The Book of Esther goes on to tell the story of another Persian king, believed to be Xerxes I, whose closest adviser called Haman conspires to murder all the Jews – a plot that is foiled by his wife Queen Esther who is Jewish herself. Esther heroically pleads for mercy on behalf of her people – a valor that is celebrated on the Jewish holiday of Purim.  But by the time of the Islamic conquest in the middle of the 7th Century Common Era, the persecution had become so intense that Jews were hopeful about the new Arab Muslim regime, even if that meant being tolerated and treated as second-class citizens, or dhimmi status. But that status had a different interpretation for the Safavids. SABA: Really things didn't get bad for the Jews of the Persian Empire until the 16th century with the Safavid dynasty, because within Shia Islam in the Persian Empire, what they brought with them is this understanding of purity and impurity. And Jews were placed in the same category as dogs, pigs, and feces. They were seen as being religiously impure, what's referred to as najes. MANYA: Jews were placed in ghettos called mahaleh, where they wore yellow stars and special shoes to distinguish them from the rest of the population. They could not leave the mahaleh when it rained for fear that if water rolled off their bodies into the water system, it would render a Shia Muslim impure. For the same reason, they could not go to the bazaars for fear they might contaminate the food. They could not look Muslims in the eye. They were relegated to certain artisanal professions such as silversmithing and block printing – crafts that dirtied one's hands.  MANYA: By the 19th century, some European Jews did make their way to Persia to help. The Alliance Israélite Universelle, a Paris-based network of schools founded by French Jewish intellectuals, opened schools for Jewish children throughout the Middle East and North Africa, including within the mahalehs in Persia.  SABA: They saw themselves as being incredibly sophisticated because they were getting this, in a sense, secular European education, they were speaking French. The idea behind the Allianz schools was exactly that. These poor Middle Eastern Jews, one day the world is going to open up to them, their countries are going to become secular, and we need to prepare them for this, not only within the context of hygiene, but education, language.  And the Allianz schools were right when it came to the Persian Empire because who came into power was Reza Pahlavi, who was a Francophile. And he turned around and said, ‘Wow! Look at the population that speaks French, that knows European philosophy, etc. are the Jews.' He brought them out of the mahaleh, the Jewish ghettos, and said ‘I don't care about religion. Assimilate and acculturate. As long as you show, in a sense, devotion, and nationalism to the Pahlavi regime, which the Jews did—not all Jews—but a majority of them did. MANYA: Reza Pahlavi took control in 1925 and 16 years later, abdicated his throne to his son Muhammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1935, Persia adopted a new name: Iran. As king or the Shah, both father and son set Iran on a course of secularization and rapid modernization under which Jewish life and success seemed to flourish. The only condition was that religious observance was kept behind closed doors. SABA: The idea was that in public, you were secular and in private, you were a Jew. You had Shabbat, you only married a Jew, it was considered blasphemous if you married outside of the Jewish community. And it was happening because people were becoming a part of everyday schools, universities.  But that's why the Jewish day schools became so important. They weren't learning Judaism. What it did was ensure that in a secular Muslim society, that the Jewish kids were marrying within each other and within the community. It was, in a sense, the Golden Age. And that will explain to you why, unlike the early 1950s, where you had this exodus of Mizrahi Jews, Arab Jews from the Arab world and North Africa, you didn't really have that in Iran.  MANYA: In fact, Iran provided a safe passage to Israel for Jewish refugees during that exodus, specifically those fleeing Iraq. The Pahlavi regime considered Israel a critical ally in the face of pan-Arab fervor and hostility in the region. Because of the Arab economic boycott, Israel needed energy sources and Iran needed customers for its oil exports.  A number of Israelis even moved to Tehran, including farmers from kibbutzim who had come to teach agriculture, and doctors and nurses from Hadassah Hospital who had come to teach medicine.  El Al flew in and out of Tehran airport, albeit from a separate terminal. Taking advantage of these warm relations between the two countries, Roya recalls visiting aunts, uncles, and cousins in Israel.  ROYA: We arrived, and my mom and dad did what all visiting Jews from elsewhere do. They dropped to their knees, and they started kissing the ground. I did the same, and it was so moving. Israel was the promised land, we thought about Israel, we dreamed about Israel. But, at the same time, we were Iranians and, and we were living in Iran, and things were good.  This seems to non-Iranian Jews an impossibility. But I think for most of us, it was the way things were. We lived in the country where we had lived for, God knows how many years, and there was this other place that we somehow, in the back of our minds thought we would be going to, without knowing exactly when, but that it would be the destination. MANYA: Relations between the Shah and America flourished as well. In 1951, a hugely popular politician by the name of Mohammad Mosaddegh became prime minister and tried to institute reforms. His attempts to nationalize the oil industry and reduce the monarchy's authority didn't go over well. American and British intelligence backed a coup that restored the Shah's power. Many Iranians resented America's meddling, which became a rallying cry for the revolution. U.S. officials have since expressed regret for the CIA's involvement.  In November 1977, President Jimmy Carter welcomed the Shah and his wife to Washington, D.C., to discuss peace between Egypt and Israel, nuclear nonproliferation, and the energy crisis.  As an extension of these warm relations, the Shah sent many young Iranians to America to enhance their university studies, exposing them to Western ideals and values.  Meanwhile, a savvy fundamentalist cleric was biding his time in a Paris basement. It wouldn't be long before relations crumbled between Iran and Israel, Iran and the U.S,. and Iran and its Jews.  Roya recalls the Hakakian house at the corner of Alley of the Distinguished in Tehran as a lush oasis surrounded by fragrant flowers, full of her father's poetry, and brimming with family memories. Located in the heart of a trendy neighborhood, across the street from the Shah's charity organization, the tall juniper trees, fragrant honeysuckle, and gold mezuzah mounted on the door frame set it apart from the rest of the homes.  Roya's father, Haghnazar, was a poet and a respected headmaster at a Hebrew school. Roya, which means dream in Persian, was a budding poet herself with the typical hopes and dreams of a Jewish teenage girl.  ROYA: Prior to the revolution, life in an average Tehran Hebrew Day School looked very much like life in a Hebrew Day School anywhere else. In the afternoons we had all Hebrew and Jewish studies. We used to put on a Purim show every year. I wanted to be Esther. I never got to be Esther. We had emissaries, I think a couple of years, from Israel, who came to teach us how to do Israeli folk dance. MANYA: There were moments when Roya recalls feeling self-conscious about her Jewishness, particularly at Passover. That's when the family spent two weeks cleaning, demonstrating they weren't najes, or dirty Jews. The work was rewarded when the house filled with the fragrance of cumin and saffron and Persian dishes flowed from the kitchen, including apple and plum beef stew, tarragon veal balls stuffed with raisins, and rice garnished with currants and slivers of almonds.  When her oldest brother Alberto left to study in America, a little fact-finding work on Roya's part revealed that his departure wasn't simply the pursuit of a promising opportunity. As a talented cartoonist whose work had been showcased during an exhibition in Tehran, his family feared Alberto's pen might have gone too far, offending the Pahlavi regime and drawing the attention of the Shah's secret police.  Reports of repression, rapid modernization, the wide gap between Tehran's rich and the rest of the country's poor, and a feeling that Iranians weren't in control of their own destiny all became ingredients for a revolution, stoked by an exiled cleric named Ruhollah Khomeini who was recording cassette tapes in a Paris basement and circulating them back home.  SABA: He would just sit there and go on and on for hours, going against the Shah and West toxification. And then the recordings ended up in Iran. He wasn't even in Iran until the Shah left. MANYA: Promises of democracy and equality galvanized Iranians of all ages to overthrow the Shah in February 1979. Even the CIA was surprised.  SABA: I think a lot of people didn't believe it. Because number one, the Shah, the son, was getting the most amount of military equipment from the United States than anyone in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf. And the idea was: you protect us in the Gulf, and we will give you whatever you need. So they never thought that a man with a beard down to his knee was able to overthrow this regime that was being propped up and supported by America, and also the Europeans. Khomeini comes in and represents himself as a person for everyone. And he was brilliant in the way he spoke about it. And the reason why this revolution was also successful was that it wasn't just religious people who supported Khomeini, there was this concept you had, the men with the turbans, meaning the religious people, and the you know, the bow ties or the ties, meaning the secular man, a lot of them who were sent by the Shah abroad to Europe and America to get an education, who came back, saw democracy there, and wanted it for their country.  MANYA: Very few of the revolutionaries could predict that Tehran was headed in the opposite direction and was about to revert to 16th Century Shia Islamic rule. For almost a year, Tehran and the rest of the nation were swept up in revolutionary euphoria.  Roya recalls how the flag remained green, white, and red, but an Allah insignia replaced its old sword-bearing lion. New currency was printed, with portraits bearing beards and turbans. An ode to Khomeini became the new national anthem. While the Shah had escaped on an Air France flight, corpses of his henchmen graced the front pages of newspapers alongside smiling executioners. All celebrated, until the day one of the corpses was Habib Elghanian, the Jewish philanthropist who supported all of Iran's Hebrew schools. Charged and convicted as a Zionist spy.  Elders in the community remembered the insurmountable accusations of blood libel during darker times for Iran's Jews. But younger generations like Roya's, who had not lived through the eras of more ruthless antisemitism and persecution, continued to root for the revolution, regardless of its victims. Meanwhile, Roya's Jewish day school was taken over by a new veiled headmistress who replaced Hebrew lessons with other kinds of religious instruction, and required robes and headscarves for all the students.  ROYA: In the afternoons, from then on, we used to have lessons in a series of what she called: ‘Is religion something that you inherit, or is it something that you choose?' And so I think the intention, clearly, was to convince us that we didn't need to inherit our religions from our parents and ancestors, that we ought to consider better choices. MANYA: But when the headmistress cut short the eight-day Passover break, that was the last straw for Roya and her classmates. Their revolt got her expelled from school.  Though Jews did not universally support Khomeini, some saw themselves as members of the Iranian Communist, or Tudeh Party. They opposed the Shah and the human rights abuses of his monarchy and cautiously considered Khomeini the better option, or at least the lesser of two evils. Alarmed by the developments such as Elghanian's execution and changes like the ones at Roya's school, Jewish community leaders traveled to the Shia holy city of Qom to assure the Supreme Leader of their loyalty to Iran.  SABA: They did this because they wanted to make sure that they protected the Jewish community that was left in Iran. Khomeini made that distinction: ‘I am not against Jews, I'm against Zionists. You could be Jewish in this country. You cannot be a Zionist in this country.'  MANYA: But that wasn't the only change. Right away, the Family Protection Law was reversed, lifting a law against polygamy, giving men full rights in divorce and custody, and lowering the marriage age for girls to nine. Women were banned from serving as judges, and beaches and sports events were segregated by gender.  But it took longer to shut down universities, albeit for only two years, segregate public schools by gender, and stone to death women who were found to have committed adultery. Though Khomeini was certainly proving that he was not the man he promised to be, he backed away from those promises gradually – one brutal crackdown at a time. As a result, the trickle of Jews out of Iran was slow.  ROYA: My father thought, let's wait a few years and see what happens. In retrospect, I think the overwhelming reason was probably that nobody believed that things had changed, and so drastically. It seemed so unbelievable. I mean, a country that had been under monarchy for 2,500 years, couldn't simply see it all go and have a whole new system put in place, especially when it was such a radical shift from what had been there before. So I think, in many ways, we were among the unbelievers, or at least my father was, we thought it could never be, it would not happen. My father proved to be wrong, nothing changed for the better, and the conditions continued to deteriorate. So, so much catastrophe happened in those few years that Iran just simply was steeped into a very dark, intense, and period of political radicalism and also, all sorts of economic shortages and pressures. And so the five years that we were left behind, that we stayed back, changed our perspective on so many things. MANYA: In November 1979, a group of radical university students who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seized hostages, and held them for 444 days until President Ronald Reagan's inauguration on January 20, 1981. During the hostages' captivity, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. The conflict that ensued for eight years created shortages on everything from dairy products to sanitary napkins. Mosques became distribution centers for rations. ROYA: We stood in line for hours and hours for eggs, and just the very basic things of daily life. And then it became also clear that religious minorities, including Jews, would no longer be enjoying the same privileges as everyone else. There were bombings that kept coming closer and closer to Tehran, which is where we lived. It was very clear that half of my family that was in the United States could not and would not return, because they were boys who would have been conscripted to go to war. Everything had just come apart in a way that was inconceivable to think that they would change for the better again. MANYA: By 1983, new laws had been passed instituting Islamic dress for all women – violations of which earned a penalty of 74 lashes. Other laws imposed an Islamic morality code that barred co-ed gatherings. Roya and her friends found refuge in the sterile office building that housed the Jewish Iranian Students Association. But she soon figured out that the regime hadn't allowed it to remain for the benefit of the Jewish community. It functioned more like a ghetto to keep Jews off the streets and out of their way. Even the activities that previously gave her comfort were marred by the regime. Poetry books were redacted. Mountain hiking trails were arbitrarily closed to mourn the deaths of countless clerics.  SABA: Slowly what they realize, when Khomeini gained power, was that he was not the person that he claimed to be. He was not this feminist, if anything, all this misogynistic rule came in, and a lot of people realize they, in a sense, got duped and he stole the revolution from them. MANYA: By 1984, the war with Iraq had entered its fourth year. But it was no longer about protecting Iran from Saddam Hussein. Now the Ayatollah wanted to conquer Baghdad, then Jerusalem where he aspired to deliver a sermon from the Temple Mount. Meanwhile, Muslim soldiers wounded in the war chose to bleed rather than receive treatment from Jewish doctors. Boys as young as 12 – regardless of faith – were drafted and sent on suicide missions to open the way for Iranian troops to do battle.  SABA: They were basically used as an army of children that the bombs would detonate, their parents would get a plastic key that was the key to heaven. And the bombs would detonate, and then the army would come in Iranian army would come in. And so that's when a lot of the Persian parents, the Jewish parents freaked out. And that's when they were like: we're getting out of here.  MANYA: By this time, the Hakakian family had moved into a rented apartment building and Roya was attending the neighborhood school. Non-Muslim students were required to take Koran classes and could only use designated water fountains and bathrooms.  As a precaution, Roya's father submitted their passports for renewal. Her mother's application was denied; Roya's passport was held for further consideration; her father's was confiscated.  One night, Roya returned home to find her father burning her books and journals on the balcony of their building. The bonfire of words was for the best, he told her. And at long last, so was leaving. With the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Roya and her mother, Helen, fled to Geneva, and after wandering in Europe for several months, eventually reunited with her brothers in the United States. Roya did not see her father again for five years. Still unable to acquire a passport, he was smuggled out of Iran into Pakistan, on foot.  ROYA: My eldest brother left to come to America in the mid-70s. There was a crack in the body of the family then. But then came 1979, and my two other brothers followed. And so we were apart for all those very, very formative years. And then, in 1984, when my mother and I left and my father was left alone in Iran, that was yet another major dramatic and traumatic separation. So, you know, it's interesting that when I look back at the events of 1979, I think, people constantly think about the revolution having, in some ways, blown up Tehran, but it also blew up families. And my own family was among them.  MANYA: While her father's arrival in America was delayed, Roya describes her arrival in stages. She first arrived as a Jewish refugee in 1985 and found her place doing what she had always done – writing in Persian – rebuilding a body of work that had been reduced to ashes.  ROYA: As a teen I had become a writer, people were encouraging me. So, I continued to do it. It was the thing I knew how to do. And it gave me a sense of grounding and identity. So, I kept on doing it, and it kind of worked its magic, as I suppose good writing does for all writers. It connected me to a new community of people who read Persian and who appreciated what I was trying to do. And I found that with each book that I write, I find a new tribe for myself.  MANYA: She arrived again once she learned English. In her first year at Brooklyn College, she tape-recorded her professors to listen again later. She eventually took a course with renowned poet Allen Ginsberg, whose poetry was best known for its condemnation of persecution and imperial politics and whose 1950s poem “Howl” tested the boundaries of America's freedom of speech.  ROYA: When I mastered the language enough to feel comfortable to be a writer once more, then I found a footing and through Allen and a community of literary people that I met here began to kind of foresee a possibility of writing in English. MANYA: There was also her arrival to an American Jewish community that was largely unaware of the role Jews played in shaping Iran long before the advent of Islam. Likewise, they were just as unaware of the role Iran played in shaping ancient Jewish life. They were oblivious to the community's traditions, and the indignities and abuses Iranian Jews had suffered, continue to suffer, with other religious minorities to keep those traditions alive in their homeland.   ROYA: People would say, ‘Oh, you have an accent, where are you from?' I would say, ‘Iran,' and the Jews at the synagogue would say, ‘Are there Jews in Iran?' MANYA: In Roya's most recent book A Beginner's Guide to America, a sequel of sorts to her memoir, she reflects on the lessons learned and the observations made once she arrived in the U.S. She counsels newcomers to take their time answering what might at first seem like an ominous or loaded question. Here's an excerpt: ROYA: “In the early days after your arrival, “Where are you from?” is above all a reminder of your unpreparedness to speak of the past. You have yet to shape your story – what you saw, why you left, how you left, and what it took to get here. This narrative is your personal Book of Genesis: the American Volume, the one you will sooner or later pen, in the mind, if not on the page. You must take your time to do it well and do it justice.” MANYA: No two immigrants' experiences are the same, she writes. The only thing they all have in common is that they have been uprooted and the stories of their displacement have been hijacked by others' assumptions and agendas. ROYA: I witnessed, as so many other Iranian Jews witness, that the story of how we came, why we came, who we had been, was being narrated by those who had a certain partisan perspective about what the history of what Jewish people should be, or how this history needs to be cast, for whatever purposes they had. And I would see that our own recollections of what had happened were being shaded by, or filtered through views other than our own, or facts other than our own. MANYA: As we wrap up this sixth and final episode of the first season of The Forgotten Exodus, it is clear that the same can be said about the stories of the Jewish people. No two tales are the same. Jews have lived everywhere, and there are reasons why they don't anymore. Some fled as refugees. Some embarked as dreamers. Some forged ahead without looking back. Others counted the days until they could return home. What ties them together is their courage, perseverance, and resilience–whether they hailed from Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, or parts beyond. These six episodes offer only a handful of those stories–shaped by memories and experiences. ROYA: That became sort of an additional incentive, if not burden for me to, to be a witness for several communities, to tell the story of what happened in Iran for American audiences, to Jews, to non-Iranian Jews who didn't realize that there were Jews in Iran, but also to record the history, according to how I had witnessed it, for ourselves, to make sure that it goes down, as I knew it. MANYA: Iranian Jews are just one of the many Jewish communities who in the last century left their homes in the Middle East to forge new lives for themselves and future generations.  Many thanks to Roya for sharing her family's story and for helping us wrap up this season of The Forgotten Exodus. If you're listening for the first time, check out our previous episodes on Jews from Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, and Sudan. Go to ajc.org/theforgottenexodus where you'll also find transcripts, show notes, and family photos. There are still so many stories to tell. Stay tuned in coming months. Does your family have roots in North Africa or the Middle East? One of the goals of this series is to make sure we gather these stories before they are lost. Too many times during my reporting, I encountered children and grandchildren who didn't have the answers to my questions because they never asked. That's why one of the goals of this project is to encourage you to find more of these stories.  Call The Forgotten Exodus hotline. Tell us where your family is from and something you'd like for our listeners to know such as how you've tried to keep the traditions and memories alive. Call 212.891.1336 and leave a message of 2 minutes or less. Be sure to leave your name and where you live now. You can also send an email to theforgottenexodus@ajc.org and we'll be in touch. Tune in every Friday for AJC's weekly podcast about global affairs through a Jewish lens, People of the Pod, brought to you by the same team behind The Forgotten Exodus.  Atara Lakritz is our producer, CucHuong Do is our production manager. T.K. Broderick is our sound engineer. Special thanks to Jon Schweitzer, Sean Savage, Ian Kaplan, and so many of our colleagues, too many to name, for making this series possible. And extra special thanks to David Harris, who has been a constant champion for making sure these stories do not remain untold. You can follow The Forgotten Exodus on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can sign up to receive updates at AJC.org/forgottenexodussignup. The views and opinions of our guests don't necessarily reflect the positions of AJC.  You can reach us at theforgottenexodus@ajc.org. If you've enjoyed the episode, please be sure to spread the word, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review to help more listeners find us.

All I can say is wow. It is not often that one meets a Muslim convert to Judaism. Meet Timor Aklin. You do not want to miss hearing his story and his personal perspective on the potential of coexistence between Israeli Muslim Arabs and Israeli Jews.

Last week an Israeli Druze man was kidnapped and killed by Arab Muslim terrorists. The Israeli Druze community did not sit by silently waiting for the Israeli government, they immediately took action. Our Druze brothers have set up a mirror for the Israeli people on how we have to deal with our Arab Muslim enemies and Israelis are waking up.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Former UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria, Khawla Mattar, charts her path from covering the Lebanese civil war as a young journalist to her long career in the multilateral system. Starting out as the “joke of the UN” - an Arab Muslim woman not expected to succeed in negotiating with extremists - she quickly proved doubters wrong by crossing into ISIL and al-Nusra territory and successfully negotiating local ceasefires. Her first-hand account of wartime Syria not only reveals the horrors and desperation of war, but also her admiration for the resilience of young Syrians and her unwavering hope for a rebuilt country.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Yes, Howard Brown is a two-time cancer survivor. As you will discover in our episode, he grew up with an attitude to thrive and move forward. Throughout his life, he has learned about sales and the concepts of being a successful entrepreneur while twice battling severe cancer.   Howard's life story is one of those events worth telling and I hope you find it worth listening to. He even has written a book about all he has done. The book entitles Shining Brightly has just been released, but you get to hear the story directly from Howards' lips.   About the Guest: Howard Brown is an author, speaker, podcaster, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, interfaith peacemaker, two-time stage IV cancer survivor, and healthcare advocate. For more than three decades, Howard's business innovations, leadership principles, mentoring and his resilience in beating cancer against long odds have made him a sought-after speaker and consultant for businesses, nonprofits, congregations, and community groups. In his business career, Howard was a pioneer in helping to launch a series of technology startups before he co-founded two social networks that were the first to connect religious communities around the world. He served his alma mater—Babson College, ranked by US News as the nation's top college for entrepreneurship—as a trustee and president of Babson's worldwide alumni network. His hard-earned wisdom about resilience after beating cancer twice has led him to become a nationally known patient advocate and “cancer whisperer” to many families. Visit Howard at ShiningBrightly.com to learn more about his ongoing work and contact him. Through that website, you also will find resources to help you shine brightly in your own corner of the world. Howard, his wife Lisa, and his daughter Emily currently reside in Michigan. About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:20 Hi, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. Today, we get to interview Howard Brown, I'm not going to tell you a lot because I want him to tell his story. He's got a wonderful story to tell an inspiring story. And he's got lots of experiences that I think will be relevant for all of us and that we all get to listen to. So with that, Howard, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Howard Brown  01:44 Thank you, Michael. I'm really pleased to be here. And thanks for having me on your show. And excited to talk to your audience and and share a little bit.   Michael Hingson  01:54 Well, I will say that Howard and I met through Podapolooza, which I've told you about in the past and event that brings podcasters would be podcasters. And people who want to be interviewed by podcasters together, and Howard will tell us which were several of those he is because he really is involved in a lot of ways. But why don't you start maybe by telling us a little bit about your, your kind of earlier life and introduce people to you and who you are. Sure, sure.   Howard Brown  02:23 So I'm from Boston. I can disguise the accent very well. But when I talked to my mother, we're back in Boston, we're packing a car. We're going for hot dogs and beans over to Fenway Park. So gotta get a soda. We're getting a soda, not a pop. So we add the Rs. They call my wife Lisa, not Lisa. But I grew up I grew up in the suburbs of Boston, a town called Framingham. And I'm a twin. And I'm very unusual. But a girl boy twin, my twin sister Cheryl. She goes by CJ is five minutes older. And I hold that I hold that now against her now that we're older and she didn't want to be older, but now she's my older sister, my big sister by five whole minutes.   Michael Hingson  03:09 Well, she's big sister, so she needs to take care of her baby brother   Howard Brown  03:12 says exactly. And she did. And we're gonna get to that because it's a really important point being a twin, which we'll get to in a second. But so Britta she Where does she live now? So she lives 40 minutes away from me here in Michigan.   Michael Hingson  03:25 Oh my gosh, you both have moved out of the area.   Howard Brown  03:27 So she she moved to Albany, New York. I moved to Southern then California, LA area and the beaches, and then Silicon Valley. And then the last 17 years we've all lived close. And we raised our families together here in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan.   Michael Hingson  03:40 What got you to all go to Michigan?   Howard Brown  03:43 Well, for me, it was a choice. My wife is from Michigan, and I was in Silicon Valley. And we were Pat had a little girl Emily, who's four. There's a story there too. But we'll we decided we wanted her to grow up with a family and cousins and aunts and uncles and my in laws live here. My wife grew up here. And this made it closer for my parents and Boston suburbs to get here as well. So great place to raise a family very different from Silicon Valley in Palo Alto, California.   Michael Hingson  04:12 Yeah, but don't you miss Steve's ice cream in Boston?   Howard Brown  04:15 I do. I miss the ice cream. I missed the cannolis in the Back Bay. I missed some of the Chinese food. So in the north end, but it just it I do, but I have not lived there. I went to college there at Babson College number one school for entrepreneurship. And then when I got my first job, I moved out to Ohio but then I moved back and well there's a whole story of why I had to move back as well but we'll get   Michael Hingson  04:41 there. So are your parents still living in Boston?   Howard Brown  04:46 They are and so my dad I call myself son of a boot man. My dad for 49 years has sold cowboy boots in New England in the in the in the western you know the states New York Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts. And that's, you know, anyone who stayed somewhere for 49 years got to be applauded. And he's a straight commission boot salesman and he sold women's shoes prior to that. So he he's, he's a renaissance man.   Michael Hingson  05:15 Wow. So does he sell cowboy boots with snow treads as it were for the winter?   Howard Brown  05:21 No snow trends but, you know, like out west when you're working on, you know, on with cattle and working out west and sometimes it's a fashion statement. Not not too many places in New England like that. But he, he made a living, he enjoyed it. And he's, he's just about to retire at the age of 79. This year.   Michael Hingson  05:39 I remember living in Boston and and when I wear shoes with just leather soles, I slid around a lot on the sidewalks and all that so did get rubber rubbers to go over my boots and then later got real boots.   Howard Brown  05:54 Right. So I have the big hiking boots, the Timberlands, but I too have a pair of a you know, in Boston, we call them rabbits, rabbits, robins. And they basically are slip ons that gave you grip. They slipped right over your leather shoes. And you wore them when anyway in the snow and in those sloshing in the mess. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  06:12 And they worked really well. They did. So you went off to college. And I gather kind of almost right from the beginning you got involved in the whole idea of entrepreneurship.   Howard Brown  06:23 Well, I did I transferred to Babson from a liberal arts school called Connecticut College. I just I found out it wasn't for me and Babson College changed the trajectory of my entire life. i i I knew that I wanted to do sales and then later technology. But Babson was the catalyst for that. They just they support entrepreneurship of all kinds, no matter how you define it, and I just drank it in and I loved, I loved my time there. I love my learning there. And I continue to stay involved with Babson very closely as a past president of the Alumni Association, a former trustee, and very actively recruit students to go there and support student businesses. So it was a big impact on me and I continue to give back to it.   Michael Hingson  07:11 That's pretty cool. So how, how did you proceed as far as a career and entrepreneurial involvement as it were in in sales and all that?   Howard Brown  07:22 So I had an internship, I had wanted cellular one when cellular phones came out and I was basically learning the business. This is really early 1984 And five, and then I got another internship at NCR Corporation if you remember national cash register 120 year old company based out of Dayton, Ohio, and now it's in Atlanta, and it's, it's just not the same company. But I took an internship there a lot of Babson folks work there. And I worked as a trainer, sales installation rep. I trained waitresses, waiters, bartenders, hotel clerks, night audits, how to use cash register computer systems. So I was the teacher and a trainer. And I would, you know, talk to waitresses and waiters and bartenders and say you can make more tips by providing better service. But the way that you do that is you type you the order into a computer, it zaps it to the order station or the back to the back of the house to cook to prepare the foods or for the drinks. And you can spend more time servicing your table which should translate into higher tips. Well, about a third of them said nope, not for me, a third of them were need to be convinced and a third of them are like I'm in. I had a lot of fun doing that. And then after the shift, the either the manager or the owner would come over and they'd give you a savior at a Chinese food restaurant. They give you a poopoo platter to go to take home to your dorm room.   Michael Hingson  08:46 So I had a lot of fun, a lot of fun and a lot of good food.   Howard Brown  08:50 Sure sure. So that's what really started me off and hired me   Michael Hingson  08:55 so did that did that concept of tips and all that and advising people ever get you to translate that to Durgin Park?   Howard Brown  09:03 I actually did install the cashiers to computers area ago Daniel hall so the checkerboard you know draped you know cloth on the table and so you know it's there's a lot of good restaurants in Boston, you know the union Oyster House with a toothpick but I did countless restaurants hotels bars, you know it was I was basically at the whim of the Salesforce and there was a couple of us that went to go train and teach people and take the night shift and make sure everything was going smoothly as they installed the new system of course the no name restaurant and other one but well you know for for your listeners that no name was a place to get, you know, really great discounted seafood but you sat on a park bench. Remember that?   Michael Hingson  09:50 Right? Oh yeah, definitely. It wasn't. Well, neither was Durgin park, but I haven't kept up Is it still there?   Howard Brown  10:00 Yes, I believe it's still there.   Michael Hingson  10:01 Oh, good. I heard somewhere that, that it might not be because of COVID. But we enjoy   Howard Brown  10:07 down it shut down for a while during COVID I hope it's back open. I'm gonna have to go now. Yeah, you're gonna make me go check to see if it's open. But you know, many of them are still there. And obviously restaurants turn over. But that's a mainstay that's got a lot of history.   Michael Hingson  10:19 Oh, it does. And we had a lot of fun with the waitresses and so on at their Compac. I know, once we went there, and you know, the whole story, that Durgan is a place where you sit at family tables, unless we actually have four people then they'll let you sit at one of the tables for for around the outside. Well, there were three of us and my guide dog when we went in one time. And the hostess said, we're gonna put you at one of the tables for for just to give more room for the puppy dog. And she sat us down there. Then the waitress came over and as they are supposed to do at Durgan Park, she said, you're not supposed to sit here. There are only three of you. And I said there's a dog under the table. No, there's not. You can't fool me with that. And the waitress isn't supposed to be snotty, right. And she just kept going on and on about it. And I kept saying there is a dog under the table. She went away. And then she came back a little bit later. And she said, You've got to move and I said no. Why don't you just look, there's a dog under the table. You're not gonna make me fall for that. She finally looked. And there are these Golden Retriever puppy eyes staring back at her. She just melted. It was so much fun.   Howard Brown  11:26 Wouldn't be Boston if you didn't get a little attitude. Well, yeah, that's part of what it's all about your right next seating. And they just they sit you in a and they say, meet each other and be married.   Michael Hingson  11:38 Yeah, yeah. And it was a lot of fun. So how long did it take you to get to Silicon Valley?   Howard Brown  11:44 Well, so the story is that I did. I worked for NCR and I got hired by NCR, but I wanted out of the hospitality business. You know, even though he's young work until two, three in the morning, once they shut the restaurant or bar down or the hotel down, and then you do the night audit and you do the records. It was a hard life. So I looked and I did my research. And I said, you know who's who's making all the money here at NCR in the banking division. And it was really the early days of the outsourcing movement, punch cards, and you're outsourcing bank accounts, over 1200 baud modems. And I said, Well, that's interesting. And so I went to NCRs training at Sugar camp to learn how to be a salesperson were they actually in the early days, they filmed you, they taught you negotiation skills, competitive analysis, Industry Skills, it was fantastic. It's like getting an MBA today. But they did it all in six months, with mixing fieldwork in with, you know, training at this education facility in Dayton, Ohio. And I came out as a junior salesperson working for for very expansive experience, guys. And they just, I knew one thing, if I made them more productive, they'd make me money. And I did. And I, they sent me to banks and savings and loans and credit unions all over New England. And I basically learned the business of banking and outsourcing to these banks. And they made a lot of money. So that was how my career started. You can't do better than that. But to answer the question, because it's a little more complex than that. But it took me NCR in 1988. And then I moved out to Los Angeles in 1991, after a big health scare, which we'll talk about, and then I moved up in 2005. So there's the timeline to get me to Silicon Valley.   Michael Hingson  13:29 So you, you definitely moved around. I know that feeling well, having had a number of jobs and been required to live in various parts of the country when going back and forth from one coast to another from time to time. So you know, it's it's there. So you, you did all of that. And you You ended up obviously making some money and continuing to to be in the entrepreneurial world. But how does that translate into kind of more of an entrepreneurial spirit today?   Howard Brown  14:00 So great question, Michael. So what happened was is that I built a foundation. So at that time when you graduated school, and as far as for technology, the big computer shops like IBM Unisys, NCR, Hewlett Packard, what they did is they took you raw out of college, and they put you through their training program. And that training program was their version of the gospel of their of their products and your competitors and all that. And that built a great foundation. Well, I moved to Los Angeles after this big health scare, which I'm sure we're gonna go back and talk about, and I moved into the network products division. So I didn't stay in the banking division. I looked at the future and said voice data and video. I think there's the future there and I was right and AT and T bought NCR and, unfortunately, this is probably 1992. They also bought McCaw cellular they had just bought all of Eddie computer. They were a big company of five 600,000 employees and I have To tell you, the merger wasn't great. You felt like a number. And I knew that was my time. That was my time where I said, I got my foundation built. It's now time to go to a startup. So your time had come. My time had come. So at&t, offered early retirement for anyone 50 and older, and then they didn't get enough takers. So they offered early retirement for anyone that wanted to change. And so the talk around the watercooler was, let's wait they'll make a better offer. And I was like, I'm 26 and a half years old. I what am I waiting for? So they made a tremendously generous offer. I took early retirement, and I moved to my first true startup called avid technology that was in the production space. And we basically were changing film and television production from analog to digital. And I never looked back, I basically have been with startups ever since. And that, but that foundation I felt was really important that I got from NCR, but I prefer smaller companies and build the building them up from scratch and moving them forward.   Michael Hingson  16:07 Yeah, when you can do more to help shape the way they go. Because the the problem with a larger a lot of larger companies is they get very set in their ways. And they tend not to listen as much as maybe they should to people who might come along with ideas that might be beneficial to them, as opposed to startups as you say,   Howard Brown  16:27 Well, it depends. I mean, you know, you want to build a company that is still somewhat innovative. So what these large companies like Google and Facebook do, and Apple is they go acquire, they acquire the startups before they get too big or sometimes like, it's like what Facebook did with Instagram, they acquired six people, Google acquired YouTube, and they acquire the technology of best of breed technology. And then they shape it, and they accelerate it up. So listen, companies like IBM are still innovative, Apple, you know, is so innovative. But you need to maintain that because it can get to be a bureaucracy, and with hundreds of 1000s of employees. And you can't please everybody, but I knew my calling was was technology startups. And I just, I needed to get that, get that foundation built. And then away away I went. And that's what I've done. Since   Michael Hingson  17:16 you're right. It's all about with with companies, if they want to continue to be successful, they have to be innovative, and they have to be able to grow. I remember being in college, when Hewlett Packard came out with the HP 25, which was a very sophisticated calculator. Back in the the late 19th, early 1970s. And then Texas Instruments was working on a calculator, they came out with one that kind of did a lot of the stuff that HP did. But about that same time because HP was doing what they were doing, they came out with the HP 35. And basically it added, among other things, a function key that basically doubled the number of incredible things that you could do on the HP 25.   Howard Brown  17:58 Right, I had a TI calculator and in high school.   Michael Hingson  18:02 Well, and of course yeah, go ahead HPUS pull reverse Polish notation, which was also kind   Howard Brown  18:09 of fun. Right and then with the kids don't understand today is that, you know, we took typing, I get I think we took typing.   Michael Hingson  18:19 Did you type did you learn to type on a typewriter without letters on the keys?   Howard Brown  18:23 No, I think we have letters I think you just couldn't look down or else you get smacked. You know, the big brown fox jumped over the you know, something that's I don't know, but I did learn but I I'm sort of a hybrid. I looked down once in a while when I'd say   Michael Hingson  18:39 I remember taking a typing course in actually it was in summer school. I think it was between seventh and eighth grade. And of course the typewriters were typewriters, typewriters for teaching so they didn't have letters on the keys, which didn't matter to me a whole lot. But by the same token, that's the way they were but I learned to type and yeah, we learned to type and we learned how to be pretty accurate with it's sort of like learning to play the piano and eventually learning to do it without looking at the keys so that you could play and either read music or learn to play by ear.   Howard Brown  19:15 That's true. And And again, in my dorm room, I had Smith Corona, and I ended up having a bottle of or many bottles of white out.   Michael Hingson  19:25 White out and then there was also the what was it the other paper that you could put on the samosa did the same thing but white out really worked?   Howard Brown  19:33 Yeah, you put that little strip of tape and then it would wait it out for you then you can type over it. Right? We've come a long way. It's some of its good and some of its bad.   Michael Hingson  19:43 Yeah, now we have spellchecker Yeah, we do for what it's worth,   Howard Brown  19:49 which we got more and more and more than that on these I mean listen to this has allowed us to, to to do a zoom call here and record and goods and Bad's to all of that.   Michael Hingson  19:58 Yeah, I still I have to tell people learning to edit. Now using a sound editor called Reaper, I can do a lot more clean editing than I was able to do when I worked at a campus radio station, and had to edit by cutting tape and splicing with splicing tape.   Howard Brown  20:14 Exactly. And that's Yeah, yeah, Michael, we change the you know, avid changed the game, because we went from splicing tape or film and Betamax cassettes in the broadcast studios to a hard drive in a mouse, right? changed, we changed the game there because you were now editing on a hard drive. And so I was part of that in 1994. And again, timing has to work out and we had to retrain the unions at the television networks. And it was, for me, it was just timing worked really well. Because my next startup, liquid audio, the timing didn't work out well, because we're, we were going to try to do the same thing in the audio world, which is download music. But when you do that, when you it's a Sony cassette and Sony Walkman days, the world wasn't ready yet. We we still went public, we still did a secondary offering. But we never really brought product to market because it took Steve Jobs 10 years later to actually sell a song for 99 cents and convince the record industry that that was, you know, you could sell slices of pizza instead of the whole pizza, the whole record out   Michael Hingson  21:17 and still make money. I remember avid devices and hearing about them and being in television stations. And of course, for me, none of that was accessible. So it was fun to to be able to pick on the fact that no matter what, as Fred Allen, although he didn't say it quite this way, once said they call television the new medium, because that's as good as it's ever gonna get. But anyway, you know, it has come a long way. But it was so sophisticated to go into some of the studios with some of the even early equipment, like Avid, and see all the things that they were doing with it. It just made life so much better.   Howard Brown  21:52 Yeah, well, I mean, you're not I was selling, you know, $100,000 worth of software on a Macintosh, which first of all the chief engineers didn't even like, but at the post production facilities, they they they drank that stuff up, because you could make a television commercial, you could do retakes, you could add all the special effects, and it could save time. And then you could get more revenue from that. And so it was pretty easy sale, because we tell them how fast they could pay off to the hardware, the software and then train everybody up. And they were making more and more and better commercials for the car dealerships and the local Burger Joint. And they were thrilled that these local television stations, I can tell you that   Michael Hingson  22:29 I sold some of the first PC based CAD systems and the same sort of thing, architects were totally skeptical about it until they actually sat down and we got them in front of a machine and showed them how to use it. Let them design something that they could do with three or four hours, as opposed to spending days with paper and paper and paper and more paper in a drafting table. And they could go on to the next project and still charge as much.   Howard Brown  22:53 It was funny. I take a chief engineer on to lunch, and I tried to gauge their interest and a third, we're just enthusiastic because they wanted to make sure that they were the the way that technology came into the station. They were they were the brainchild they were the they were the domain experts. So a third again, just like training waitresses and waiters and bartenders, a third of them. Oh, they wanted they just wanted to consume it all. A third of them were skeptical and needed convincing. And a third of whom was like, that's never going out on my hair anywhere. Yeah, they were the later and later adopters, of course.   Michael Hingson  23:24 And some of them were successful. And some of them were not.   Howard Brown  23:28 Absolutely. We continue. We no longer. Go ahead. No, no, of course I am the my first sales are the ones that were early adopters. And and then I basically walked over to guys that are later adopters. I said, Well, I said, you know, the ABC, the NBC and the fox station and the PBS station habit, you know, you don't have it, and they're gonna take all your post production business away from you. And that got them highly motivated.   Michael Hingson  23:54 Yeah. And along the way, from a personal standpoint, somebody got really clever. And it started, of course at WGBH in Boston, where they recognize the fact that people who happen to be blind would want to know what's going on on TV when the dialog wasn't saying much to to offer clues. And so they started putting an audio description and editing and all that and somebody created the secondary audio programming in the other things that go into it. And now that's becoming a lot more commonplace, although it's still got a long way to go.   Howard Brown  24:24 Well, I agree. So but you're right. So having that audio or having it for visually impaired or hearing impaired are all that they are now we're making some progress. So it's still a ways to go. I agree with you.   Michael Hingson  24:36 still a ways to go. Well, you along the way in terms of continuing to work with Abbott and other companies in doing the entrepreneurial stuff. You've had a couple of curveballs from life.   Howard Brown  24:47 I have. So going back to my promotion, I was going driving out to Dayton, Ohio, I noticed a little spot on my cheekbone. didn't think anything of it. I was so excited to get promoted and start my new job. up, I just kept powering through. So a few weeks after I'd moved out to Dayton, Ohio, my mom comes out. And she's at the airport and typical Boston and mom, she's like, What's that on your cheek? What's that on your cheek? And I was like, Mom, it's nothing. I kind of started making excuses. I got hit playing basketball, I got it at the gym or something. And she's like, well, we got to get that checked out. I said, No, Mom, it's okay. It's not no big deal. It's a little little market. Maybe it's a cyst or pebble or something I don't know. So she basically said she was worried, but she never told me. So she helped set up my condo, or an apartment. And then she left. And then as long Behold, I actually had to go speak in Boston at the American Bankers Association about disaster recovery, and having a disaster recovery plan. And so this is the maybe August of 1989. And I came back and that spot was still there. And so my mom told my dad, remember, there was payphones? There was no cell phones, no computers, no internet. So she told my dad, she didn't take a picture of it. But now he saw it. And he goes, Let's go play tennis. There's I got there on a Friday. So on a Saturday morning, we'd go do something. And instead of going to play tennis, he took me to a local community hospital. And they took a look at it. And they said off its assist, take some my antibiotic erythromycin or something, you'll be fine. Well, I came back to see them on Monday after my speech. And I said, I'm not feeling that great. Maybe it's the rethrow myosin. And so having to be four o'clock in the afternoon, he took me to the same emergency room. And he's and I haven't had the same doctor on call. He actually said, You know what, let's take a biopsy of it. So he took a biopsy of it. And then he went back to the weight room, he said, I didn't get a big enough slice. Let me take another. So he took another and then my dad drove me to the airport, and I basically left. And my parents called me maybe three weeks later, and they said, You got to come back to Boston. We gotta go see, you know, they got the results. But you know, they didn't tell us they'll only tell you. Because, you know, it's my private data. So I flew back to Boston, with my parents. And this time, I had, like, you know, another doctor there with this emergency room doctor, and he basically checks me out, checks me out, but he doesn't say too much. But he does say that we have an appointment for you at Dana Farber Cancer Institute at 2pm. I think you should go. And I was like, whoa, what are you talking about? Why am I going to Dana Farber Cancer Institute. So it gets, you know, kind of scary there because I show up there. I'm in a suit and tie. My dad's in a suit down. My mom's seems to be dressed up. And we go, and they put me through tests. And I walk in there. And I don't know if you remember this, Michael. But the Boston Red Sox charity is called the Jimmy fund. Right? And the Jimmy fund are for kids with blood cancers, lymphoma leukemias, so I go there. And they checked me in and they told me as a whole host of tests they're going to do, and I'm looking in the waiting room, and I see mostly older people, and I'm 23 years old. So I go down the hallways, and I see little kids. So I go I go hang out with the little kids while I'm waiting. I didn't know what was going on. So they call me and I do my test. And this Dr. George Canalis, who's you know, when I came to learn that the inventor of some chemo therapies for lymphomas very experienced, and this young Harvard fellow named Eric Rubin I get pulled into this office with this big mahogany desk. And they say you have stage four E T cell non Hodgkins lymphoma. It's a very aggressive, aggressive, very aggressive form of cancer. We're going to try to knock this out. I have to tell you, Michael, I don't really remember hardly anything else that was said, I glossed over. I looked up at this young guy, Eric Rubin, and I said, What's he saying? I looked back out of the corner of my eye, my mom's bawling her eyes out. My dad's looks like a statue. And I have to tell you, I was really just a deer in the headlights. I had no idea that how a healthy 23 year old guy gets, you know, stage four T cell lymphoma with a very horrible prognosis. I mean, I mean, they don't they said, We don't know if we can help you at the world, one of the world's foremost cancer research hospitals in the world. So it was that was that was a tough pill to swallow. And I did some more testing. And then they told me to come back in about a week to start chemotherapy. And so, again, I didn't have the internet to search anything. I had encyclopedias. I had some friends, you know, and I was like, I'm a young guy. And, you know, I was talking to older people that potentially, you know, had leukemia or different cancer, but I didn't know much. And so I I basically showed up for chemotherapy, scared out of my mind, in denial, and Dr. RUBIN comes out and he says, we're not doing chemo today. I said, I didn't sleep awake. What are you talking about? He says, we'll try again tomorrow, your liver Our function test is too high. And my liver function test is too high. So I'm starting to learn but I still don't know what's going on. He says I got it was going to field trip. Field Trip. He said, Yeah, you're going down the street to Newton Wellesley hospital, we're going to the cryogenic center, cryo, what? What are you talking about? He goes, it's a sperm bank, and you're gonna go, you know, leave a sample specimen. And it's like, you just told me that, you know, if you can help me out what why I'm not even thinking about kids, right now. He said, Go do it. He says what else you're going to do today, and then you come back tomorrow, and we'll try chemo. So thank God, he said that, because I deposited before I actually started any chemotherapy, which, you know, as basically, you know, rendered me you know, impotent now because of all the chemotherapy and radiation I had. So that was a blessing that I didn't know about until later, which we'll get to. But a roll the story forward a little more quickly as that I was getting all bad news. I was relapsing, I went through about three or four different cycles of different chemotherapy recipes, nothing was working. I was getting sicker, and they tight. My sister, I am the twin CJ, for bone marrow transplant and she was a 25% chance of being a match. She happened to be 100% match. And I had to then gear up for back in 1990 was a bone marrow transplant where they would remove her bone marrow from her hip bones, they would scrub it and cleanse it, and they would put it in me. And they would hope that my body wouldn't immediately rejected and die and shut down or over time, which is called graft versus host these that it wouldn't kill me or potentially that it would work and it would actually reset my immune system. And it would take over the malignant cells and set my set me back straight, which it ended up doing. And so having a twin was another blessing miracle. You know that, you know, that happened to me. And I did some immunotherapy called interleukin two that was like, like the grandfather of immunotherapy that strengthened my system. And then I moved to Florida to get out of the cold weather and then I moved out to California to rebuild my life. I call that Humpty Dumpty building Humpty Dumpty version one. And that's that's how I got to California in Southern California.   Michael Hingson  32:15 So once again, your big sister savedthe day,   Howard Brown  32:19 as usual.   Michael Hingson  32:21 That's a big so we go,   Howard Brown  32:23 as we call ourselves the Wonder Twins. He's more. She's terrific. And thank God she gave part of herself and saved my life. And I am eternally grateful to her for that,   Michael Hingson  32:34 but but she never had any of the same issues or, or diseases. I gather. She's been   Howard Brown  32:41 very healthy, except for like a knee. A partial knee replacement. She's been very healthy her whole life.   Michael Hingson  32:48 Well, did she have to have a knee replacement because she kept kicking you around or what?   Howard Brown  32:52 No, she's little. She's five feet. 510 So she never kicked me. We are best friends. My wife's best friend. I know. She is just just a saint. She's She's such a giving person and you know, we take that from our parents, but she she gave of herself of what she could do. She said she do it again in a heartbeat. I don't think I'm allowed to give anybody my bone marrow but if I could, would give it to her do anything for her. She's She's amazing. So she gave me the gift, the gift of life.   Michael Hingson  33:21 So you went to Florida, then you moved to California and what did you do when you got out here?   Howard Brown  33:24 So I ended up moving up to northern California. So I met this girl from Michigan in Southern California, Lisa, my wife have now 28 years in July. We married Lisa Yeah, we got married under the Jewish wedding company's wedding canopies called the hotpot and we're looking at the Pacific Ocean, we made people come out that we had that Northridge earthquake in 94. But this is in July, so things are more settled. So we had all friends and family come out. And it was beautiful. We got it on a pool deck overlooking the Pacific. It was gorgeous. It was a beautiful Hollywood type wedding. And it was amazing. So we got married in July of 94. And then moved up to Silicon Valley in 97. And then I was working at the startups. My life was really out of balance because I'm working 20 hours, you know, a day and I'm traveling like crazy. And my wife says, You know what, you got to be home for dinner if we're going to think about having a family. And we're a little bit older now. 35 and 40. And so we've got to think about these things. And so I called back to Newton Wellesley hospital, and I got the specimen of sperm shipped out to San Jose, and we went through an in vitro fertilization process. And she grew eight eight eggs and they defrosted the swimmers and they took the best ones and put them back in the four best eggs and our miracle baby our frozen kids sickle. Emily was born in August of 2001. Another blessing another miracle. I was able to have a child and healthy baby girl.   Michael Hingson  34:58 So what's Emily doing today?   Howard Brown  35:00 Well, thank you for asking that. So, she is now in Missoula, Montana at a television station called K Pax eight Mountain News. And she's an intern for the summer. And she's living her great life out there hiking, Glacier National Park. And she ran I think she ran down to the Grand Tetons and, and she's learning about the broadcast business and reporting. She's a writer by trade, by trade and in journalism. And she likes philosophy. So she'll be coming back home to finish her senior year, this at the end of the summer at the University of Michigan. And so she's about to graduate in December. And she's, she's doing just great.   Michael Hingson  35:35 So she writes and doesn't do video editing us yet using Abbott or any of the evolutions from it.   Howard Brown  35:41 No, she does. She actually, when you're in a small market station, that's you. You write the script, she does the recording, she has a tripod, sometimes she's she films with the other reporters, but when she they sent her out as an intern, and she just covered the, this, you know, the pro pro life and pro choice rallies, she she records herself, she edits on Pro Tools, which is super powerful now, and a lot less expensive. And then, when she submits, she submits it refer review to the news director and to her superiors. And she's already got, I think, three video stories and about six different by lines on written stories. So she's learning by doing, it's experiential, it's amazing.   Michael Hingson  36:23 So she must have had some experience in dealing with all the fires and stuff out at Yellowstone and all that.   Howard Brown  36:31 So the flooding at Yellowstone, so I drove her out there in May. And I didn't see any fires. But the flooding we got there before that, she took me on a hike on the North Gate of Yellowstone. And she's she's, you know, environmentally wilderness trained first aid trained. And I'm the dad, and I'm in decent shape. But she took me out an hour out and an hour back in and, you know, saw a moose saw a deer didn't see any mountain lion didn't see any Grizzlies, thank God, but we did see moose carcass where the grizzly had got a hold on one of those and, and everybody else to get it. So I got to go out to nature weather and we took a road trip out there this summer, it was a blast. It's the those are the memories, when you've been through a cancer diagnosis that you just you hold on to very dearly and very tight. It was a blast. So that's what he's doing this summer. She'll be back. She'll be back in August, end of August.   Michael Hingson  37:22 That's really exciting to hear that she's working at it and being successful. And hopefully she'll continue to do that. And do good reporting. And I know that this last week, with all the Supreme Court cases, it's it's, I guess, in one sense, a field day for reporters. But it's also a real challenge, because there's so many polarized views on all of that.   Howard Brown  37:44 Well, everybody's a broadcaster now whether it's Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and all the other ones out there, tick tock. So everybody's sort of a reporter now. And you know, what do you believe, and unfortunately, I just can't believe in something in 140 characters or something in two sentences. Yeah, there's no depth there. So sometimes you miss the point, and all this stuff. And then everything's on 24 hours on CNN, on Fox on MSNBC, so it never stops. So I call that a very noisy world. And it's hard to process. You know, all this. It's coming at you so fast in the blink of an eye. So we're in a different time than when we grew up, Michael, it was a slower pace. Today in this digital world. It's, it's, it's a lot and especially COVID. Now, are we just consuming and consuming and binging and all this stuff, I don't think it's that healthy.   Michael Hingson  38:36 It's not only a noisy world, but it's also a world, it's very disconnected, you can say all you want about how people can send tweets back and forth, text messages back and forth and so on. But you're not connecting, you're not really getting deep into anything, you're not really establishing relationships in the way that as you point out, we used to, and we don't connect anymore, even emails don't give you that much connection, realism, as opposed to having meaningful dialogue and meaningful conversations. So we just don't Converse anymore. And now, with all that's going on, in the very divided opinions, there's there's no room for discussion, because everybody has their own opinion. And that's it, there's no room to dialogue on any of it at all, which is really too bad.   Howard Brown  39:21 Yeah, I agree. It's been divisive. And, you know, it's, it's hard because, you know, an email doesn't have the body language, the intent, the emotion, like we're talking right now. And, you know, we're expressing, you know, you know, I'm telling stories of my story personally, but you can tell when I get excited, I smile, I can get animated. Sometimes with an email, you know, you don't know the intent and it can be misread. And a lot of that communication is that way. So, you know, I totally get where you're coming from.   Michael Hingson  39:55 And that's why I like doing the podcasts that we're doing. We get to really have conversation isn't just asking some questions and getting an answer and then going on to the next thing. That's, frankly, no fun. And I think it's important to be able to have the opportunity to really delve into things and have really good conversations about them. I learned a lot, and I keep seeing as I do these podcasts, and for the past 20 plus years, I've traveled around the world speaking, of course, about September 11, and talking about teamwork, and trust, and so on. And as I always say, if I don't learn more than I'm able to teach or impart, then I'm not doing my job very well.   Howard Brown  40:35 So that's exactly and that's, that's where I'm going after the second health concern. You know, I'm now going to teach, I'm gonna inspire, I'm going to educate. And that's, that's, that's what I do, I want to do with the rest of my time is to be able to, you know, listen, I'm not putting my head in the sand, about school shootings, about an insurrection about floods about all that. You gotta live in the real world. But I choose, as I say, I like to live on positive Street as much as possible, but positive street with action. That's, that's what makes the world a better place at the end of the day. So you sharing that story means that one we'll never forget. And you can educate the generations to come that need to understand, you know, that point in time and how it affected you and how you've dealt with it, and how you've been able to get back out of bed every day. And I want to do the same.   Michael Hingson  41:26 Well, there's nothing wrong with being positive. I think that there is a need to be aware. But we can we can continue to be positive, and try to promote positivity, try to promote connectionism and conversations and so on, and promote the fact that it's okay to have different opinions. But the key is to respect the other opinion, and recognize that it isn't just what you say that's the only thing that ever matters. That's the problem that we face so much today.   Howard Brown  41:58 Right? Respect. I think Aretha Franklin saying that great. She   Michael Hingson  42:01 did. She did. She's from Motown here. There you go. See? When you moved out to California, and you ended up in Silicon Valley, and so on, who are you working for them?   Howard Brown  42:14 So I moved up, and I worked for this company called Liquid audio that doesn't exist anymore. And it was just iTunes 10 years too early on, there was real audio, there was Mark Cuban's company was called Audio net and then broadcast.com used for a lot of money. And so the company went public and made a lot of money. But it didn't work. The world wasn't ready for it yet to be able to live in this cassette world. It was not ready. I Napster hadn't been invented, mp3 and four hadn't been invented. So it just the adoption rate of being too early. But it still went public a lot. The investors made a ton of money, but they call that failing, failing forward. So I stayed there for a year, I made some money. And I went to another startup. And that startup was in the web hosting space, it was called Naevus. site, it's now won by Time Warner. But at that time, building data centers and hosting racks of computers was very good business. And so I got to be, you know, participate in an IPO. You know, I built built up revenue. And you know, the outsourcing craze now called cloud computing, it's dominated by the folks that like Amazon, and the folks at IBM, and a few others, but mostly, you know, dominated there, where you're basically having lots of blinking lights in a data center, and just making sure that those computers stay up to serve up the pages of the web, the videos, even television, programming, and now any form of communication. So I was, I was early on in that and again, got to go through an IPO and get compensated properly unduly, and, but also my life was out of balance. And so before we were called out for the sperm and had a baby, I transitioned out when Silicon Valley just the pendulum swung the other way, I ended up starting to work at my own nonprofit, I founded it with a couple of Silicon Valley guys called Planet Jewish, and it was still very technologically driven. It was the world's first Community Calendar. This is before Google Calendar, this is in 2000. And we built it as a nonprofit to serve the Jewish community to get more people to come to Jewish events. And I architected the code, and we ran that nonprofit for 17 years. And before calendaring really became free, and very proud of that. And after that, I started a very similar startup with different code called circle builder, and it was serving faith and religions. It was more like private facebook or private online communities. And we had the Vatican as a client and about 25,000 Ministries, churches, and nonprofits using the system. And this is all sort of when Facebook was coming out to you know, from being just an edu or just for college students. And so I built that up as a quite a big business. But unfortunately, I was in Michigan when I started circle builder. I ended up having to close both of those businesses down. One that the revenue was telling off of the nonprofit and also circuit builder wasn't monetizing as quickly or as we needed as well. But I ended up going into my 50 year old colonoscopy, Michael. And I woke up thinking everything was going to be fine. My wife Lisa's holding my hand. And the gastroenterologist said, No, I found something. And when I find something, it's bad news. Well, it was bad news. Stage three colon cancer. Within about 10 days or two weeks, I had 13 and a half inches of my colon removed, plus margins plus lymph nodes. One of the lymph nodes was positive, install a chemo port and then I waited because my daughter had soccer tournaments to travel to but on first week of August in 2016, I started 12 rounds of Rockem sockem chemotherapy called folfox and five Fu and it was tough stuff. So I was back on the juice again, doing chemotherapy and but this time, I wasn't a deer in the headlights, I was a dad, I was a husband. I had been through the trenches. So this time, I was much more of a marine on a mission. And I had these digital tools to reach out for research and for advocacy and for support. Very different at that time. And so I unfortunately failed my chemotherapy, I failed my neck surgery, another colon resection, I failed a clinical trial. And things got worse I became metastatic stage four that means that colon cancer had spread to my liver, my stomach linings called the omentum and peritoneum and my bladder. And I had that same conversation with a doctor in downtown Detroit, at a Cancer Institute and he said, We don't know if we can help you. And if you Dr. Google, it said I had 4% of chances of living about 12 to 18 months and things were dark I was I was back at it again looking looking at the Grim Reaper. But what I ended up doing is research and I did respond to the second line chemotherapy with a little regression or shrinkage. And for that you get more chemotherapy. And then I started to dig in deep research on peritoneal carcinoma which is cancer of the of the of the stomach lining, and it's very tricky. And there's a group called colon town.org that I joined and very informative. I there then met at that time was probably over 100 other people that had had the peritoneal carcinoma, toma and are living and they went through a radical surgery called cytoreduction high pack, where they basically debulk you like a de boning a fish, and they take out all this cancer, they can see the dead and live cells, and then they pour hot chemo in you. And then hot chemo is supposed to penetrate the scanning the organs, and it's supposed to, in theory kill micro cell organism and cancer, although it's still not proven just yet. But that surgery was about a 12 and a half hour surgery in March of 2018. And they call that the mother of all surgeries. And I came out looking like a ghost. I had lost about 60 pounds, and I had a long recovery. It's that one would put Humpty Dumpty back together. It's been now six years. But I got a lot of support. And I am now what's called no evidence of disease at this time, I'm still under surveillance. I was quarterly I just in June, I had my scans and my exams. And I'm now going to buy annual surveillance, which means CAT scans and blood tests. That's the step in the right direction. And so again, I mean, if I think about it, my twin sister saved my life, I had a frozen sperm become a daughter. And again, I'm alive from a stage four diagnosis. I am grateful. I am lucky, and I am blessed. So that's that a long story that the book will basically tell you, but that's where I am today.   Michael Hingson  48:50 And we'll definitely get to the book. But another question. So you had two startups that ran collectively for quite a period of time, what got you involved or motivated to do things in the in the faith arena?   Howard Brown  49:06 So I have to give credit to my wife, Lisa. So we met at the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles at this young leadership group. And then they have like a college fair of organizations that are Jewish support organizations. And one of them happened to be Jewish Big Brothers, now Jewish Brothers and Big Sisters of Los Angeles. Suppose you'd be a great big brother. I was like, well, it takes up a lot of time. I don't know. She's like, you should check it out. So I did. And I became I fill out the application. I went through the background checks, and I actually got to be a Jewish big brother to this young man II and at age 10. And so I have to tell you, one of the best experiences in my life was to become a mentor. And I today roll the clock forward. 29 years in is now close to 40 years old or 39 years old. He's married with a son who's one noble and two wife, Sarah, and we are family. We stayed together past age 18 Seen, and we've continued on. And I know not a lot of people do that. But it was probably one of the best experiences I've ever done. I've gotten so much out of it. Everyone's like, Oh, you did so much for in? Well, he did so much for me and my daughter, Emily calls him uncle and my wife and I are we are his family, his dad was in prison and then passed away and his mom passed away where his family now. And so one of the best experiences. So that's how I kind of got into the Jewish community. And also being in sales I was I ended up being a good fundraiser. And so these nonprofits that live their lifeblood is fundraising dollars. I didn't mind calling people asking them for donations or sitting down over coffee, asking them for donations. So I learned how to do that out in Southern California in Northern California. And I've continued to do that. So that gave me a real good taste of faith. I'm not hugely religious, but I do believe in the community values of the Jewish community. And you get to meet people beyond boards and you get to raise money for really good causes. And so that sort of gave me another foundation to build off of and I've enjoyed doing that as a community sermon for a long time.   Michael Hingson  51:10 I'll bite Where does Ian live today?   Howard Brown  51:13 Okay, well, Ian was in LA when we got matched. I had to move to San Francisco, but I I petitioned the board to keep our match alive because it was scholarship dollars in state right. And went to UC Santa Cruz, Florida State for his master's and got his last degree at Hastings and the Jewish community supported him with scholarships. And in was in very recently was in San Francisco, Oakland area, and now he's lives in South Portland, Oregon.   Michael Hingson  51:39 Ah, so you haven't gotten back to Michigan yet? Although he's getting into colder weather. So there's a chance?   Howard Brown  51:45 Well, let me tell you, he did live with us in Michigan. So using my connections through the Jewish community, I asked if he could interview with a judge from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals a friend of mine, we sat on a on a board of directors for the American Jewish Committee, Detroit. And I said, she's like, well, Howard, I really have to take Michigan kids. I said, You know what? No problem. You decide if he's if he's worthy or not go through your process, but would you take the phone call? So she took the phone call, and I never heard anything. And then Ian called me and he said, I got it. I as a second year loss. Going to be a second year law student. I'm going to be clerking for summer interning and clerking for this judge Leanne white. And again, it just it karma, the payback, it was beautiful. So he lived with us for about four and a half months. And when he came back, and it was beautiful, because Emily was only about four or five years old. And, and he lived with us for that time. And it was beautiful.   Michael Hingson  52:43 But that's really great. That, that you have that relationship that you did the big brother program. And I'm assuming you've been big brother to other people as well.   Howard Brown  52:53 No, no. I have not actually. Because what it did is it trained me to be a dad. So when I had Emily, it was more it was more difficult actually to do that. And so no, Ian has been my one and only match. I mentor a lot of Babson students, and I mentor and get mentored by some cancer patients and, and some big entrepreneurs. Mentorship is a core value of mine. I like to be mentored. And I also like to mentor others. And I think that's, that's what makes the world go round. So when Steve Gates when Bill Gates, his wife, Melinda, just donated 123 million to the overall arching Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America. And that money will filter to all those, I think that that's such a core value. If a young person can have someone that takes interest in them, they can really shape their future and also get a lot out of it. So mentorship is one of my key values. And I hope it's hope it's many of your viewers and yours as well. Michael,   Michael Hingson  53:52 absolutely is I think that we can't do anything if we can't pass on what we've learned and try to help other people grow. I've been a firm believer my entire life of you don't give somebody a fish, you teach them how to fish and however, and wherever that is, it's still the same thing. And we need to teach and impart. And I think that in our own way, every one of us is a teacher and the more we take it seriously, the better it is.   Howard Brown  54:18 Well, I'm now a student not learning podcasting. I learned how to be a book author and I'm learning how to reinvent myself virgin Humpty Dumpty, version two coming out.   Michael Hingson  54:29 So you had been a national cancer survivor advocate and so on. Tell me a little bit about that if you would.   Howard Brown  54:35 So I respect people that want to keep their diagnosis private and their survivorship private. That's not me. I want to be able to help people because if I would have been screened at age 40 or 42, I probably wouldn't have had colon cancer and I was not, but this is a preventable disease and really minorities and indigenous people as they need to get screened more, because that's the highest case of diagnosis for colorectal cancer. But what I think that that's what his needs now it's the second leading killer of cancer right now. And it's an important to get this advocacy out and use your voice. And so I want to use my voice to be able to sound the alarm on getting screening, and also to help people survive. There's I think, 16 million growing to 23 or 4 million by 2030. Cancer survivors out there, cancer diagnosis, it sucks sex all the way around, but it affects more than the patient, it affects your caregiver, it affects your family affects relationships, it affects emotions, physical, and also financial, there is many aspects of survivorship here and more people are learning to live with it and going, but also, quite frankly, I live with in the stage for cancer world, you also live with eminence of death, or desperation to live a little bit longer. You hear people I wish I had one more day. Well, I wish I had time to be able to see my daughter graduate high school, and I did and I cherished it. I'm going to see her graduate college this December and then walk at the Big House here in Michigan, in Ann Arbor in May. And then God willing, I will walk her down the aisle at the appropriate time. And it's good to have those big goals that are important that drive you forward. And so those are the few things that drive me forward.   Michael Hingson  56:28 I know that I can't remember when I had my first colonoscopy. It's been a while. It was just part of what I did. My mother didn't die of colon cancer, but she was diagnosed with colon cancer. She, she went to the doctor's office when she felt something was wrong. And they did diagnose it as colon cancer. She came home my brother was with her. She fell and broke her hip and went into the hospital and passed away a few days later, they did do an operation to deal with repairing her hip. And but I think because of all of that, just the amount that her body went through, she just wasn't able to deal with it. She was 6970. And so it was no I take Yeah, so I was just one of those things that that did happen. She was 71, not 70. But, you know, we've, for a while I got a colonoscopy every five years. And then they say no, you don't need to do it every five years do it every 10 years. The couple of times they found little polyps but they were just little things. There was nothing serious about them. They obviously took them out and autopsy or biopsy them and all that. And no problems. And I don't remember any of it. I slept through it. So it's okay.   Howard Brown  57:46 Great. So the prep is the worst part. Isn't it though? The preps no fun. But the 20 minutes they have you under light anesthesia, they snipped the polyps and away you go and you keep living your life. So that's what I hope for everyone, because I will tell you, Michael, showing through the amount of chemotherapy, the amount of surgeries and the amount of side effects that I have is, is I don't wish that on anyone. I don't wish on anyone. It's not a good existence. It's hard. And quite frankly, it's, I want to prevent about it. And I'm just not talking about colon cancer, get your mammogram for breast cancer, get your check for prostate cancer, you know, self care is vital, because you can't have fun, do your job, work Grow family, if your hell if you're not healthy, and the emotional stuff they call the chemo brain or brain fog and or military personnel refer to it as PTSD. It's real. And you've got to be able to understand that, you know, coming from a cancer diagnosis is a transition. And I'll never forget that my two experiences and I I've got to build and move forward though. Because otherwise it gets dark, it gets lonely, it gets depressing, and then other things start to break down the parts don't work well. So I've chosen to find my happy place on the basketball court be very active in sounding the alarm for as an advocate. And as I never planned on being a book author and now I'm going to be a published author this summer. So there's good things that have come in my life. I've had a very interesting, interesting life. And we're here talking about it now so I appreciate it.   Michael Hingson  59:20 Well tell me about you in basketball seems to be your happy place.   Howard Brown  59:24 So everyone needs to find a happy place. I'll tell you why. The basketball court I've been playing since I was six years old and I was pretty good you know, I'm not gonna go professional. But I happen to like the team sport and I'm a point guard so I'm basically telling people what to do and trash talk and and all that. But I love it a

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Nadine performed three of her songs and spoke about her musical career.Nadine El Roubi is a Sudanese artist who grew up in Virginia, she hopes to expand the understanding of what it means, and looks like, to be Arab Muslim woman. She takes inspiration from icons like Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, and more. She debuted in 2018, with her first solo single “gr8ful”. She has performed in Sudan, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the UK. She will be releasing her debut EP “Triplicity” in October 2022.Created & Hosted by Mikey Muhanna, afikra Edited by: Ramzi RammanTheme music by: Tarek Yamani https://www.instagram.com/tarek_yamani/About Quartertones:QuarterTones is a music show. It is an opportunity to listen to music, across genres, from musicians of and from the Arab world. This series is similar to NPR's All Songs Considered that is focused on the Arab world. afikra will be inviting musicians of all genres, as well as music historians, to help better understand the music that they perform or study. In this series, the guests will be invited to talk about their work and play their music, whether live or recorded, in three segments. The series will host current musicians who play contemporary and modern, including alternative scene or hip-hop, electronic, classical music, among other genres. The musicians will also be from different geographies.Join the live audience: https://www.afikra.com/rsvp   FollowYoutube - Instagram (@afikra_) - Facebook - Twitter Support www.afikra.com/supportAbout afikra:‎afikra is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region- past, present, and future - through conversations driven by curiosity. Read more about us on  afikra.com

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

My friend Ari Fuld HY"D was murdered by an Arab Muslim terrorist just a few days before the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. This is the pre-Yom Kippur message that I shared after his murder.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Four years since his murder by an Arab Muslim terrorist.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

There is a solution to ending the terror in Gaza. One solution. And this is it. Too many people think there is no solution to ending the Arab terror from Gaza. Too many people think that it is immoral for Israel to use too much force against the terrorists from Gaza to stop the rocket attacks that endanger all Israelis. These are the same people who supported the total capitulation to the Arab Muslim terrorists in Gaza back in 2005, that forcefully expelled 10,000 innocent Jews from their homes while destroying 21 Jewish communities, with the biggest percentage of agricultural exports from all of Israel. Plenty of people like myself protested against the immoral 2005 Gaza pullout, and warned that it would lead to a more dangerous reality. But we were labeled as “crazy” fearmongers. This is just another example of how the Western liberal mindset thinks “morality” yet supports immoral policies. Well, I had the pleasure of interviewing Martin Sherman, founder of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies Studies, who recently wrote about this exact issue. You do not want to miss it.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Intro and wrap for AP Religion Roundup

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Sept. 6th is the anniversary of the horrible 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, where 11 Israeli Olympic athletes and trainers were brutally murdered by Arab Muslim terrorists, led by Yassar Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. The fact that our leaders are silent and complacent that neither Arafat nor Abbas apologized for that, and other horrific terror attacks, and instead have accepted them as potential "peace partners", even as they continued to support and finance terror, is a blot of shame upon all of our leaders, global, Israeli and Jewish leaders.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Arab-Muslim discussion and interviews with hosts Samar Jarrah and Ahmed Bedier.

Today I am sharing another gem from the Immigrantly vault. It's our conversation with Abubakr Ali. He is an actor, writer, and singer. Last year, he landed a significant role in the upcoming Netflix series Grendel as the anti-hero, Hunter Rose. This opportunity is historic because Abubakr is the first Arab Muslim actor to lead in a comic book adaptation. As he steps into the spotlight, Abubakr was recently featured in the New York Times and other significant publications. Since ours was his first ever podcast interview, we thought it would be fun to re-share our fantastic conversation, especially for listeners who recently became part of the Immigrantly community. So enjoy! Libsyn is the sponsor of this episode. Click on Libsyn.com and use code Friend to get your discount! Join the conversation: Instagram @immigrantlypod | Twitter @immigrantly_pod |  Please share the love and leave us a review to help more people find us! Host & Executive Producer: Saadia Khan I Associate Producer: Kinza Muzahir I Content Writer: Yudi Liu I Sound Designer & Editor: Manni Simon & Tom Whelan I Immigrantly Theme Music: Evan Ray Suzuki I Other Music: Epidemic Sounds  

Japan is coming to terms with the assassination of its former prime minister Shinzo Abe; President Biden signs an executive order to help safeguard women's access to abortion; and the Tunisian hoping to become the first ever African and Arab Muslim woman to win a tennis grand slam at Wimbledon.

Going after what makes you happy as an Arab Muslim woman doesn't always come with instant gratification. There is pain and guilt involved when finally making a decision for yourself.I often wonder to myself, will I ever experience happiness without allowing myself to poison the moment by the idea that I'm making others unhappy in return.Grief is interesting when it shows up in moments where you are welcoming a new chapter in your life - a chapter you have been making dua for for the longest. Yet somehow and someway without an invite, grief can show up and incessantly knock on your door and you have no choice but to acknowledge it.But I'm trying my best to not allow grief to paralyze me, or to instill fear in me and prevent me from entering this new chapter of my life. I am someone who has stayed in her comfort zone for far too long and so, naturally self doubt is trying to keep me here a bit longer but for the first time I'm refusing to do so.Someone else who may understand what I am going through is none other than Abeer Najjar. She is a self taught chef and food writer, born on the Southside of Chicago to Palestinian immigrant parents - and in today's episode Abeer shares with us her journey of self growth and self development as an Arab woman.I have a heart to heart with Abeer in regards to some of her most recent decisions that she has made and how that has impacted her relationship with her parents. I've realized that when discussing the topic of self development as an Arab woman it is almost impossible to not touch upon our past and current relationship with our immigrant parents and how that has shaped the decisions we are making today. As grown adults how can we transform our bond with our parents to welcome them into the new chapters of our lives?We also can't forget about the picture of Abeer at Umrah going viral - a  picture that had captured a beautiful moment between Abeer and her brother - but I also wanted to discuss the experiences she had at Umrah, the ones that weren't captured within this photo and the reflections she can share with us that she has brought back from her trip.How does ihsan and taqwa play a role in our lives as Muslim women who are trying to forge a new path for themselves, while balancing a relationship with their parents and working towards emotional independence?Enjoy and follow the pod on Instagram:@unsweetenedandunfilteredFollow Abeer Najjar on Instagram:@abeernajjar_Check out Abeer's blog:Click here