Ep 347: Influential Origins with Alan Mindel and guest Abraham Hamra P3 on hmTv

Ep. 347 – Influential Origins
Alan Mindel with Guest: Abraham Hamra (Part 3)**

In the powerful conclusion of this three-part conversation, Alan Mindel and Abraham Hamra dive headfirst into one of the most urgent debates facing the Jewish world today: identity, memory, and the dangerous cost of forgetting who we are.

With honesty, humor, and a shared willingness to challenge assumptions, Alan and Abraham trace the divergent histories of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews — from assimilation in Europe to oppression in the Middle East — and reveal how these experiences shape today’s battles over Zionism, pride, antisemitism, and the modern American Jewish landscape.

They tackle generational complacency, the pitfalls of privilege, the rewriting of Jewish values, campus culture, DEI ideology, the erasure of Mizrahi trauma, and the critical need to teach our kids all sides of Jewish history.
Most of all, they make the case that the Jewish people — from Poland to Syria to Iran to Ethiopia — are one family with one shared destiny.

This is an unfiltered, heartfelt, and deeply human conversation about standing tall as Jews, fighting for others without losing yourself, and reclaiming the pride and unity that have sustained our people for millennia.

A gripping finale you won’t forget.

Transcript

Ep. 347 – Influential Origins
Host: Alan Mindel
Guest: Abraham Hamra
hmTv**

00:00:14,160 – 00:00:35,200
Alan: This is Alan Mindel with Influential Origins, and I promise this is the concluding chapter of my time with Abraham Hamra — who’s given me a lot of it. But he’s opened so many doors in our last conversations that I feel compelled to follow a few into modern times.

00:00:35,200 – 00:01:11,359
Alan: You know, one of the ways I know that some Jews in America have become privileged is this: it takes a special kind of privilege for a Jew who doesn’t know their history — who doesn’t know they’ve been kicked out of country after country in Europe and the Middle East — to imagine that they’re somehow above the need to stand up for their own people. We all saw Fiddler on the Roof. The story isn’t subtle: Jews don’t stay in Anatevka long.

00:01:11,359 – 00:01:32,879
Alan: Libya, Morocco, Iran, Iraq, Yemen — we could sit here all day listing the places Jews once lived and aren’t anymore. You travel anywhere on earth, and there’s a Jewish quarter where Jews were… and somehow aren’t today.
The privilege it takes to think, “No, I’m just American. My rights are safe. I don’t need to be part of the Jewish community.” It blows my mind.
And that’s coming from an Ashkenazi guy.

00:01:32,879 – 00:01:39,120
Alan: The truth is, some of the most dangerous things to the Jewish people come from Jews who don’t realize they’re Jews.

Abraham: Yeah.

Alan: It’s a whole phenomenon.

00:01:39,120 – 00:02:01,280
Abraham: It’s weird. It’s like this internalized need to be… I don’t know what. Something else. It’s strange.

Alan: Right.
Could you imagine criticizing the very existence of the State of Israel if you’d escaped Hafez al-Assad?

Abraham: Never.

Alan: In a million years you wouldn’t. Same if you lived in Iran in ’79. Your life changed overnight — beheadings, confiscations, running for your life. When you’ve lived that, you understand the value of freedom in America and in Israel.

00:02:01,280 – 00:02:37,840
Alan: Today, so many people are blind to history — privileged enough to think everything will magically be okay. “I’m a gay Jew for Palestine,” they say, while knowing full well that if they lived openly as gay in Gaza, the West Bank, or most Arab countries…

Abraham: As NSYNC says: “Bye, bye, bye.”

Alan: You’re dead.
There’s no debate. No nuance. Just gone.

00:02:37,840 – 00:03:04,800
Alan: And yet this is where we are. It makes me crazy.

Abraham: Actually, it makes sense to me.

Alan: How?

Abraham: Because we had different diaspora experiences.

Alan: True.

00:03:04,800 – 00:03:47,600
Abraham: And look — I don’t like dividing Jews. Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi — we’re one people. But we have to be honest about our different histories.
Reform Judaism in Germany grew out of comfort, acceptance, assimilation. They wanted Judaism to align with European culture. “Berlin is our new Jerusalem.” Real quotes.

Alan: Didn’t age well.

Abraham: But understandable. When you’re accepted, you want to assimilate.
For us Mizrahim? There was no assimilation. You couldn’t just “blend in.” You’d convert or you’d die. So we held on fiercely.

00:03:47,600 – 00:04:35,680
Alan: Because if you forgot who you were, the people around you reminded you — brutally.

Abraham: Exactly.
And now in America, the same assimilation impulse continues. Reform institutions adopt whatever ideology the political left champions — diversity, equity, inclusion — all worthy concepts in their pure form. But they became identity markers. “To be a good Jew is to be progressive.”
And suddenly tikkun olam got rewritten as “fighting for every cause except ourselves.”

Alan: And tikkun olam is real — but it’s not the only commandment.

Abraham: But they made it the only one.

00:04:35,680 – 00:05:33,360
Abraham: Look, I respect every person — gay, straight, trans, whoever. But when someone says advocating for things the Torah forbids is “tikkun olam,” they’re rewriting Judaism. You can choose what you do — just don’t pretend the Torah changed to match modern trends.

Alan: You can be honest about what you’re keeping and what you’re not.

Abraham: Exactly. Otherwise, you can’t transmit anything to the next generation.

00:05:33,360 – 00:06:38,000
Abraham: And then you get people chanting “Free Palestine” who don’t even realize they’re erasing Mizrahi Jews entirely — Jews oppressed by the very regimes they’re supporting.
They don’t know their ancient history or their recent history.
At all.

Alan: And this pattern is ancient.
Take Hanukkah — Judah Maccabee wasn’t lighting a candelabra for fun. It was a war against assimilation.

Abraham: Exactly! And ironically it’s Reform Judaism’s favorite holiday.

Alan: Right — the story completely sanitized into “eight fun nights.”

00:06:38,000 – 00:07:27,279
Abraham: And look — I’m not the most religious guy. I text on Shabbat sometimes. But at least I don’t lie to myself about what’s right and wrong.
And what drives me crazy is that a lot of the loudest “anti-Zionist Jews” don’t see Mizrahi Jews at all. They think every Jew is some wealthy white dentist from Manhattan.

Alan: Bill Maher said it well: Not every Jew is that guy you saw last week.

00:07:27,279 – 00:08:10,640
Alan: We’re one community — Holocaust survivors from Poland, refugees from Syria, Iranians from Great Neck, Yemenite Jews, Ethiopian Jews — all carrying parallel trauma.
So when someone says, “Oh, Iran wasn’t the Holocaust,” I say: So hanging uncles in public squares is okay? Stealing property is okay? Fleeing with nothing is okay?
Oppression is oppression.

Abraham: Exactly. And by the way — I don’t want Mizrahim attacking Ashkenazim or vice versa. This isn’t a competition. It’s one family with different tools.

00:08:10,640 – 00:09:11,759
Abraham: Ashkenazi Jews are powerful advocates against white-supremacist antisemitism because they lived it. Mizrahi Jews are powerful advocates against anti-Zionist antisemitism because we lived that.
Both stories matter. Both sides must teach each other.
Your kids need to know my history.
My kids need to know yours.

Alan: That’s it right there.

00:09:11,759 – 00:09:47,039
Alan: And honestly, the one upside of this horrible moment is that it woke Jews up. My kids had “being Jewish” as a footnote, a small piece of their identity. Now they understand pride. They understand the fight required to maintain freedom — in America and Israel.

Abraham: We woke up from complacency. America gave Jews a renaissance — and we want to keep it. But we forgot it requires vigilance.

00:09:47,039 – 00:10:51,359
Alan: And we’re not the only group fighting for rights. Every community in America has had to fight. And when any of them walk into your office, you fight for them too.

Abraham: Absolutely.
We want freedom for everyone. Equality for everyone.
We just need to stop letting ourselves get stepped on.
Stand up for ourselves and others — but without erasing who we are.

Alan: Exactly.
If you don’t look out for yourself, you can’t look out for anyone else.
Hillel said it: If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

00:10:51,359 – end
Alan: Abraham, it has been a privilege of a lifetime. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with me.

Abraham: Absolutely a privilege. Thank you.

Alan: And that’s our episode.