It is not every day one encounters a Cairo-born Muslim Arab, carefully taught to view Jews as apes and pigs, who now declares himself a proud Zionist.
Meet Hussein Mansour. Persecuted in his homeland for daring to promote a positive view of Jews and Israel, Mansour sought political asylum in the United States. He’s built a new life here, advocating for Israel while teaching a language course in Northern California.
The language he teaches? Hebrew.
Mansour, 26, recounted his life story at a Jan. 27 gathering held in a private home in Berkeley. The event was sponsored by the pro-Israel nonprofit StandWithUs and drew a full house of 30 rapt attendees.
He started out describing a happy, middle-class childhood in Cairo with his parents and siblings. As he grew, the banker’s son took in the narrative most Egyptians accept as fact — that they are part of a great nation with a great history, and that all others are inferior. On 9/11, Mansour said, his parents rejoiced as the twin towers fell, exclaiming “Mighty Allah is punishing the infidels.”
“There is a supervillain in this narrative,” he said, “purely evil and out to destroy the world: the Jews. We’d go to the mosque and hear how Israel is trying to destroy the Muslim world. It was how we viewed life. I had no reason to question it.”
As a young teen he wanted to contribute to “this great battle between good and evil” and rid the world of that supervillain. The self-described “fat nerd” decided to learn the language of the enemy so he could “decode their evil plans.” He started to teach himself Hebrew.
Turning to the Internet, he not only pieced together ad hoc Hebrew lessons, he also discovered a world beyond his own. “For the first time,” Mansour recalled, “I exposed myself to other histories, new accounts of the Middle East, Israel and Jews, the actual indigenous group. These stories made much more sense. I couldn’t find anything remotely close to what I was told as a child.”
He slowly started to believe that everyone around him was wrong, and that he was right.
After trying out banking, Mansour enrolled in Hebrew and Jewish studies at Cairo University. He said Holocaust denial, blood libel and other anti-Semitic canards were accepted as fact.
One day, Mansour decided to pay a call on the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo, a mostly ignored relic of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. There he met a Jewish person for the first time in his life and was welcomed warmly.
Within minutes of his visit, Egyptian state security personnel were on him, ordering Mansour to find a new interest. But he could not. Jewish studies “changed me completely,” he said. “It defined me.”
He started a blog that questioned the anti-Semitic articles of faith rife in Muslim society. This brought more harassment, and cast shame on his family. But Mansour would not back down. In 2010 he was arrested multiple times, eventually ending up in a military prison where he said he was tortured.
The Arab Spring in 2011 offered a glimmer of hope, but Mansour found himself disillusioned when the Muslim Brotherhood bullied its way to leadership of the revolution. Once the Islamist government of now-deposed President Mohammed Morsi assumed power, repression of dissent worsened. Mansour had no choice but to flee.
Disowned by his parents, he said he will never see his family or homeland again.
“No matter how hard it is,” he said, “I have succeeded in doing everything they tried to stop me from doing. I teach Hebrew. I go to campuses and defend Israel. Education is the only way to solve the most pressing issue of our time, radical Islam.”
Mansour has not been to Israel, and because of restrictions on asylum seekers he may not be allowed to travel there any time soon. He says it is his fondest wish to visit the country.
“I know Israel is not perfect,” he said. “But I hope one day Israel can stop fighting for its existence, for its survival.”
When a questioner asked how the Jewish and pro-Israel community can help combat rising anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment, Mansour had a succinct answer. “By not being silent.”
