From Cairo to Championing for the Jewish People

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, a former resident of Cairo, Egypt, will speak at an online event about his journey from Cairo to a champion of the Jewish people in the United States.

Hosted by Congregation Bnai Avraham, Chabad of Brooklyn Heights and Pratt Institute, the event will take place on Sunday, November 8th at 11 am. The event is being sponsored by Mr. Paul Germain and now open to the wider community.

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Zoom Meeting ID: 217 795 2137
Passcode: 063555

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour was born in 1989 in Cairo, Egypt.

He was a self-described reclusive Internet nerd, obsessed with comic books and the like. The ultimate villains in the local lore he was steeped in during his youth were the “bloodthirsty Zionists,” so Hussein began to study the supposed enemies of his people.

Hussein studied Hebrew at Cairo University but did not adapt to the curriculum which was the official anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric of the regime.

Hussein was persecuted by the Egyptian State Police for being the first visitor to check out books and watch films at the Israeli Academic Center of Cairo.

In 2010 he was surveilled, harassed, and jailed for his studies of Israel. Later the same year, he was suspected of being a “Zionist agent” and was held in a military detention facility where he was tortured. When the Egyptian Revolution swept in 2011, Hussein became an organizer in Tahrir Square.

By 2012 the secret police of the Muslim Brotherhood regime again began harassing and persecuting Hussein for his contacts with Israelis and writings expressing hopes for coexistence and peace between the two peoples.

He received asylum in the United States in 2014 and worked as an Assistant Professor of Hebrew Studies in the Defense Language Institute. Hussein is the author of Minority of One, an autobiography about his life in Egypt. He currently works as an Educator for StandWithUs.

“This is a fascinating topic, I am really excited to hear Mr. Hussein speak,” says Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin of Congregation Bnai Avraham and Chabad of Brooklyn Heights.

“It is inspiring to see someone who turned darkness and suffering into light! I am very much looking forward to the event,” says Rabbi Yossi Eliav of Chabad of Pratt institute.

Visit heightschabad.com for more information.