good morning. welcome to mosaic, i am rabbi eric weiss and, on it to the your house this morning. throughout our country we are faced with a situation in which we are thinking about strongly about how it is we listen to one another and how we are hurt to one another. we would like to invite you to a wonderful conversation by rabbi levi cell, who has written a wonderful book. welcome, lea. >> thank you eric, it is a pleasure to be here with you. >> we have this big issue in our country. and whatever waye t issu of

the day, what is coming to the the ys the ways in which we in which we hear one another, the ways in which we have listened. and you have written a fantastic book that has to do with understanding and hearing other people stories, and ways in which they are hurt, and ways in which you can listen to them. jump right in, and ask you what led you to this book, what is this book, and tell us the background of a paired >> i think your assessment is exactly right. i worry a great deal that we don't converse anymore. we have lost that as part of a conversation. we have become very divisive. the political rhetoric on both sides dominate our conversations. this is a conversation about human beings, and ethical issue. for me, it started many years ago in childhood or adolescence, but really in 2004, when i made my first visit to eastern chad, and to refugee camps, right when they were coming over. and, in this camps i would say

is really when i started listening to refugee stories. i saw the best of humanity, and i heard about the worst of humanity, and what had happened to people. i made many subsequent trips. then, many years later, in looking at this world we are living in, i said i wanted to do something. we often forget there is real people involved. and, that is what led to this book. >> so, use this wonderful term real people. as you are talking, it occurs to me that listening and hearing has more to do with just the words that you hear, it has to do with the person in front of you and how you read them, how you listen to them, how you take in their entire being. i am wondering if you could talk a little bit about what it was like for you, and what about that was stimulating to you to continuing understanding and hearing stories, as opposed

to reading an article about it is something. what is it about being with another real human being about listening and hearing? >> i love being with people. technology is great. there is nothing like being with another person. there is so much more than the words. so, any of the work i've done, or any work on my book i did, throughout the years i try to be fully present, so that for my book i take all those energies because i did not want to be preoccupied with writing down things. so it means be fully present to me and it is really bearing witness to another person's life. i view it as a privilege when people share their story with you, the most difficult times, when the helgeson hope, when they get a break, when someone was there for them. it is really going out of yourself into their story, and not finding it in one's words, but letting them, let ages pour out and really take it in. >> shall we jump in, is there a little bit of a section of

someone store you would like? >> that would be great. there are all of these 11 people are incredible. i'll take one. a woman by the name of center but now lives in houston now. she is iraqi, new cd, which is a religion that not many people know a lot about but worth listing about. and, she talks about living in iraq at the time of hussein. but, in this passage, what i have done here is i highlight their works. because it is there stories. i am just a conduit for telling the stories. so, she shares we all live in fear of hussein and what he might do at any time. he kept the iraqi people isolated from the world. anyone who was dissented was killed. to me, what it's about that line, one can read that line and just go on in this country,

we can percent and democracies around the world. in many parts of the world, dissenting eagles being killed. we have a little bit of that in this country, too. is moves me, her n not the rule grandfather talked about the value of education, and about value of stories. when i reached high school, my father and grandfather thought it was time that i started reading books. i had three or four books in english, this is in high school. first i met with gone with the way i read it again in arabic, because i worried i might miss something. then, i read a ton of cholera by marquez. i read that over four times. and she says about marquez, mike has transformed me from the reality of my daily life, and the village of michiko. , she goes on to say, i wanted to learn everything. i wanted to educate myself about the western world, and help people. i studied the arts and movies. and, she said the following to

me. she said by doing all of this reading and the imaginary girl, because i was always telling them stories cultures and heroes, and the stories that transform >> we will take a quick break, but thank you for the story. we have jumped into this wonderful conversation, please join us in just a moment.

good morning and welcome back to mosaic, i am rabbi eric weiss and. we have a wonderful college conversation with levi cell who has written a wonderful book called refugees in america, stories of courage reserve and hope in their own words. in a moment, we will ask you to read another snippet of a story. you were talking about ascension, and iraqi woman who is the icd. i know for a lot of people that is a real word. i am wondering if you can take a moment for you to explain. >> we have little familiarity here. they are monotheistic, and they believe in the sun as a source of life and inspiration. they do not go to services weekly basis, but have their own way prayg and how they

treat people. they are very into, they really value human interaction, respect dignity and all that. and i think some of us remember back to 2014 when they were trapped on the co-amount center are being attacked by isis, each we have labeled as a genocide. and, we did bomb, there were 40 or 50,000 of them trapped. they were being circled around the mountain. and, we bought at the bottom and many of them were able to escape. they continue to be persecuted in iraq. >> i think they are a branch of a zero austrian? >> yes. exactly. >> so, another story. >> the oldest person in my book is a holocaust survivor i name sidonia lex. each person, a lot of people in different countries, different times, different ages. sidonia, unbelievable story. and the themes of her sleeves, courage, hope. this one part really gets to me.

this is a woman who is fierce. she spent decades in schools talking about the holocaust, teaching people. she shares when she was living in a bunker for three months underground in the warsaw ghetto, she would sneak out when she could. she was a young teenager. so, she shares the following, sidonia. at that time, i was eating from trash cans leftovers. there i was, a teenager with no vitamins whatsoever for years, now. my father heard somebody somewhere illegally had some apples for sale. he wanted in the worst way to get an apple for me. he never came back, and all i know is that i lost my father because of an apple. every time i eat an apple, i remember him. so, here is a person who takes an experience like that, and she is an optimist about life, she is deeply aware of current events and involved in current situations. but, rather than feeling the sadness, which she does inside,

she views her dad in positive ways. she loves apples always around her, and her nickname is the apple lady. >> this story reminds me of something i was thinking about as i read your book, which is that in some cases, the person telling their story has told their story repeatedly. and in some cases, they are part of a group that goes to an education setting and continues to tell personal stories as a matter of historical record for a class studying something of historical significance. in some cases, the very first time the person is telling their story, the very first time even the most intimate family member read or hear their story is through your book. we are taking a quick break in a moment. i want to ask you just to of stories that are repeatedly told, stories told for the very

first time? >> so, most just to put it in context, three out of the 11 speak often about their stories, that is not an accurate representation. most refugees are never speaking about it. they do not want their children to know about the heart ache and hurt. and many said to me, lee, no one has ever asked me about my story. no one has ever sat down with me and asked. for those people, this is really cathartic that they shared it, and were willing to have any book, and other children are seeing it, and it's having a great impact on them. to me, it emphasizes how important is it that we ask each other about our stories? >> and such an interesting,, we can talk when we get back from break about really what is the effect of silence, and the effect of not asking i'm not even going to ask. please join us in a moment back here on mosaic.

good morning, welcome back to mosaic.

in the middle of a wonderful conversation with levi cell about his book, refugees in america stories of courage resilience and hope in their own words. if you would like to have more information about refugees in america, please go to refugees in america.com. that is refugees in america.com. welcome back lee. we were talking about all of the different stories, and i am so interested in one of the words of the subtitle of your book, which is hope. i know that you have a little piece on that topic that is from one of the folks in the book. i am wondering if you take a moment to read what he said. >> yes, hope is such an important thing to have in life. and, for all of refugees, i thk there are moments, moments, months, years, where they lose hope. when they get a window where they can have hope, so here is aaron scimitar who suffered terrible brutality from the

regime in eritrea. he gave the graduation speech at the university of san francisco in december 2016. and, these words were part of this talk, his talk. it is not an easy road, but hope is the oxygen of my life. i have hope in humanity. so simple, but so true. that to me is the challenge, how do i find hope? what is the source of that for me? why do we give up hope? here is people who have been through so much, marriages reflects everyone else i have ever met who has been a marriage he, and still has hope in humanity even though he experienced the worst of it. >> you bring up such an important point, and such a big western. every faith tradition tries to articulate hope. there are theological structures, there are core narratives,therare

core contemporary conversations about what hope is and how it functions. a lot of times, i think we think of hope as something that we come to understand in our own lives. certainly that is part of it. i am wondering for you, what you learned about hope from these folks. >> these people have taught me so much about life. one of the things, it is true i think of every refugee i met for the most part, they have great respect for our stories. you, me, all the viewers, everyone has a story. their stories are dramatically different, because they suffered tremendous hardship. but, from them, i mean insights about how to live life, about how to not take education for granted, or every day for granted. and i fell in judaism, the reminder for me, my favorite prayer which i see every night at that is the huskies a new,

allow me to go to bed in pete's, i translate the following way. allow me to put my head in my pillow today in peace. be at peace with what i did today. but, then the part of hope is allow me to be in hope tomorrow, renewed it to life, to relationships again. that is a hopeful prayer. in, these people have really taught me, and continue to teach me, that one has to have strength, one has to have resilience, one has to have courage. and, we all can shape a life that we want. and, one thing they all share in common, they all talk about they have been lucky. but, i added a new what to do with their luck. they did not squander it. they got a break and they walked right into it and went t.heremind me n,ou would say th part, if i could say the word business, that theology and faith traditions are in has to do with the cultivation of ho

. we are in the business of hope. maybe that is part of the rationale for faith traditions to be involved with issues of refugees, issues of cultivating hope, issues of catching people when they take a live leap of faith. issues of helping people along the way, teaching the mailing which, tepee teaching them a system, helping them to understand a culture because it is a way of cultivating hope. i wonder if that resonates with you about this topic? >> because i think there is a deep connection. when we read stories like this, or a number of stories, and there is many great writers out there, and when we read oral histories and stories, we learn about others lives. part of it is so we have more empathy and compassion, if we are motivated to help people like refugees in much better ways than we are helping them now. but, also it connects deep with inside of us. what is the refugee experience at its heart? it is lost. loss of home, loss of country,

most of language, loss of familiarity, everything. >> i want to ask you something. i am sure some of our viewers are wondering about this as well, hope is very precarious in many ways. i think there are sope who , they to ch r ligo. i think part of the way hope functions as you discover a place of hope that you did not know existed. so, i wonder how you think about the human struggle where people really come to a point of no hope, i don't have choice about whatever it is. >> and, there are many people suffering from that and have that. i really get it. i think what refugees teach us is how, even when you have a little window, that you can find something to be hopeful about. because in judaism for all human beings, there is always the possibility. so, if i can, i have a very

dear friend with als. i recently talked with him, we have this to do, these trips, that trip, he has retreat reshaped it about how grateful he is a life for all e thgs he did on the bucket list he dreamt about, and he shaped his bucket list now to be realistic for what it confined to a wheelchair. i think part of it is being a realistic, being realistic about hope, that i can't hope to go play professional baseball . but, can i hope to be more appreciative of what i have in life? so, what are we hopeful about, and if it is realistic, god willing with the right support, we can find the inverse of support. , the stories, these kinds of stories we read, they can't inspire us, like with the center. the story saved her life,

stories took her out of that world of her little village, and all the horrors, that thinking about the story said there is hope out there somewhere. >> thank you for getting to the complexity of it. i think one of the ideas we don't necessarily talk about is the way hope converts itself to other forms of hope along the way of the human experience. we are going to take another quick break and come back to mosaic in just a moment.

good morning, and welcome back to mosaic. we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation with lee eisele about his book, refugees in america stories of courage, resilience, and hope in their own words. i'll come back, lee. i want to ask you a couple logistic questions. i am sure people are thinking i have an idea for a story, i would like to do this kind of treatment with the people i know. can you talk a little bit about how do you find a publisher, how did you get this book published, what was that process? >> it is a long journey. you have to have a lot of patience, which all refugees have, to have to have a lot of patience to do a book. this kind of book is harder than i thought. i am only reflecting their stories, i had to work carefully with when writing their stories to make sure they were happy with it. i am not writing a book of

fiction, i am not just writing an academic book, it is people's lives that are at stake here. i wanted to make sure to get it right and they were comfortable. and, i had help to get an agent in new york. the agent shops the book, it records university expressed interest. and, finally that worked out. and, from the time they accept it, and i didn't believe it would take this long, to the time it's published as a year. i kept saying to myself why would it take so long? it just is, we do not have time for that on the show. you have to have a lot of patience and good brakes. i was lucky to get a good agent and good publishing house. >> and, in the context of the book itself, is this in the category of history, or in oral history? >> they are putting it in the category of human right, maybe oral history, but really nonfiction, sort of a variety of categories dealing with human rights. >> interesting. i wanted to ask you two quick questions. we are almost at the end of our

time together. just rewinding a little bit, we talked a little bit about the people who tell their story regularly, and the people who have told their story for the first time. i wondered if you could comment a little bit on what that break from silence is like, and maybe even a consequence in a good way, outcome impact of the first time of telling a story, and really in such a public documented forever manner. >> i would say cathartic for the person telling the story, as they got more and more into it, we spent hours upon hours together. i think the more they felt empowered, that someone was listening and cared about their story. for their families learning about it for the first time, that mom or dadwent through this. i think some family say why didn't you tell me earlier? some now have a much better lens into i think two women in here particular of the mother story, and all she experience, and what she then provided for

the children. so, it is having, and the impact is only unfolding. the new book just came out, and we will learn a lot about that. >> what do you hope people will actually get from the book itself? >> my hope is the following is that people will listen to the stories as a starting point of reframing the conversation about comprehensive immigration reform. you have got to start by a human story, and connecting it to you. for me, it is the following. we have advanced medically, scientifically, technology, etc. etc. have we advanced humanly from the first brother killing the first brother abel? what gives me hope, at times i say we have not advanced. and i really sit and listen to other people, human beings who share this earth, i gain hope in the human story, ence, and t

conversation about the book, refugees in america. he would like to encourage you thk yofor ic book, and

live from the cbs bay area studios, this is kpix 5 news. >> now on kpix 5 news this morning, lisa and investigating a late-night shooting on interstate 80 that forced the freeway to shut down for hours. plus, we are getting a first look at the protester accused of causing a disturbing disruption of the state capital. a multimillion dollar program in the east bay aimed at helping low income students pay for college. now, some are asking where is the money? it is 6 am on the sunday, september 15, and morning i am devin fehely. >> and i am melissa caen. it started out this morning with our forecast. >> today is the day we level us cooldown yesterday. if you are in inland, concord, river moore, you