825: Yousef
This American Life
03/03/24
•66m
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A series of phone calls to a man in Gaza named Yousef Hammash, between early December and now. He talks about what he and his family are experiencing, sometimes as they are experiencing it.
- Act One: Over the course of one week in December, Yousef tries to get his sisters to safety, in Rafah. (29 minutes)
- Act Two: Yousef is managing a camp of 60 people in Rafah, including his youngest sister, who is 8 months pregnant. Every day there’s talk that Israel will launch a ground assault in Rafah. Yousef and his sister make a plan for her to give birth safely, but it doesn’t go according to plan. And all 60 people in the family are looking to Yousef to tell them where they should go next and how to stay safe. (27 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Previous Episode
824: Family Meeting
February 25, 2024
•58m
Your mother and I have something we want to talk with you about.
- Prologue: A family sits down to discuss one thing. But then the true purpose of the meeting emerges. (9 1⁄2 minutes)
- Act One: For one kibbutz-dwelling family in Israel, the decision of where to land after the October 7th attacks goes back and forth... and back... and forth. (28 minutes)
- Act One: For one kibbutz-dwelling family in Israel, the decision of where to land after the October 7th attacks goes back and forth... and back... and forth. (28 minutes)
- Act Two: An excerpt from “Belles Lettres," a short story by Nafissa Thompson-Spires from her book Heads of the Colored People, performed by actors Erika Alexander and Eisa Davis with a cameo from our colleague Alvin Melathe. (14 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Next Episode
304: Heretics
March 10, 2024
•59m
The story of Reverend Carlton Pearson. He was a rising star in the evangelical movement when he cast aside the idea of hell and, with it, everything he'd worked for over his entire life.
- Carlton Pearson's church, Higher Dimensions, was once one of the biggest in the city, drawing crowds of 5,000 people every Sunday. But several years ago, scandal engulfed the reverend. He didn't have an affair. He didn't embezzle lots of money. His sin was something that to a lot of people is far worse: He stopped believing in hell. (2 minutes)
- Act One: Reporter Russell Cobb takes us through the remarkable and meteoric rise of Carlton Pearson from a young man to a Pentecostal Bishop: From the moment he first cast the devil out of his 17-year-old girlfriend, to the days when he had a close, personal relationship with Oral Roberts and had appearances on TV and at the White House. Just as Reverend Pearson's career peaked, with more than 5,000 members of his congregation coming every week, he started to think about hell, wondering if a loving God would really condemn most of the human race to burn and writhe in the fire of hell for eternity. (30 minutes)
- Act Two: Once he starts preaching his own revelation, Carlton Pearson's church falls apart. After all, when there's no hell (as the logic goes), you don't really need to believe in Jesus to be saved from it. What follows are the swift departures of his pastors, and an exodus from his congregation—which quickly dwindled to a few hundred people. Donations drop off too, but just as things start looking bleakest, new kinds of people, curious about his change in beliefs, start showing up on Sunday mornings. (23 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
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