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Michael Isaac Shokrian

Michael Isaac Shokrian

Iranian-Jewish author and attorney; founder and editor of The Thieving Magpie literary magazine; debut novelist (American Playground)

Jul 7, 2026

LeoHOST
36:56
And maybe that's what they want from us.
37:00
You know, just hearing you, and both of you actually, It's very interesting because, first of all, I'm going to assume that the world being as big as it is and humanity being as lengthy as it is, There are probably other groups that have been persecuted that we have no knowledge of and for the exact same non-reasons, meaning kind of random.
37:35
But I want to just get back to this idea that if the Jews weren't hated so much, they might not exist.
37:43
And I compare it to this joke I heard from Sarah Silverman, the comedian.
37:50
She said that she had found out that squirrels don't know where they've buried 90% of their walnuts, right? And that's why we have walnut trees.
38:13
you know, it's like this phenomenon of nature that actually exists for natural organic reasons that you can't really, you couldn't have made it like that.
38:25
It just, it's that way.

7 MINS LATER

LeoHOST
45:29
So maybe the language sounds a bit biblical, but when you kind of, when you, when you, scrape the the outer layer you're left with something very very pure that talks about a very sublime purpose for humanity so we can't separate the the reason for hate hating the jews from the purpose of the jews from the meaning of life from humanity and our place in the world like it's all it's like you know it's one bundle almost

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