I was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. We were part of a dwindling population of Lebanese Jews who had remained in our homeland despite the growing tension facing our community. Growing up, I faced countless instances of Jew-hatred (see chapter 1 of my 2020 The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense). When the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser died in 1970, I vividly remember, as a five-year-old child, the procession of protesters walking by our home screaming with great zeal “Death to Jews.” I suppose that the mourning is rendered less painful if accompanied by a call for the extermination of Jews.
