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Karl Marx once said that history repeats itself: first as tragedy, then as farce. The riots and Iranian fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie, which forced the British-Kashmiri author into hiding for 13 years, can only be described as tragic — for him and for the cause of freedom and tolerance.
Reading "Mein Kampf" was no simple task for me. Growing up in Tel Aviv, I learned from a young age that the book was taboo. More than that, it felt like forbidden fruit; as if bringing it home would have contaminated my apartment. Even checking out the book from the library was no simple task. However, as a scholar, a philosopher of humanistic education and a curious human being, an urge grew inside me over the years to read Hitler's own words -- to learn his view of the Jews and why he was consumed with hatred that resulted in the destruction of so many people.