Hi everybody, this is Gadsad. Today is October 31st, 2025. It's the eve of Shabbat,

and it's a very important day in terms of my personal history because it is, I believe it's today 50 years ago that we arrived to Montreal from Lebanon,

having just escaped the first year of the astounding brutality of the Lebanese civil war.

And so to honor that 50 year celebration, I thought that I would take a few minutes to read for you

pages 2 through 7 from the parasitic mind, which I hope that if you haven't gotten a copy yet, that you do so.

And you'll see in a second why it's relevant to this 50-year anniversary.

I should mention that I cannot express how thankful I am that we were able to miraculously

escape such a difficult situation. And so I'm forever

grateful to, of course, Canada for having granted us a better life in the West and more generally

thankful to cosmic justice for having allowed us to escape.

In any case, here we go.

The section is titled Growing Up in Lebanon.

I was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1964 and spent the first 11 years of my life in the

quote Paris of the Middle East.

My family was part of the dwindling Jewish community that had steadfastly remained in Lebanon despite the growing signs

that Lebanese Jews had a bleak future. My father had nine sisters and a brother, while my mother

had six sisters, all of whom, with the exception of one paternal aunt, had emigrated

from Lebanon long prior to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1975. My maternal grandparents died

prior to my birth. My paternal grandparents left for Israel around 1970. A similar immigration pattern occurred within my immediate family. I have two

brothers and one sister, all much older than I. The closest to me in age is 10 years older.

My eldest brother married a Christian woman of Palestinian origin and they immigrated to Montreal,

Canada in 1974.

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