Ayman Ismail

And it turned out that there was this pro-Israel Zionist group who had been fighting with that local bookstore for a long time because they feel like their bookstore is too sympathetic to Palestinian authors.

I'm not Palestinian.

I'm just Arab and Muslim.

But still, that was enough, I think, for people to assign me with a responsibility of something that I didn't ask for.

And at the same time,

it's becoming painfully aware that this is going to be the same ecosystem that my kids are going to be growing up in.

And one of the things that I think makes my book really interesting is that I talk about what it was like to be in an Islamic school situation.

And then right after 9-11, when the school shuts down because of all these bomb threats, and my parents didn't really feel safe sending our kids to Islamic school anymore.

So we're in New Jersey, like 10, 15 minutes out of New York City.

And so after 9-11, or the day of 9-11, the school got shut down.

They let everybody out early because a mob had formed outside.

Outside of the Islamic school.

And so after a day or two, the schools didn't open up back up.

There was a bunch of bomb threats being called in because they were still, you know, this angry community wanted them out.

So my mom didn't want me to miss school.

So she withdrew me out of the Islamic school and put me in the local public school.

And this is something that I've been wanting.

And this is something I've been like begging her to do because I didn't want to be in the Islamic school anymore.

But at this point, it all came to a head.

And so I write about what it was like to be thrust into this environment.