Finkelstein grew up in Borough Park , then Mill Basin , both in Brooklyn , New York , where he attended James Madison High School . In his memoir , Finkelstein recall his strong youthful identification with the outrage that his mother , witness to the genocidal atrocities of World War II , felt at the carnage wrought by the United States in Vietnam . One childhood friend recall his mother 's " emotional investment in left @-@ wing humanitarian causes as bordering on hysteria " . He had " internalized [ her ] indignation " , a trait which he admit rendered him " insufferable " when talking of the Vietnam War , and which imbued him with a " holier @-@ than @-@ thou " attitude at the time which he now regret . But Finkelstein regard his absorption of his mother 's outlook — the refusal to put aside a sense of moral outrage in order to get on with one 's life — as a virtue . Subsequently , his reading of Noam Chomsky played an important role in tailoring the passion bequeathed to him by his mother to the necessity of maintaining intellectual rigor .