Early Life
Darwish was born in 1910 to the Jewish Egyptian jeweller Moussa Youssef Farag Darwish. His family belonged to the minority Karaite Jews that were one of the communities that comprised the rich and diverse mosaic of Egyptian Jewry. Karaite Jews were simultaneously multilingual and highly integrated in the Egyptian community at that time; most families spoke French and Arabic at home and sent their children to bilingual schools. Some families spoke Greek, Russian and Turkish as well.
Darwish graduated from a prestigious French high school in Cairo, l'Ecole des Frères, in 1929 and received his degree in law from the University of Toulouse in 1932. In Toulouse, Darwish was first exposed to the Marxist literature and became engaged in the local cell of the French Communist Party.
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