Editing Sirhan B. Sirhan (section)

===Early life===
Sirhan was born into an Arab Palestinian Christian family in Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine. As a child growing up in the West Bank, Sirhan was traumatized by the violence he witnessed in the Arab–Israeli conflict, including the death of his older brother, who was run over by a Jordanian military vehicle that was swerving to escape Israeli gunfire.

When Sirhan was 12 years old, his family emigrated to the US, moving briefly to New York and then to California. In Altadena, he attended Eliot Junior High School, followed by John Muir High School and Pasadena City College, both in Pasadena. Sirhan's father, Bishara, has been characterized as a stern man who often beat his sons harshly. Shortly after the family's move to California, Bishara returned alone to the Middle East. Standing 5 feet 5 inches (165 cm) and weighing 120 pounds (54 kg) at 20 years old, Sirhan moved to Corona to train to be a jockey while working at a stable, but lost his job and abandoned the pursuit after suffering a head injury in a racing accident.

Sirhan never became an American citizen, retaining instead his Jordanian citizenship. As an adult, he changed church denominations several times, joining Baptist and Seventh-day Adventist churches. Then in 1966, he joined the occult organization Ancient Mystical Order of the Rose Cross, commonly known as the Rosicrucians.