Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past

[Il-Mari]

A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...wish-past.html

Hey, if Ahmadinejad can be secretly Jewish, maybe there's still hope for Obama being a secret muslim!

- Il-Mari

[PatYoung]

Which just proves his contention that the Jews run everything, including the Islamic Republic!

[Mycroft]

I think that it is not unknown for converts from one religion to another to be very vocally opposed to their previous religion (mainly along the lines that their ancestors had been lied to over the years but they have now discovered the truth)

[Steve Eisenberg]

From the OP Telegraph article:

The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad's birthplace, and the name derives from "weaver of the Sabour", the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia.

From the Guardian, 2 July 2005

The name Saborjhian derives from thread painter - sabor in Farsi -a once common and humble occupation in the carpet industry in Semnan province, where Aradan is situated.

Hmm. Both papers agree that the name Sabourjian comes from working with threads, but, beyond that, it sounds like one paper is right and other wrong.

[Steve Eisenberg]

The Guardian is sticking by their not-Jewish story, and it sounds pretty convincing to me:

Rumours that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's family converted to Islam from Judaism are false

Professor David Yeroshalmi, author of The Jews of Iran in the 19th century and an expert on Iranian Jewish communities, disputes the validity of this argument. "There is no such meaning for the word 'sabour' in any of the Persian Jewish dialects, nor does it mean Jewish prayer shawl in Persian. Also, the name Sabourjian is not a well-known Jewish name," he stated in a recent interview. In fact, Iranian Jews use the Hebrew word "tzitzit" to describe the Jewish prayer shawl. Yeroshalmi, a scholar at Tel Aviv University's Center for Iranian Studies, also went on to dispute the article's findings that the "-jian" ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews. "This ending is in no way sufficient to judge whether someone has a Jewish background. Many Muslim surnames have the same ending," he stated.

[Ana Ng]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

I think that it is not unknown for converts from one religion to another to be very vocally opposed to their previous religion (mainly along the lines that their ancestors had been lied to over the years but they have now discovered the truth)

But it seems many Jews (and even more non-Jews) consider being Jewish to be an ethnicity, which isn't really something you can renounce. Which I'm sure is not news to anyone.

But any of the really vocal anti-Jewish stuff I've seen has never made any reference to religion- it seems largely irrelevant to anti-Semitism. Most of the Jews I know are atheist, but still strongly identify as Jewish, to the point where they observe traditions and holidays and the like. I don't know many lapsed Catholics who can say the same.

[catty5nutz]

I think I am going to be guilty of godwinising here.

At least two other anti-Semites, Hitler and Spanish Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada were alleged to have had Jewish ancestory. It remains unproven i both cases.

Could this be more of the same?

[Tarquin Farquart]

By changing their name, the Iranian president’s family were avoiding snobbery rather than hiding a Jewish past

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/54331,...iran-president

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by catty5nutz

I think I am going to be guilty of godwinising here.

At least two other anti-Semites, Hitler and Spanish Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada were alleged to have had Jewish ancestory. It remains unproven i both cases.

Could this be more of the same?

Could be... But, then, Reinhard Heydrich ("The Butcher of Prague") actually did have Jewish ancestry...

The Jews, isolated and insulated, not least by their own choice, but also by the fierce bigotry surrounding them, tended to reproductive closure: Jews mostly married other Jews. But the Romeo and Juliet effect crosses even the most strict social barriers... (Sigh...not to mention other, less pleasant, effects often plaguing Jews, especially women, especially when Cossacks were involved...)

Silas