Revelations about Ahmadinejad

Here is an interesting article by Damien McElroy and Ahmad Vahdat in the Telegraph:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past

A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.
A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.

The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.

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. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior.

Experts last night suggested Mr Ahmadinejad's track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.

Ali Nourizadeh, of the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies, said: "This aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad's background explains a lot about him.

"Every family that converts into a different religion takes a new identity by condemning their old faith.

"By making anti-Israeli statements he is trying to shed any suspicions about his Jewish connections. He feels vulnerable in a radical Shia society."

... Mehdi Khazali, an internet blogger, who called for an investigation of Mr Ahmadinejad's roots was arrested this summer.

Mr Ahmadinejad has regularly levelled bitter criticism at Israel, questioned its right to exist and denied the Holocaust.

From Wikipedia, here is another famous Jew-hater with a Jewish past:

Hitler's father, Alois Hitler, was an illegitimate child and, for the first 39 years of his life, bore his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. Alois’ paternity was not listed on his birth certificate, and has been the subject of much controversy. After receiving a "blackmail letter" from Hitler's nephew William Patrick Hitler threatening to reveal embarrassing information about Hitler's family tree, Nazi Party lawyer Hans Frank investigated, and, in his memoirs, claimed to have uncovered letters that revealed Ms. Schicklgruber was employed as a housekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz and that the family’s nineteen year old son, Leopold Frankenberger, fathered Alois.

It is tragic that people become rabid in trying to eradicate their past in order to "satisfy" some part of society that they join. It is especially tragic when these people have power, are megalomaniacal, and are willing to act on their hatreds.

Update 2009oct05: There is a delightful posting by Spencer Ackerman that laughingly presents all the twists and turns of this story:

I Sure Hope The Iranians Overthrow That Jew President Of Theirs (And Other Tribal Conundrums)

YHWH, moonlighting as a subpar Borscht Belt comedian, has given Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Jewish origins, according to the Daily Telegraph's inauguration of a geopolitical psychodrama. We have now determined that identity politics has a dank and silted basement. From here on out, Ahmadinejad can say whatever he likes about the Holocaust or Israel and it'll just be performative and tasteless, not an international outrage. Israel, in the most mindfucky course of events in its history, might be obliged to grant him citizenship. (Knowing Benjamin Netanyahu, he might bulldoze some Palestinian farmer's olive garden to build Ahmadinejad an apartment complex or something.)

Ahmadinejad's detractors are now objectively antisemitic. His comment-thread defenders are caught in quite a thorny Hebraic trap of their own -- so diabolical that one wonders if the Jews planned this all along...