Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s scathing attacks against Israel and his repeated denials of the Nazi Holocaust could be motivated by a desire to conceal his own Jewish roots, an Iran expert told The Daily Telegraph on Saturday.
The British newspaper examined the Iranian leader’s identity card which he displayed in public during his country’s elections in March 2008.
The ID card bears his family’s original surname, Sabourjian, which is a Jewish name that means cloth weaver, according to The Daily Telegraph.
The Sabourjians have historically been concentrated in the same region of Iran where Ahmadinejad was born, according to the report.
Ahmadinejad’s identity papers indicate that his family changed its name and converted to Islam after he was born, the British newspaper said.
