Ahmadinejad showing papers during
election. It shows that his family's previous name was Jewish
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."
A London-based expert on Iranian Jewry said that "jian" ending to the
name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews.
"He has changed his name for religious reasons, or at least his parents
had," said the Iranian-born Jew living in London. "Sabourjian is well
known Jewish name in Iran."
A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London said it would not be drawn
on Mr Ahmadinejad's background. "It's not something we'd talk
about," said Ron Gidor, a spokesman.
The Iranian leader has not denied his name was changed when his family
moved to Tehran in the 1950s. But he has never revealed what it was
change from or directly addressed the reason for the switch.
Relatives have previously said a mixture of religious reasons and
economic pressures forced his blacksmith father Ahmad to change when Mr
Ahmadinejad was aged four.
The Iranian president grew up to be a qualified engineer with a
doctorate in traffic management. He served in the Revolutionary Guards
militia before going on to make his name in hardline politics in the
capital.
During this year's presidential debate on television he was goaded to
admit that his name had changed but he ignored the jibe.
However 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. British
diplomats walked out of a UN meeting last month after the Iranian
president denounced Israel's 'genocide, barbarism and racism.'
Benjamin Netanyahu made an impassioned denunciation of the Iranian
leader at the same UN summit. "Yesterday, the man who calls the
Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium," he said. "A mere six decades
after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies the murder
of six million Jews while promising to wipe out the State of Israel, the
State of the Jews. What a disgrace. What a mockery of the charter of the
United Nations."
Mr Ahmadinejad has been consistently outspoken about the Nazi attempt to
wipe out the Jewish race. "They have created a myth today that they call
the massacre of Jews and they consider it a principle above God,
religions and the prophets," he declared at a conference on the
holocaust staged in Tehran in 2006.