Ahmadinejad, Not a Jew

You can stop savoring the irony now: The Guardian is reporting that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not Jewish by blood, after all. Contrary to an earlier report in The Telegraph, the Guardian reports that the meaning of his family’s original surname, Sabourjian, is not “weaver of the Jewish tallit shawl,” but rather derives from “thread painter”—a profession not associated with the Jews in Iran. Two experts tell the Guardian that Ahmadinejad’s father was a religious Shia and that his mother is a Seyyede, the title given to women believed to be in the direct bloodline of the Prophet Muhammad.