In the Kurdistan Region, a supposedly Jewish public figure under the alias ‘Sherzad Mamsani’ emerged in news headlines— but was an impostor driven by antisemitic stereotypes about wealth and opportunity
Disclaimer
This report is part of a series that reviews articles and statements about officials and public figures in the Kurdistan Region who appeared in the media under the false pretense of being long-lost Kurdish Jews, and pled for material support. These figures, especially Sherzad Omar Mahmoud and Ranjdar Abdulrahman (under the aliases “Sherzad Mamsani” and “Ranj Cohen”), as well as Sherko Othman, were in fact not Jewish and sought to undermine any progress by authentic Kurdish Jews seeking to represent their actual community. The National Association of Jews from Kurdistan issued a press statement on this issue.
The fabricated Jewish past of Sherzad Omar Mahmoud, a.k.a. “Sherzad Mamsani”
Sherzad insisted that he was born Jewish, but at different times claimed three entirely different backstories: in one version, he had Jewish parents who raised the family as Jews; in another, he had Jewish parents who raised the family as Muslims; and in yet another, he had two Muslim parents, but with unsubstantiated Jewish ancestry on his mother’s side.
“My two grandmothers were Jews,” stated Sherzad in an interview where he explained that both of his parents were Jewish. “We celebrated Jewish holidays very secretly” and “never learned about Islam at home” explained Sherzad in another interview. However, his level of knowledge indicated otherwise. “Clearly his first,” remarked an unimpressed Rabbi about a religious dinner attended by Sherzad overseas. “Hanukah is the Jewish New Year,” explained Sherzad incorrectly in a television interview.
But at other times, Sherzad stated that his whole family “lived as Muslims” — and on this, there seemed to be some agreement. Sherzad’s brother Azad clarified that Sherzad came “from a family of Muslims” and offered photos of the family observing Ramadan, and doing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Sherzad weakly suggested in a report that his father and brothers became Hajjis as a ruse and that they secretly were observant Jews.
But elsewhere, Sherzad completely reversed claims about having two Jewish parents. “Yes, my father is Muslim,” he boasted, in this alternative family history. Sherzad explained he had a “Kurdish Muslim father” and “takes pride in his mixed background” according to an interviewer, but he still insisted on having a Jewish mother. However, he variated his story again when explaining that his mother was not exactly Jewish, and was in fact a Muslim woman with some Jewish ancestry — or a “Ben Jew” for short. Did his mother agree? “She will not admit it,” explained Sherzad about his mother’s denial of his claims that she was Jewish, ironically stating to the press that she was discreet as a security precaution.
Ultimately, authorities in Israel investigated and concluded that Sherzad was not born Jewish, nor did he observe Judaism.
Sherzad’s claims of religious persecution
Sherzad claimed a long life of religious persecution — claims which were not only unsubstantiated, but in fact refuted by his former colleagues in the Kurdistan Region. He said the persecution began in 1997, when he supposedly published a book about the Kurdistan Region’s ties with Israel, at the age of just 20 years old. The book, like his claims of Jewish origins, never materialized.
According to Sherzad, local Islamic fundamentalists attacked him three times after this purported book: once in 1997, when he said a bomb blew up at his doorway, which was his backstory for his missing hand; again in 2000, when a sniper with a silencer allegedly shot out his knee; and finally in 2003, when a bomb was placed under his car but detonated too early, thus sparing him but sending the car flying, according to his description of the event.
“Violent religious extremism had hurt everyone,” stated a 2017 report in Forbes about the Kurdistan Region’s religious representatives. Sherzad’s story about his hand was at the top of a list of violent incidents that Ezidis and Christians — actual ones, not impostors — had experienced for their respective beliefs.
However, Sherzad did not belong in that list of victims. He was an interloper, driven by avarice. For a non-Jew to abduct the role of Jewish representative was a result of — not in spite of — the violent religious extremism that had given him a cleared-out path away from rightful contenders. Furthermore, when analyzed, Sherzad’s misuse of the role for covetous and greedy purposes was in itself a religious abuse: his actions were a degradation of Judaism, of Jewish people, of Jewish ethics, and of Jewish law.
“Sherzad Mamsani” became the Jewish representative
Sherzad was not only appointed as the Jewish representative. He lobbied for the law which established that very position, and once the law was passed, then he was quickly placed into the newly created role, along with Sherko Othman Abdallah. However, Sherko remained mostly inactive except for a few rare interviews.
“In 2014, my Kurdish Jewish friends and I wrote a plan to bolster religious tolerance and help religions defend themselves,” stated Sherzad Omar in a Times of Israel report. “We first presented the plan to the communication and co-existence minister, Mariwan Naqshbandy, and then to the government.”
Article Five allowed any religious community to seek representation. The plain meaning of the law did not allow non-Jews to insert themselves as representatives as Jews. However, the impostors abused the law as a means to an end.
Perhaps the most well-known event of Sherzad’s tenure was his memorialization of the Holocaust. This earned him substantial goodwill, which seemed to overshadow misgivings many had about him. This followed the tradition of other impostors around the world such as Bruno Dössekker and Laurel Rose Willson.
“Jews have been depicted in a bad light through education, through religion, through culture and media,” stated Sherzad in an interview with Times of Israel where he seemed to talk the talk, although his posts about Jewish cabals controlling the world, especially about Freemasonry, showed he did not walk the walk.
Sherzad was eventually fired
After being appointed in 2015, Sherzad went on trips around the world, he visited Israel, he spoke to US congress members, and enjoyed other perks. In 2017, his fraudulent behavior crumbled under scrutiny, and he was dismissed from the Ministry.
“Would any rational person in Kurdistan, with radicals threatening them, say he is Jewish and risk his family’s lives?” remarked Sherzad to the Times of Israel. However, that was exactly what he had done, having made claims that as the Jewish representative he was working on entitlements to land, heritage sites, and funds.
Oddly, a familiar enabler named Mariwan Naqshbandy chimed in to deflect, claiming to the media that Sherzad had been dismissed based on pressure from Baghdad, instead of for being a fraud, although Mariwan confessed knowing “for some time” that Sherzad was an impostor — but insisted that was not why he had been fired as the Jewish representative.
Sherzad fled in disgrace to Germany, under accusations of serious misconduct, and multiple reports from Germany claimed he was continuing to pose as a Jew, this time requesting benefits as an asylum-seeker.
Sherzad maintained a small retinue of supporters for the several years he was in office as the Jewish representative for the Kurdistan Region (2015–2017) and for several years after while he was in Germany. There were some foreigners, including a Rabbi, who had expressed interest in helping and guiding Sherzad even after he was fired. However, he was not interested in their authentic path for him to pursue a Jewish life, and ultimately alienated them.
