The Baffling Transformation of an Anti-Semite Who Became a Jew and Moved to Israel

German Lutz Langer once dreamed of destroying “Jewish domination” and praised the SS who during WW2 killed millions of Jews, but after a mind-blowing 10-year transformation, he now lives in Israel as a kippah-wearing Jew called Yonatan.

Born in Berlin to Christian parents, Lutz Langer spent ten years as the member of a German Neo-Nazi group. He used to worship Hitler or Himler, listen to Neo-Nazi music and hate on Jews, whom he considered “the ultimate enemy, to be completely destroyed”. He and his anti-Semite friends used to either dispute the existence of the Holocaust or simply justify it as something necessary. He himself admits that there was a time when he thought the extermination of the Jews was “alright”. But not anymore; after a 10-year conversion process, Langer is now a model Jew and living proof that anyone can change.

Lutz Langer was converted to Neo-Nazism when he was just 12-years-old, by his karate instructor. It all started with forbidden music, which was provocative for him and his young friends. It wasn’t something you could find in a music store, you had to know the right people, make copies and listen to in very private settings. Their instructor would invite them to his home and discuss the Holocaust over beer. Before he knew it, he was cutting his hair short, dressing up in black leather, doing the Nazi salute and interacting with all kinds of far-right extremists.

Read More »

Hungarian Anti-Semitic Political Leader Discovers He Is a Jew, Moves to Israel

Four years ago,  Csanad Szegedi was a deputy leader of the radical nationalist Jobbik party in Hungary, and he blamed Jews as well as the Roma people for his country’s problems. But then he learned he was a Jew himself, and everything changed.

Szegedi was once notorious for his extremist views and anti-Semitic statements, and as a leader of Jobbik, he helped co-found the Hungarian Guard – a paramilitary group that marched through Roma camps wearing black uniforms reminiscent of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross party that ruled Hungary during the Second World War. He was regarded as a rising star in the anti-immigration party Jobbik, the third biggest party in Hungary’s National Assembly, but after making a startling discovery four years ago, Szegedi realized that his life to that point and everything he thought he believed in had all been a lie.

In 2012, the young politician discovered that his own grandmother was Jewish, and had been wearing long sleeves or plasters in the summer to conceal the Auschwitz concentration camp number tattooed on her arm. She was a Holocaust survivor, but Szegedi didn’t even believe the Holocaust had happened. He later described how “shocking” this revelation was to him “First of all because I realized the Holocaust really happened.”

Read More »