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Jewish Pirate Identity and Mistaken Identity

A political round up from Germany and Egypt

by
Adam Chandler
January 17, 2013
Marina Weisband(BZ-Berlin)
Marina Weisband(BZ-Berlin)

Marina Weisband, a Jewish politician in Germany (who recently resigned), was given the dubious flattering very German honor of being named the hottest German politician, according to Playboy. What party did Weisband represent? Well, the Pirate Party, of course.

Nearly 30 percent of 1,000 respondents in a survey conducted by the German edition of Playboy magazine voted for the 25-year-old Weisband, who served as political director of Germany’s Pirate Party from May 2011 until April 2012, German news portal Bild.de reported Tuesday morning.

But as one man in Egypt learned, being identified as a political celebrity is much more fun than being misidentified as a political celebrity. Gamal Sayed was on his way to file a complaint with the presidential ombudsman in Cairo when passersby commented on his striking resemblance to Egyptian President (and purveyor of anti-Semitic vitriol) Mohamed Morsi.

Thinking they were confronting the president himself, protesters demanded his National Identity Card, while others attempted to pull him into a tent and beat him up.

Fortunately, once his true identity was revealed, things got much less tense for Sayed, who posed for pictures with various protestors and curious Egyptians.

Adam Chandler was previously a staff writer at Tablet. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, Slate, Esquire, New York, and elsewhere. He tweets @allmychandler.