An al-Qaeda activist who in a tape aired by the terror group called on American citizens to embrace Islam is Adam Pearlman, the son of a Jewish musician from California. The New York Sun newspaper reported on Wednesday that Pearlman, 28, has been on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists for two years. His family converted to Christianity and adopted the family name Gadahn when he was a teenager.
Gadahn converted to Islam in a California mosque at age 17. His father slaughtered animals and sold meat to Californian Muslims.
An essay by “Adam Pearlman” was posted on the University of Southern California’s Muslim Student Association compendium of Muslim texts, the Sun said.
Titled “Becoming Muslim,” it states: “As I began reading English translations of the Quran, I became more and more convinced of the truth and authenticity of Allah’s teachings. … Having been around Muslims in my formative years, I knew well that they were not the bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists that the news media and the televangelists paint them to be.”
Called “Azzam the American” in al-Qaeda propaganda tapes, Pearlman first appeared in a video by the terrorist organization in October 2004. “Allah willing, the streets of America will run red with blood,” he said in the tape.
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2 Responses
This animal isn’t Jewish, This 25-year-old had a hippie upbringing, a fanatical devotion to violent death metal music, converted to Islam, and spent two days in jail for attacking a member of his mosque.
Not only is this terrorist not Jewish, neither was his father, Phil. His Jewish grandfather Carl Pearlman, a prominent urologist, married out. So this terrorist’s father, Phil, a 60’s musician, who wasn’t Jewish, converted to christianity, changed his Jewish sounding name Pearlman to Gadahn after the name Gideon, moved out to a farm without electricity to provide halal meat to Muslims. As described in an LA music paper,
“Adam Gadahn was born Adam Pearlman in Orange County. His father, acclaimed ’60s underground psychedelic musician Phil Pearlman, was the one who chose the name Gadahn…
So it’s not strange that a gifted ’60s counterculture hero, the son of a Jewish urologist and a christian housewife, would change his name to Gadahn shortly after getting married because (according to a former band mate) they wanted a name that “meant nothing…
Also not strange was that they moved to a farm in rural Riverside County and took up the profession of raising and “humanely�? slaughtering goats for market. Equally not strange is that Adam and his siblings were home-schooled and raised without running water and electricity. Eccentric, West Coast, out there in “la la land,�? but not strange. “”
Well if all that’s not strange then it certainly isn’t strange that he ended up in Al Qaeda either.
Perfectly normal. Just like the American Taliban, John Walker Lindh who also hung out in “la la land” where he converted to Islam. How many other Al Qaeda terrorists are we going to see from la la land?
With all due respect, I take issue with the characterization of California as “la la land”. Not all of us out here are thus, and many of those who are originate from the East Coast. Our nuts are, largely, your exiles.
That said, both Lindh and Gadahn are typical examples of mental voids looking to be filled, and thus inadvertently getting attracted to cults.