Featured Image Credit: Frank Meeink/New Line Cinema
Topics: News, US News, Film and TV
Kit Roberts
A Neo-Nazi who was the inspiration behind Edward Norton's character in American History X managed to turn his life around, and reconnected with his Jewish heritage.
Frank Meeink was the leader of a violent Neo-Nazi group in the 1990s, sporting a swastika tattooed on his neck.
At the time, Meeink was violently racist and antisemitic, believing that Jewish people were 'the root of all evil'.
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Meeink found his way out of the far right after he was sent to prison for three years.
During that time he renounced his racist views after befriending several black prisoners, claiming that they were more supportive of him than the skinheads were.
After his release from jail, Meeink threw himself into working against hatred and racism, including lecturing and visiting schools to teach about the dangers of falling into radicalisation.
But it was after prison that Meeink made a remarkable discovery about himself.
After he left jail, Meeink took a 23andMe DNA test after a friend remarked that his appearance made them think he had Jewish heritage.
He told the New York Post: “I just wanted to see if it was true, I wanted to see if it was real.”
It turned out that he did indeed have some Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, with the test showing that he had 2.4 percent.
It is a very small proportion, but still very significant as Meeink discovered.
He found that his maternal great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Zellman Rementer was Jewish.
Using the rule of matrilineal descent this meant that Meeink was technically also Jewish himself.
Though matrilineal descent is not accepted by all Jewish scholars it is accepted by a lot, and Meeink embraced his new found heritage and community.
He said: “I found out by a beautiful gift from God that I was Jewish through DNA.”
Meeink also began practising Judaism, and now prays three times a day wearing the tallit and tefillin, which are worn by observant Jews.
He also attends synagogue, keeps kosher, and goes to three Torah studies classes every week.
Meeink was arrested after kidnapping and torturing a member of the anti-fascist group Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice.
Recounting his crime, he said: “So we kidnapped him, used firearms - we had guns and s**t. We had him stay in the apartment and tortured him for hours with no remorse, no empathy, no nothing."
Meeink's like and journey out of Neo-Nazism was an inspiration behind the film American History X, starring Edward Norton.