Luke Ford

Forward: News broke over the weekend that a prominent neo-Nazi troll going by the name Mike Enoch was not a disgruntled grassroots white supremacist coming out of a part of the country with few Jews and a vivid imagination about what The Jew might be like, but rather a dude living in the Upper East Side (!) with his Jewish wife (!!!) Big if true as the saying goes.

On the one hand, this is upsetting to think about from the perspective of… well, of the Jewish woman somewhere uptown, married to a man whose secret computer activities are up there among the worst of what one could imagine. On the other, it’s not exactly surprising that an anti-Semite might either make an exception for one Jewish woman or (as in Pierre Drieu la Rochelle’s 1939 novel Gilles) not even. Which, again, shouldn’t really surprise us. After all, it’s never assumed that a man with a wife or girlfriend couldn’t possibly be sexist. Nor, for that matter, should it be assumed that in every man lurks a violent misogynist, so I wouldn’t make the leap that some 19th century French Jewish newspaper writers did (in what was in some ways but oh, not all, a very different context) and warn that when intermarriages get rocky (which, in these warning stories, it was assumed they would), out will pour the non-Jewish spouse’s latent anti-Semitism. Given the sheer weirdness of the online “alt-right”, it’s always possible that a man who on the surface would appear to be a good Jewish husband (or wife!) is behind some of those memes as well.

As for the Upper East Side part… What this suggests is that someone can be a raging anti-Semite (or perform raging anti-Semitism, as if there’s a difference) despite having had day-to-day exposure with Jewish people. Once again, this is upsetting for anyone who felt safe, as a Jew in an area with many Jews, knowing at least that they were unlikely to be anyone’s First Jew, to whom it’s now occurring that the alt-right menace could be in front of you on line at Citarella. But it’s not surprising. Goodness knows there’s anti-black racism in parts of the US where black people live. Hate is everywhere. Exposure to the fact that members of all identity groups are human beings ought to be enough, but sadly, all too often, it’s not.

Raw Story:

Several members of the white nationalist movement are despondent after learning that one of their leaders is actually married to a Jewish woman.

As Salon reports, neo-Nazi icon Mike Enoch — the pseudonym used by the man who created the pro-white nationalist website The Right Stuff — has resigned from his role at the website after being outed by rivals as a New York website developer named Mike Peinovich.

The real shocker, however, wasn’t the identity of Peinovich, but the identity of his wife, who happens to be a Jewish woman. This is particularly surprising because Peinovich often makes “jokes” about the Holocaust on his podcast, where he also regularly talks about killing Jewish people.

In a post on The Right Stuff’s password-protected forums, Peinovich admitted that he’s married to a Jewish woman and said he didn’t want to see anyone making excuses for his longtime deception of his fellow white nationalists.

“Yes my wife is who they say she is, I won’t even bother denying it, I won’t bother making excuses,” he wrote. “If this makes you want to leave the movement, or to have nothing to do with TRS, then I understand. Don’t lie for me. Don’t try to defend me to those attacking me. Don’t jeopardize your own reputation by defending things that you don’t think you can.”

While Peinovich’s downfall has drawn many cheers from his rivals in the white nationalist movement, many longtime fans were depressed by this revelation.

“Enoch’s rants were both enlightening and triggering, but now I cannot listen to them the same way again,” wrote one. “It just feels like they’re just more actors in the same play being orchestrated by the Jews.”

“I’m going to bed but I want everyone involved with this doxxing to think about contributing something to replace TRS rather than pissing on its grave and saying that they did the right thing,” wrote another. “So far you have f*cked up royally.”

From Mediaite:

The leader and founder of prominent Neo-Nazi blog The Right Stuff and the podcast “The Daily Shoah” (yes, really) was recently doxxed and reportedly revealed to have a Jewish wife.

Online he has always gone by the name “Mike Enoch,” a reference to far right British politician and Nazi sympathizer Enoch Powell. But after fellow alt-righter Mike Cernovich (who was feuding with Enoch and others) posted a YouTube video claiming that “The Same Person Calling Me [Jewish Slur] is Married to a Jew,” Internet sleuths now claim that his real name was Mike Peinovich, and that he lives on the Upper East Side with a Jewish wife.

In an email to Salon, Peinovich denied being Enoch, but admitted the he authored some of the posts on the site. “If you give any fucks at all then you could print that this is all bullshit. We are now being harassed not only by communists but by actual neo nazis,” he told them.

But “Enoch” appears to have confirmed that some of the rumors were accurate in a statement to his fans in a password-protected part of the site. “Yes my wife is who they say she is. I won’t even bother denying it. I won’t bother making excuses. If this makes you want to leave the movement, or to have nothing to do with TRS, then I understand,” he said.