James W. von Brunn is not only a bitter old white supremacist; he is also a member of Mensa and a decorated veteran who served as a PT boat captain during World War II. These facts will raise at least two different and equally important issues.
First, the identity of the shooter in today’s attack will no doubt frustrate the hate-filled and fear-driven voices which have filled the internet this afternoon, voices which were already explaining how we could “know” that this was the work of Muslims. Some went so far as to blame President Obama and his speech in Cairo for inviting such an attack by Muslims empowered to take revenge on America and upon Jews. I wish I was kidding or even exaggerating, but I am not.
Second, this will unsettle all those who blithely assume that ethnic, religious or racial hatred is the domain strictly of stupid or unaccomplished people. While contrary to fifty years ago, the social acceptability of expressing such hatreds tends to limit itself to the lower echelons of society, the challenge is present at all levels of our culture. To be sure, it is nowhere near as common as it once was, but neither is it something to be ignored.
Ultimately though, this seems to be the work of one man, albeit one steeped in a culture of hate and a network of people who shared his hate. What that means is that the attack, as a real threat, should not loom too largely in our consciousness, but addressing the challenges we face when hate defines any part of our community, should.



Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 



posted June 10, 2009 at 4:49 pm
James von Brunn does not appear in the current Mensa membership list. http://www.mensa.org reports that he was a member for less than a year 20 years ago.
posted June 10, 2009 at 4:51 pm
How on earth was a violent lunatic like this crazed hatemonger allowed to walk the streets? The man tried to kidnap The Federal Reserve Board! He was utterly unrepentant and continued to spew the most hateful and paranoid bilge. He was clearly a dangerous nutjob!
My heartfelt sympathy to the family of the guard who was brutally murdered by this vile maniac.
The picture under which visitor enter the museum was taken at the Ohrdruf camp. My father helped liberate it and he was utterly disgusted by the bigoted morons who denied the Holocaust.
This atrocity only lends credence and urgency to the words Eisenhower spoke while at Ohrdruf: “The things I saw beggar description…the visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations to propaganda.”
Hate-addled idiots like this murderer would claim that Eisenhower was a liar. But, sadly, he has proven to be a prophet.
posted June 10, 2009 at 6:36 pm
The elephant in the room that we’re all ignoring is that in America, guns are as commonplace as houseflies. The Second Amendment hypocrites say that unrestrained ownership of firearms guarantees our freedom, and hammer away with that myth “when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.” Truth is, when gun ownership is more limited, outlaws will have a harder time arming themselves. Why are there so much lower murder rates in all the other economically advanced nations that have much stricter gun laws?
Does anyone really believe that the founders of our nation intended every crackpot with an agenda, and every punk on a street corner, to be better armed than the entire Continental Army? What will it take to wake us up? When our nation has split apart into a hodgepodge of heavily armed warring militias? Seems like that’s the direction we’re headed, thanks to the NRA and its patsies in Washington.
posted June 10, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Now he will make some new BLACK friends in prison. Smart move Adolf.
posted June 11, 2009 at 8:06 am
Doesn’t the Holocaust Museum’s existence make Jews, Jewish Supremacists, since World War 2 was a holocaust in which 60 million people died and there have been plenty of other holocausts? Please explain.
What about the Russian Superholocaust where tens of millions of Russian peasants and Christians were slaughtered when Jewish Supremacists got control of the Russian government.
Wouldn’t Christians in the United States be wiser to remember the Superholocaust so it never happens again. Perhaps that was on the mind of the 88 year war veteran.
Or maybe the 88 year man was upset because Jewish Supremacists, Israel and the American Israeli Public Action Committee have more say in his government than he does. What do you think?
It might be that the 88 year veteran was upset because there is a slow motion holocaust being committed against Palestinians and Christians in the Middle East. Gee that seems like a lot of Jewish Supremacist hate to me. We should pray to Jesus that He will help the Jews in Israel and their American Jewish Supremacist counterparts in America not to hate so much.
Or maybe he’s upset because our Christian children are in the Middle East killing Muslims and being killed by them and coming home with horrible brain injuries and the United States has been bankrupted by Jewish Supremacist neocons.
Perhaps we need to re-examine Nazi history with modern forensic technology and determine what actually happened rather than believing the Jewish Supremacist version. Maybe the 88 year veteran is a historian. Or perhaps his family was slaughtered in Russia by Jewish Supremacists and he’s pissed off.
Or it could be that he thinks a memorial to the Civil War belongs in Washington DC rather than a memorial to something that happened in Europe.
My heart felt sympathy to the Palestinians and Christians who are being ethnically cleansed by Jewish Supremacists who are filled with hate. And to all of my fellow non jewish Americans who have lost our free speech and are censored daily. Our free speech which our people bought with their blood has now been replaced by Jewish Supremacist propaganda. Maybe thats what ticks off the 88 year old veteran since he risked everything for our American freedoms.
posted June 11, 2009 at 8:55 am
The real reason why von Brunn did it (that no one is talking about)!: http://tinyurl.com/lesu8t
posted June 11, 2009 at 9:22 am
Jewish Supremacists? Give me a break. All the attrocities you mentioned are horrible Annis, but my including these delusional rants about these “Jewish Supremacists” you are destroying any credibility in you rant. There may very well be a shadow government, and a secretive group that is pulling all our strings, but the Jews? Really? I don’t understand how you supermacists can really believe what you are saying. ZOG is crap. Not that it’s not possible, but it’s more of an excuse isn’t it? A way to explain why you all can still be so ignorant and stupid in the 21st century?
And by the way, the reason there are memorials to “something that happened in Europe” are because that’s where more than plenty of good American’s lost their lives. My father was one of the lucky that made it back. He fought a real threat, and was a hero. He would have never been as stupid as this waste of flesh. How does someone that was there and saw the war first hand deny it? Some people just have no reason to live….
posted June 11, 2009 at 9:30 am
Some people are just not right in the head. Hitler for one was messed up due to health problems and drug use, as far as the History channel is concerned. Look at what Hitler did with the young german kids. Super human race???? This man deserves to be treated like the people who were in the camps….YEAH ! ! ! ! !
posted June 11, 2009 at 12:11 pm
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” ~Blaise Pascal
ANY RELIGION.
posted June 11, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Rabbi Brad, excellent post, thank you. It made me feel really good until I went to your comments and saw that yet another crazy had felt the need to post his ugly thoughts on your blog. and what makes it scary is that people can publish their insane rantings so easily on the internet. Freedom of speech is wonderful but darn it, the internet has made ugly speech so horribly ubiquitous. People of all religons are capable of evil. People of all religons are capable of good. Much evil has been done in the name of God. One would think, in the twenty-first century it would end. Cruelty, however, seems to be one of humanity’s most dominant characteristics.
posted June 11, 2009 at 2:04 pm
It’s amazing to me how many people in the United States believe they are persecuted, and in my experience as one just one American, it seems to cut across religious boundaries. The general theme seems to be that everyone is not only supposed to give the indignant everything they want, everyone is supposed to be their cheering section, too. Of course, when you have been getting those social security checks from the ZOG that persecutes you for twenty-five years and sitting around with nothing to do but cultivate your resentment, chances are you can’t be reached.
I have to believe von Brunn is profoundly disturbed. I’m not willing to excuse him.
posted June 11, 2009 at 8:44 pm
as a jew that’s been picked on and beaten up…for being jewish, this man doesn’t surprise me…at all. i have so many sad stories to tell you that would shock you and you would find them difficult to believe, but i promise you they are real . what does scare me is that this man has been trying to enter government buildings and meetings with guns and knives before he was successful. yes, he did prison time, but apparently not enough — i feel so bad for the guard and his family and friends. he should go to prison for the rest of his life. i have thought up some wonderful changes that should be made that would reduce GREATLY reduce the cost of having all these prisoners No.1. if they don’t grow it and raise it then they don’t wear it, or eat it. there are hundreds of acres around prisons. it’s disgusting they do not grow their own vegetables or raise their own chickens and pigs and cows. no. 2. no more weightlifting or tv watching. all their energy should be toward farming. from sun up to sun down everyone that can should be putting all their energy toward farming. canning should be mandatory. lots of vegetables grown means lots of vegetable that can be frozen and canned for the winter when the gardens are resting for the spring planting. the money saved would be huge — HUGE !! even old convicts like this scumbag should be made to farm and work — or he should not be served food. they should make the choice – either you work and earn your food or you will not eat. i wish i was not the only person to feel this way.
posted June 11, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Did anyone else notice that this tragedy took place only a few weeks after the Westboro Baptist Church from Kansas went to DC and picketed at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum? They were handing out fliers proclaiming, “Jews killed the Lord Jesus.”
That was the first thing that came to my mind when I heard about the shooting.
posted June 12, 2009 at 10:37 am
To even remotely suggest after all the documentation, visual proff by soldiers who liberated the camps, the millions of surviors, the millions of bodies and studies done over the decades since the the liberation you are totally ignorant. It is no “lie” or “Propaganda” when survivors, not just Jew, but ALL living survivors have numbers tattooed on them as a daily reminder of the horror they survived.
I personally know several survivors of the Holocaust. And they are not ALL Jews.This is NOT just a Jewish “thing”. This was the systematic elimination of Jews, Gays, Gypsies, Black, anyone against Hitler and more.
Annis, to suggest the museums are propaganda is an insult to those to were killed, mutilated, experimented on and left to live with the horror they were subjected to against their will.
There is a difference between what happened not just in Germany, but Poland, Russia, France, Spain, and other countries and what is happening in Israel. The fight there is about land. Not because of what religion they practice, color of their skin, but for a homeland of their own.
It is postings such as yours that perpetuate hate. No one has denied researching what happened in Germany or elsewhere during WWII. One day your words will come back to haunt you and you will learn the vicious truth.
posted June 12, 2009 at 11:34 am
Reply to Linda T for her posting yesterday (june 11). Bravo, Linda! You have articulated in a direct, easy to understand manner, the way our prison systems SHOULD be RUN. We spend a fortune on every prisoner to give them amenities they do not deserve. Reform of the prison system is needed immediately.