“Every morning, when I open my laptop to start the workday, I look at Nazis.
Sometimes I’m tracking young “suit-and-tie” white nationalists working to infiltrate conservative campus organizations and spread their worldview. Other times I’m monitoring street-fighting white power groups rallying to terrorize Jewish, Muslim, LGBTQ+, Black and other marginalized folks. Sometimes the work leaves me feeling energized, enraged and defiant. Much of the time, it leaves me feeling numb.
I work as a senior researcher at Political Research Associates, a think tank that monitors right-wing movements and helps people of conscience fight back. My focus is on white nationalism and antisemitism — the groups and ideologies that want me and my Jewish family turned into second-class citizens, expelled from the United States, or worse. I like to think I’m decent at it, too. Last year, HuffPost named me “one of the foremost chroniclers of the groypers,” the movement of Gen Z white Christian nationalists whose rabidly antisemitic leader, Nick Fuentes, dined with Trump last Thanksgiving at Mar-A-Lago.
I do this work because I want to do my part to help keep my people, and all people safe, and to stop the rise of fascism in the United States and worldwide. That’s also why I’m a member of IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. These are two Jewish-led groups fighting for justice for Palestinians, an end to Israeli apartheid and freedom and dignity for all. These groups have long been active around these issues, but since Oct. 7, they have called for all hands on deck and moved into overdrive, demanding an immediate cease-fire. Right now, even Israel’s staunchest supporters recognize that the state’s current government is the most far-right it has ever been. Combining that with the rise of the far-right in the United States, the two sides of my activism have never felt more conjoined. (I used to work on staff at JVP and some In These Times staffers are active with JVP and IfNotNow.)
That’s why I, like so many, was outraged — though not entirely surprised — when Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, slammed JVP and IfNotNow as “hate groups, the photo inverse of white supremacists” on Oct. 18, shortly after they staged a powerful sit-in on Capitol Hill to demand our elected officials call for a cease-fire.”
Ben Lorber 
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