The Missourian celebrates anti-Semitic pastor Herman Otten

Herman Otten, editor of Christian News

An editorial in a recent edition of The Missourian, a regional newspaper in Missouri, lauded Pastor Herman Otten of Trinity Lutheran Church in most impressive terms (“Dedicated to God, Church” in the May 3, 2013 edition). After a long list of superlatives, the editor praises Otten, who is now retiring from his church, as a “dedicated shepherd of his congregation,” who taught, counseled, and made house visits to his flock of worshipers. The editor also reveals that Otten’s newspaper, Christian News, is in fact published by The Missourian.

This is shameful. Herman Otten may have been a devoted pastor, but he is also a devout anti-Semite. He has publicly stated that the Holocaust is a hoax, and has defamed Jewish religious texts. In the pages of Christian News, he reprints vile columns from other anti-Semites, who allege that Judaism condones pedophilia, and who claim that contemporary Jews are threatening our country. We now know that The Missourian is responsible for enabling this material to enter the homes of its readers.

Otten’s obsession with Jews has persisted throughout the years since his infamous speech at the Institute for Historical Review. He has published articles demonizing Judaism and its holy books in his Christian News Encyclopedia, which he frequently cites in his newspaper. In 2013 alone, he has denied the Holocaust in almost every issue of Christian News. A good example is the March 18, 2013 issue, in which he devoted several pages to the life and work of Doug Christie, the lawyer who defended Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel and other anti-Semites in Canadian courts. Otten’s coverage of Christie’s death was shot through with Holocaust denial, including his contention that “the vast majority of Protestant churchmen, professors and pastors…lost their credibility because they insist that some six million Jews were exterminated, most of them in gas chambers, by the Germans during World War II.” In that issue he also championed the cause of Bishop Richard Williamson, who denies the Holocaust.

Otten also continues to publish columns by anti-Semites like Michael A. Hoffman II and Ted Pike. In the January 21, 2013 edition of Christian News he reproduced a column by Pike which stated that the threat of Arab or Muslim terrorism “pales compared to the threat of Talmudic Judaism and Jewish supremacism.” Pike says that Jews “facilitated communism, media domination, control of international banking and the U.S. Congress, as well as the proven ability to plunge America into multiple Mideast wars (sic).” He concludes with a call to “restrain [the Jews who] attempt to destroy everything and everybody standing in their way as they move relentlessly toward world empire.”

As I have said before, I understand that people may appreciate Herman Otten for the good work he has done in their lives, but religious leaders must be called to account when they disseminate hatred and bigotry. Otten’s legacy must record that for decades he has pumped anti-Semitism into the homes of all the readers of Christian News. Shame on The Missourian for publishing it. By continuing to do so, the editors facilitate the spread of hatred of Jews. As responsible community members they should cease doing so, and repudiate Otten’s views.

[Note: The Missourian should not be mistaken for the Columbia Missourian, which is published by the Missouri School of Journalism.]

Bishop Williamson to visit NY and NJ

Bishop Richard Williamson

Bishop Richard Williamson will be conducting Mass and presiding over a conference on the “Crisis of Tradition” in Brewster, NY, on April 1. The focus will be on “the ramifications of the gradual movement of Tradition towards Modernist Rome.” Brewster is about an hour north of NYC.

On April 2, Bishop Williamson will conduct a Mass and another conference somewhere in NJ.

These visits appear to be sponsored by Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, in Boston, KY.

Over the past several months, Bishop Williamson has made many visits to traditionalist chapels scattered across the US and Canada. He has also reaffirmed his Holocaust denial. More on the latter in a future post.

Doug Christie, defender of anti-Semites, has died

Doug Christie

Doug Christie, the Canadian lawyer who represented most of the Canadian anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers who ended up in court over the past thirty years, has died at the age of 66.

Christie was not a disinterested, ACLU-type who defended his clients out of principle. His celebrity appearances at extremist events over the years suggest a comfort with their ideology – if not a positive adherence to it – that I found troubling. I am not the only one: In a 2000 expose of Christie in NOW Magazine, it was revealed that in 1993, several top officials of Canada’s Law Society expressed their concern over Christie’s ideological identification with his defendants. Harvey Strosberg, the discipline chair of the society, said that Christie’s comments at a trial in which he defended an accused Nazi war criminal “clearly disclose that he has crossed the line separating counsel from client: he has made common cause with a small, lunatic, anti-Semitic fringe element in our society.” Indeed. Christie spoke at the Seventh International Revisionist Conference of the Institute for Historical Review in 1986 and at Holocaust denier David Irving’s third “Real History Conference” in 2001; he also sent a taped presentation to Australian extremist Fredrick Toben’s 1998 Adelaide Institute Conference.

Most fascinating to me is a report from Holocaust denier Michael A. Hoffman II that I had previously overlooked, which stated that in 1988 now-disgraced Bishop Richard Williamson brought Christie to speak to the seminarians at the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, where he was rector. According to Hoffman, Bishop Williamson then told the National Catholic Reporter that in his view, Christie was fighting a “heroic battle” for the truth in his defense of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel. (Hoffman’s report appeared in vol. 2 no. 6 of his newsletter in 1988. I cannot verify his quote from the National Catholic Reporter.)

In addition to Christie’s activities on behalf of Holocaust deniers and other extremists, he was also the leader of the Western Block Party, which advocated that Western Canada secede from the central government. He had a personal homepage and a YouTube channel.

Needless to say, many anti-Semites are mourning Christie. Paul Fromm eulogized him at his funeral. Canadian extremist Marc Lemire seems particularly bereft, having  documented Christie’s funeral and having compiled a list of encomiums to him by the likes of Barbara Kulaszka, Ezra Levant, and Mark Weber. Ingrid Rimland Zundel has reposted some of that on her Zundelsite. Michael A. Hoffman II has also chimed in, and sundry mourners can be found over at Stormfront and CODOH. No word yet on whether we’ll hear from Bishop Williamson.

Iranian news network attributes Sandy Hook massacre to “Israeli death squad”

Iranian news network Press TV has posted another anti-Semitic article, this one with the headline: “Israeli death squads involved in Sandy Hook bloodbath.” The article cites Mike Harris, as well as Gordon Duff (the editor of Veterans Today), who refer to Adam Lanza as the “fall guy” for the Israeli operation. This is the second time since the Sandy Hook tragedy that Press TV has alleged Jewish involvement.

Press TV has a long history of promoting anti-Semitic claims, and routinely invites American anti-Semites to serve as commentators.

Iranian network Press TV claims Jews carried out Sandy Hook massacre

Press TV, an English-language Iranian news network, has promoted the charge that Jews were responsible for carrying out the Sandy Hook massacre out of pique over the recent Palestinian success in the United Nations. A recent guest also insinuated that the Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, was part of the an “Israeli death squad.”

In a December 18 broadcast, Press TV featured Mike Harris, a contributor to the anti-Semitic website Veterans Today. In an interview with Press TV’s host, Harris stated that the “source” of America’s culture of violence is “Jews in Hollywood.” Getting more specific, Harris alleged that Israeli “death squads” operating in the US were responsible for carrying out the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords in January of 2011, and the July 2012 massacre in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. He explained:

“Now you look at Israel just lost their bid to thwart Palestine from being recognized by the United Nations and now here we go, here is a revenge killing in the US, sponsored by Israel, that killed all these innocent children and that is something that Israelis do very, very well. They target the innocent, they target the children, they target women and they avoid the issue because they are angry; they did not get their way and now Palestine has standing at the UN and Israel is going to be subject to the international criminal courts and their leadership is going to be taken to task.”

Prompted by Press TV’s host, Harris went on to claim that Jews and Zionists have taken over the US Congress and “have been trying to destroy this country and trying to destroy this Constitution for the last seventy years.” Harris concluded:

“I want Israel off the face of the earth. They are the source of all problems in the Middle East. They are the original terrorists. And don’t forget that this killing in Newtown was a revenge killing because Israel lost the vote about Palestine being recognized in the UN.”

Veterans Today is a fervently anti-Semitic website which features Holocaust denial, anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, and attacks on Jewish religious texts. Its contributors and editors frequently appear as guests on Press TV.

David Duke says Jews, not guns, caused the Sandy Hook tragedy

David Duke

Another prominent anti-Semite has blamed Jews for the tragic massacre at Sandy Hook. In a long monologue on his Dec. 17 radio broadcast, former Klansman David Duke alleged that Jews, out of hatred for non-Jews and Western values, have consciously inculcated violence and depravity in the American population. “Guns did not create the horror in that little school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut,” Duke said. “The Zio masters of the media did.” 

In his monologue, which he subsequently released in essay form on his website, Duke recounted a counter-history of the twentieth century, which focused on the evil influence of what he described as “Jewish tribalists” and “Zio supremacists.” Duke alleged that Jews orchestrated World War II “to destroy their biggest enemy;” then, after “consolidating their hold on Palestine,” Jews set out to “achieve complete domination of the American media.” They took over the universities and the Federal Reserve, and led the “predator banks.” After cementing their grip on the American media, Duke says that Jews were free to express their “hatred and malevolence toward western values.” They invented pornography and promoted “every kind of unhealthy, immoral and destructive behavior,” including drug and alcohol abuse, and “ushered in an age of sexual disease epidemics,” which “resulted in sickness, infertility, and even the death of millions.” Getting to his point about the Sandy Hook shootings, Duke says that Jews also “promoted violence” by “drench[ing] the big screens and the little screens of American with blood, gore, perversions, psychotic behavior, and even forms of torture, sadism, and masochism.” Why did they do this? Because “the zio tribalists hate the European people, Christianity, and the values of the West with all their malevolent hearts.” They have inculcated American to “commit atrocities against each other just as Zio conditions has led them to do it against others.” Duke concludes:

“Guns did not create the horror in that little school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The Zio masters of the media did. They have devoured the real America. The masters of the media continue to take us down the path of human depravity, not just in the insane Zio Wars around the world, but their insane mentality with which they drench the world.”

Duke’s radio show is broadcast over the Rense radio network, and frequently includes appearances by anti-Semitic ideologue Kevin MacDonald, a professor of psychology at California State University.

Bishop Williamson coming to the U.S.

Since his expulsion from the Society of St. Pius X, Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson has been rallying the most extreme elements of the Traditional Catholic movement to his cause. In his December 15 newsletter, Bishop Williamson reveals that he will shortly be conducting an apostolic visit to the United States and Canada. No word yet on where he will appear.