In early 2017, while operating his antisemitic media network under his pseudonym, Enoch was doxxed by fellow neo-Nazis. Most notably, the dox revealed that the neo-Nazi Enoch was married to a Jewish woman, and that their wedding had featured traditional Jewish rites and chanting.[5] Prior to the dox, Enoch's wife had appeared as a guest on The Daily Shoah, in which she had concealed her ethnicity while promoting antisemitic memes.[6]
In addition to his founding of a neo-Nazi media network, Enoch has drawn attention for his role in organizing book burnings.[7]
Early life
Enoch was born as Michael Enoch Isaac Peinovich of Norwegian and Serbian descent. His parents divorced when their son was at a young age.[1] Enoch attended Columbia High School.[8] While in high school, Enoch worked jobs delivering pizzas and chemically testing pools. After graduating high school, he attended and dropped out of several universities before becoming a computer programmer who worked at an e-publishing company.[1]
Early media coverage
Enoch first drew media attention for his use of the "Sieg Heil" salute at a conference organized by Richard B. Spencer to celebrate Donald Trump's election as president.[6] The salutes were performed in front of journalists, and footage of the speech and the Enoch-inspired salutes was circulated by the mainstream media. According to Andrew Marantz, the event marginalized the alt-right by defining it to the public as a neo-Nazi movement, and led to an exodus of Trump supporters.[9]
The Right Stuff is a white nationalist, neo-fascistneo-Nazi blog founded by Enoch that hosts several podcasts, including The Daily Shoah and Fash the Nation. The blog is best known for popularizing the use of triple parentheses to identify Jews on social media.[10][11][12]The Daily Shoah is a far-right podcast, hosted on TDS. Its name uses the Hebrew word referring to the Holocaust.[13] The podcast also uses the triple parentheses symbol.[14][15][16]
Doxing incident
In January 2017, users of the imageboard website 8chan leaked the identities of several of its key contributors, including Enoch, and revealed that his wife was Jewish[17][18] and that their wedding had featured traditional Jewish rites and chanting.[5] Prior to the dox, Enoch's wife had appeared as a guest on The Daily Shoah, in which she had concealed her ethnicity while promoting antisemitic memes.[6] Through his work, Enoch ridicules African Americans, Jews, and other minorities, advocates racial discrimination, and promotes conspiracy theories such as Holocaust denial and white genocide.[6][7]
Other information released included the names of his family members, his job as a software developer, his home address on Manhattan's Upper East Side neighborhood, and his hometown of Maplewood, New Jersey.[19] After initially attempting to deny the reports, Enoch later admitted that the allegations were true.[20] Though Enoch initially planned to leave the network, he quickly changed his mind and vowed to continue his activities.[21] However, the fact that the released biographical information about Enoch contradicted his professed ideology[17][18] led many listeners of TDS to question the authenticity of Enoch's commitment to the views he espoused on the show.[6]
Personal life
In a 2017 audio statement released on their podcast, Daily Shoah co-host Seventh Son announced that Enoch and his wife were separating.[21] The revelation was met with mixed but mostly supportive reactions from individuals including David Duke,[22] and Richard B. Spencer.[21]
Enoch's father asked his son to change his surname because of his neo-Nazi political activities.[1]
On 18 April 2017, Enoch joined Richard B. Spencer in giving a talk at Auburn University where he expressed that he and the movement were breaking away from the new direction that the Trump administration was taking.[24] While Auburn administration had initially cancelled the planned event, citing safety concerns, Enoch assisted Spencer in filing a lawsuit on First Amendment grounds.[24]United States federal judgeWilliam Keith Watkins issued a ruling requiring Auburn to allow Spencer and Enoch to speak.[25]
In addition to his founding of a neo-Nazi media network, Enoch has drawn attention for his role in organizing book burnings.[7]
Peinovich is currently chair of the National Justice Party, an antisemitic group. Following the 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, Peinovich wrote "Hats off to the Palestinians for taking bold and courageous action in their own cause and showing us that the Zionist regime is not invincible."[27]
In October 2017, Enoch was listed as a defendant in Sines v. Kessler, the federal civil lawsuit against various organizers, promoters, and participants of the 2017 Unite the Right rally. The trial began on October 25, 2021, and the jury reached a verdict on November 23.[28][29] All defendants other than Enoch, who had previously been dismissed from the case, were found liable for civil conspiracy under Virginia state law, and ordered to pay $500,000 in punitive damages. The jury were deadlocked on the two other claims pertaining to Enoch, which argued he and other defendants had engaged in a federal conspiracy to commit racially-motivated violence.[30]
^Staff. "Philly.com: Top Neo-Nazi Shock Jock Grew Up in Maplewood NJ", Village Green of Maplewood and South Orange, October 26, 2017. Accessed July 3, 2019. "According to a report on Philly.com today, neo-Nazi shock jock and white supremacist Mike Enoch grew up in Maplewood NJ and attended Columbia High School."
^Travis M. Andrews (April 19, 2017). "Federal judge stops Auburn from canceling white nationalist Richard Spencer speech. Protests and a scuffle greet him". Washington Post. Retrieved May 1, 2017. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins in Montgomery, Ala., Tuesday barred Auburn from blocking Spencer, stating there was no evidence that he advocates violence. "Discrimination on the basis of message content cannot be tolerated under the First Amendment," he wrote in the ruling.
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