I recently had the good fortune of dining with my dear friend, Arno Michaelis, who was in town for a conference on antisemitism where he was a featured speaker. Arno knows a thing or two about the subject. He has studied it in depth throughout the past couple of decades. But his familiarity with antisemitism is not merely academic. Throughout his teen and early adult years, as a member and leader of a violent white nationalist group in the Midwest, Arno practiced Jew-hatred fanatically.
Arno and I met eight years ago at a Washington, D.C. conference on bridge-building and social philanthropy. He had long since extracted himself from the web of hate and violence in which he had been caught throughout his youth. And he had devoted himself to the rescue of others like him, who had become enchanted by the sense of belonging and purpose that hate groups offered wounded and alienated youth. “Hurt people hurt people,” Arno teaches, and as part of the process of healing his own wounds and the wounds he had inflicted, he began to speak out against the movement and to help others escape.
Formerly a soldier of hate, Arno had transformed himself into a warrior of peace. For many years, he worked with a wide variety of communities educating on the subject of violent extremism and assisting others to put aside their differences and embrace their common humanity.
But after the Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, something strange happened in the peace-making camp that Arno had come to inhabit. While he had been accustomed to rubbing shoulders and sharing stages with a diversity of bridge-builders and peace advocates, he suddenly found himself shunned by many of those for whom he had spent so much time advocating and excluded from circles of inclusion that he had worked hard to build and nurture.
What was the offense that suddenly rendered Arno persona non grata? He had decided to speak up for the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre and to unequivocally denounce the perpetrators of the most savage brutality against Jews since the Holocaust. Suddenly, in the eyes of many of his former allies, Arno was simply a “Zionist,” and therefore, in their intersectionalist sensibility, he could no longer be trusted or included.
It wasn’t a difficult decision to defend Jews and Israel, Arno told me over dinner, but it did have difficult ramifications that he hadn’t anticipated. He had simply examined the facts and come to the logical conclusion that Israel had been invaded by a murderous death cult that was not interested in peace or coexistence, and that Israel had every right, and even a duty, to protect its citizens and eradicate the threat of future invasion. Horrified by the loss of civilian life in the Gaza Strip, Arno mourned the death of innocents. However, he recognized that the blame was squarely on the shoulders of the terrorist Hamas regime that refused to return the hostages they had kidnapped, and hid behind their own women and children to manipulate world opinion by causing as much collateral damage as possible.
Yet such obvious facts did not penetrate the closed minds of many of his colleagues and erstwhile friends. Speaking engagements—on which Arno relies for a significant part of his livelihood—began to dwindle. Yet his conviction did not falter. He watched in disbelief as public protests and campus encampments sprang up around the country advocating not for the victims of terror but for the terrorists themselves.
One of the most fascinating and terrifying things he told me at dinner was that he could plainly see in the anti-Israel movement the very same attitudes and tactics that were so central to the white-power movement. The distortion of facts, the cynical and manipulative appeal to raw emotion, the gross generalization and demonization of the opposition, and the refusal to engage in dialogue or even tolerate any opposing perspectives—all were strategies he had witnessed and wielded when he was recruited and recruiting for the neo-Nazi cause.
Arno is a true ally, and in my mind, a true hero. He is of the mold of those “righteous gentiles” who are memorialized at Yad Vashem—non-Jews in Germany, Poland and elsewhere throughout Nazi-occupied Europe who risked life and limb to protect, hide and save Jews who would otherwise be hunted and exterminated. It is far easier to go with the tide and ignore the plight of those with whom one shares no blood, culture or history. But Arno proves, as did his heroic forebears, that there are those who will choose principle over popularity and integrity over personal interest.
I have had the honor and privilege of hosting Arno to speak to rave reviews at both my high school and college alma maters, and he will soon be speaking at my synagogue and other local organizations to which I have introduced him. He is an incredibly dynamic, engaging and entertaining speaker who has authored several books, keynoted national conferences and been featured in mainstream media with videos (like this one) that have garnered millions of views.
With a unique and insightful perspective on violent extremism, antisemitism and other forms of racism, as well as peace-building and conflict resolution, his wisdom and experience are all too relevant and necessary in these fraught and polarized times. Any Jewish (or non-Jewish) organization that invites Arno to speak will not only be doing a big favor to their members and constituents, but will also be repaying a tremendous debt of gratitude to a man who has sacrificed a great deal to stand on the side of truth, justice and righteousness.