‘Alt-Right’ Activist Abandons Hatred After Meeting Jewish Protester
Image by Reddit
By Sam Kestenbaum August 1, 2017
A popular “alt-right” figure left the movement shortly after a June event in Portland, Oregon — after being confronted by a Jewish protester.
John Turano, better known as “Based Spartan” for his Greek-inspired warrior costumes, told the Portland State University student newspaper, Vanguard, that he defected from the movement because of what he called pervasive racism and violence.
Turano said he usually arrived at “alt-right” protests thinking that all the left-wing protesters there “hated our guts” and that he was there to protect the free speech of right-wingers from antifascists. But a June encounter with a “petite Jewish counter-protester,” Vanguard wrote, caused things to unravel.
A Jewish activist approached him during a protest and asked, “Does my life matter?”
“It just made me feel bad,” Turano told Vanguard. “I hadn’t really been paying attention; I just thought we were surrounded by all these people who hated us. But I met some people that seemed so nice.”
Contact Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and on Twitter, @skestenbaum](http://twitter.com/skestenbaum)
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
