Face to face with an ‘ordinary’-looking antisemite

Professor Karen Milner, the Gauteng chairperson of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), was shocked when she opened a threatening email at the end of Rosh Hashanah. It was full of hate and vitriol directed at her and Jews.

She had a strong hunch it was linked to the charges of crimen injuria that she had laid a few months earlier against Johannesburg information technology specialist Jan Lamprecht.

Lamprecht is an English-speaking “ex-Rhodesian” who has unashamedly spewed angry vitriol against Jews and all people of colour for a number of years on social media.

Instinctively, Milner clicked on one of his white supremacist, pro-Nazi websites in a bid to see where the email may have originated.

It was then she saw a photograph of herself posted on his website, HistoryReviewed, along with her personal details and disparaging comments about her. It was clear this was how one of his online supporters got her email address.

“I did get a fright. I wondered where this email was coming from. I went back onto his website and there was my photo with my personal details. I believe he was doxing [publishing private information about a particular individual online typically with malicious intent],” she told the SA Jewish Report.

It was a “horrible” email, she said, not from Lamprecht himself but related to the criminal case against him.

It said, “You are a hell fire example of why people hate you … You scumbags can promote the murder of whites, help form groups like blm (Black Lives Matter), antifa (the anti-fascist action left-wing movement) etc that are terrorist outfits and then when anyone calls you out you use and pervert the law. You earn every ounce of hate and in fact only bring more wrath to come”.

“It was unsettling,” Milner said.

That wasn’t all. His post elicited “disturbing” comments from local and international supporters of Lamprecht, she said. “Some were disgusting and abusive, they were also misogynistic and commented on my looks.”

One comment said, “Jan, watch your back for these evil scum of the earth. Who is this evil Milner bitch. Another filthy milner in our history is one too much.”

The SAJBD decided it couldn’t accept this, and contacted its lawyers to take further action. This resulted in Milner applying for a protection order against Lamprecht.

Lamprecht, who refers to President Cyril Ramaphosa as “the black Jew”, is prolific on social media, managing multiple websites. His homemade videos help to spread inflammatory, racist, and antisemitic material. He lauds lone-wolf white supremacists, including Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooter Robert Bowers, and Charleston Church mass killer Dylann Roof.

Last Friday, Milner came face to face with Lamprecht at the Randburg Magistrates Court when he was issued with an interim protection order. The grey-haired, bespectacled Lamprecht was neatly dressed, wearing a long-sleeved, buttoned shirt and trousers for the closed court proceedings.

When she saw him for the first time, Milner said he looked so “ordinary”.

“There was this old white man with grey hair sitting outside a court room. He was quite underwhelming until I remembered the things he’d posted, the hate he was trying to spread, and the way in which he was inciting violence against the Jewish community.”

She said the time leading up to the hearing had been “extremely stressful”.

“Seeing Lamprecht outside the court was disturbing. His ordinariness is disconcerting. You expect people who spread racism, antisemitism, and hate to have a certain look, but I was reminded of Hannah Arendt’s term – ‘the banality of evil’.”

She said she was “hugely relieved” that the interim protection order had been granted and that however stressful it had been, she didn’t regret taking the action she did.

“People who spread race hate and incite violence must be called to account. Lamprecht has attempted to spread his white supremacist views on as many platforms as possible. His Facebook account was taken down, but he uses many other social media sites. He also posts on white genocide sites, where he seeks support for his antisemitism and race baiting,” she said.

In a statement following the proceedings, the SAJBD said that over many years, Lamprecht had used his website to promote Nazi propaganda and disseminate extreme antisemitic and racist content.

His published comments include, “Given what a race of two-faced, backstabbing fiends they are, I … have made the argument that there is no such thing as a good Jew”; “They need to meet a new kind of white man, the kind they’ve not met since the time of Hitler”; “Filthy little race of rats and pathological liars … They dominate EVERYTHING … and turn all the powerful against us … Hitler was too nice to them”.

Lamprecht continued to post inflammatory material even after he was served the protection notice.

In terms of the interim protection order, Lamprecht is prohibited from engaging in and attempting to engage in harassment of the complainant (Milner); posting any pictures/videos referencing the complainant on websites; and all references and pictures/photos of the applicant and complainant are to be removed and deleted from all websites and platforms within 48 hours of the order.

He posted on 8 November, “I’ve spent several hours on my websites and social media, checking and double-checking, and I’ve complied with the court order. I’ve removed the details of the “complainant” from all the posts. I’ve removed the one photo, and I removed three videos. I’ve deleted all the things I have control over.”

However Lamprecht, who insists Jews are “busy shutting up South Africans of every race”, added in bold type face, “My view in the future is that the ONLY time I will make modifications to my website posts will be by a court order like this. That is the only time I will make changes to content due to external forces.”

There are still reams of racist, antisemitic articles on his websites, and dozens of videos posted online on his channel HistoryReviewed – The Truth They’ve Been Hiding from You.

He blames Jews “across the Western world” for censorship and interfering in freedom of speech “all under the guise of combating hate speech”.

Lamprecht is expected to appear in court on 16 March 2021 for his final protection order appearance. The interim order will be in place until then.