He was the far-right’s favourite author. Then they found out he’s Jewish.
He was the far-right’s favourite author. Then they found out he’s Jewish.
'Do not listen to him, do not watch his videos. He is the enemy.'
Dear subscribers — today’s story is about an American author popular on the far-right whose Aryan credentials, it turns out, are not all they’re cracked up to be. While Scout is primarily focused on the British far-right, Sepehr has an international profile and his videos are frequently shared on domestic social media.
If you like this story, forward it on to your friends and tell them about Scout. It’s a great way for you to help grow our audience. This story, in a shorter format, first appeared in the Jewish Chronicle.
‘The world’s most dangerous anthropologist’
Robert Sepehr is one of the far-right’s favourite influencers. From his sun-drenched home in Encino, California, he holds extremist audiences enrapt with videos about sexually deviant Jews manipulating global affairs.
His books have sought to rehabilitate Adolf Hitler and question the history of the Holocaust, earning him the title of “the world’s most dangerous anthropologist” from his hundreds of thousands of fans.
But during his years of writing and producing antisemitic videos, the 46-year-old has kept a secret hidden from his audience, one that could tarnish his reputation in the international far-right.
Sepehr’s secret, Scout can reveal, is that he is Jewish.
In recent weeks, rumours about Sepehr’s heritage have begun to circulate in far-right internet forums. His fans have been distressed to learn that their idol kept his Jewish roots hidden from them and some have launched a boycott in response.
Sepehr’s work was once shared with glowing reviews in white nationalist channels on Telegram, a social media messaging app. His videos declaring that a cabal of Jews control the media have amassed him 580,000 subscribers on YouTube. He has also built up a sizeable paying audience on Patreon, a content platform, which earns him £3,000 per month. His subscribers have made memes of him, photoshopping his head onto Indiana Jones’s body. By his own admission, his perspective “reaches a wide audience”.
One of Sepehr’s videos is titled “The Hidden Hand of the Rothschild (✡️) Banking Family”, and claims that the finance dynasty pressured the British government into prolonging the First World War for their own malicious ends. “They are clearly one of the richest families on earth, as well as one of the most corrupt,” he says.
His videos splice together stock footage with clips of himself exploring Los Angeles — in one recent production, he visits the flamingos at his local zoo, filmed by his mother. His voiceover is delivered in a slow monotone that, surprisingly, spellbinds his audience.
Not all of his videos push antisemitic ideas. Some discuss conspiracy theories like the existence of Atlantis and the possibility that underneath LA there are the ancient ruins of a city of serpent-people.
Among Sepehr’s video claims is that the Nazis were not defeated in 1945 but survived by retreating to Antarctic bases. Sepehr says the Nazis hid in caverns and developed advanced technologies, such as flying saucers, but the “global banking sector” is trying to keep them under wraps.
It is in his books that Sepehr’s most controversial material appears. In 1666 Redemption Through Sin: Global Conspiracy in History, Religion, Politics and Finance, Sepehr says the “Rothschild controlled mainstream media” has distorted the truth about Adolf Hitler.
He writes:
“Hitler has been made out to be the most evil person to have ever lived, by starting needless wars and slaughtering millions of innocent people. What if it isn’t entirely accurate?”
The book goes on to quote Holocaust deniers and writers who claim that the Shoah may have been organised by Jews to encourage emigration to Israel. It quotes another author who contends that Jews today are coordinating mass immigration, miscegenation and feminism in order to “undermine the European heterosexual Christian character of Western society”.
On Twitter, he has claimed that Jews are “trying to subjugate Europe by flooding it with Africans”. This corresponds to the Great Replacement theory, which contends that Jews are coordinating immigration from Asia and Africa to threaten white Europeans.
Sepehr has accrued millions of views on his YouTube channels. His hardcore fans donate money in exchange for a shoutout from Sepehr in the chat box. In one video, a British woman named Linda Jackson gave him £10, commenting: “This is better than a night out, thanks Robert.”
Part of the reason why Sepehr was so popular was that he seemed to have the credentials necessary to make it in far-right politics.
He claimed that his grandfather was a high ranking officer in the SS, which only would have been possible if he could have proved his Aryan ancestry.
Sepehr even took what purported to be a DNA test and shared the results on YouTube. He claimed that he had “zero percent” Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, although he did not say whether he has Mizrahi or Sephardi roots.
However, Sepehr’s backstory was not all it seemed. Since December, rumours surfaced that he may have obscured the fact — or at the very least failed to mention — that he was Jewish.
Scout has analysed claims made by his former fans, and can confirm that Sepehr’s publishing company, Atlantean Gardens, is registered as a Jewish charity for tax purposes. It claims to provide “educational videos, books, religious services and worship”, according to public filings.
Sepehr is also the son of a noted Jewish film director, Ben-Hur Sepehr. An Iranian Jew who left the country of his birth during the revolution, Ben-Hur passed away last December. He once told a Jewish magazine that he wanted his films to combat “worldwide misrepresentation of the Jews”.
Ben-Hur wrote that he was inspired by a formative encounter with Dr Martin Luther King Jr, during which they discussed the racial and religious prejudices each had faced. The civil rights campaigner told Ben-Hur, then a young man, to “never forget God” in his endeavours. The director would later say that this meeting was “the driving force” behind his life’s work.
“A motivating factor in my career was learning about the discrimination and the injustice toward the Jewish people throughout history – which I experienced first hand in Iran,” Ben-Hur told a reporter. “I will continue to do anything and everything I can through my films to educate people to pursue the path of peace.”
In 2010, Ben-Hur made The Desperate, an award-winning movie set in a concentration camp where a Nazi general begs an incarcerated Jewish doctor to treat his dying son. “The motivation is tolerance,” Ben-Hur said when asked why he made the film.
The Desperate won best short at the Hollywood Film Festival in October 2010. Ben-Hur posted footage of the event on YouTube, in which Robert can be seen celebrating the film’s award with his father. The end credits of The Desperate even list Robert as an associate producer of the film.
How the son of an acclaimed Jewish director came to push the very conspiracy theories his father was trying to eradicate is a mystery. Robert Sepehr did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Scout spoke to a relative of his who confirmed that Robert was Ben-Hur’s son, adding that while his father was Jewish, his mother is not. The family member said Sepehr was close to his father, and has thrown himself into making YouTube videos since his passing.
When asked about how Ben-Hur, a filmmaker who put religious tolerance at the heart of his work, perceived his son’s own creative output, the relative said: “In these times that are hard all over the world — with the pandemic — people are not allowed to say their free opinion. You have to be so careful.”
Curiously, Ben-Hur was listed as the chief financial officer of Atlantean Gardens, his son’s publishing company. The organisation’s address in Encino matches one of his former residences.
It is unclear when exactly Robert shifted his career from assisting his father make films about Jewish history to creating antisemitic videos. The Desperate was released in 2010. By 2015, Sepehr had published 1666 Redemption Through Sin, which claims a Jewish cult of incestuous bankers control “the world’s major corporations, mainstream media, intelligence agencies, think tanks, foundations and federally funded universities that are responsible for suppressing the truth”.
Before his work on Jews, Sepehr’s first foray into the world of conspiracy theories began more innocently. In 2003, he made a feature length film called Planet X, about aliens living on Niburu, a planet within our solar system that NASA is said to have covered up. Ben-Hur’s official director website promoted the movie.
Sepehr, in his film, said he spent “eight years researching and personally documenting information regarding Planet X”. He predicted that by 2012, Nibiru would pass our planet, causing environmental havoc when its gravitational pull would cause Earth to temporarily cease rotating on its axis.
The film made Sepehr’s name in conspiracy theory circles, and he has appeared on paranormal radio shows and obscure TV channels to discuss his theory that aliens visited our planet thousands of years ago and modified our DNA. He continues to broadcast esoteric videos about extraterrestrials and interdimensional beings, finding his way into the Daily Star newspaper and Durham magazine.
However, Sepehr’s standing in the far-right has taken a knock from the rumour-mongering about his heritage. Rumblings about his family history first appeared in far-right forums in December, and began to be shared more widely last month.
“This guy is not to be trusted,” said a former subscriber on an extremist forum. “Do not listen to him, do not watch his videos. He is the enemy.” Another wrote: “This Jew is a disinfo agent.” A third accused him of “discrediting our movement” for hiding his background.
According to Social Blade, an internet analytics company, Sepehr's video views and subscription rate on YouTube fell in the weeks after his fans found out about his background.
A Telegram group devoted to sharing Sepehr’s videos reacted to the news with dismay. The channel, named Atlantean Gardens in honour of Sepehr’s company, changed its name after learning about his heritage.
“In light of recent developments that many of you now know, we have decided to disassociate with the name Atlantean Gardens,” wrote the group’s administrator. “Being that many and most of our organisations have been infiltrated by gatekeepers, disinfo agents, foreigners and the traitor who is paid, and knowing now for certain Robert has Jewish ethnicity and has kept this from us deliberately, a new channel name is now in order.”
The channel’s members were crestfallen. “I don't want to believe this,” said one. “I'm just confused.” Another wrote: “The disappointment is palpable… Was it just him wholeheartedly wanting to be and identify as an Aryan? Or was it all just another underhanded deceitful Jewish trick?”
One member said he had always been suspicious of Sepehr because he “never passed my physiognomy check, which always made me somewhat suspicious”.
At first, Sepehr tried to aggressively respond to claims that he was Jewish. When one internet rival called him “Mr Wanna-Be-Jew” on Twitter, he hit back: “Big internet tough guy, say that in person and I'd open hand slap you across your felon mouth.” Since then, his Twitter account has been suspended and his former followers say he deletes comments on his YouTube channel about his Jewish heritage.
Sepehr’s career as a Jew who publishes antisemitic conspiracy theories makes him an exceedingly unusual character. But he is not the first to do so. Sepehr’s book quotes Henry Makow, a writer who says Covid is a “Judeo Masonic conspiracy” and Barry Chamish, who has claims the early Zionist movement welcomed antisemitism in the belief it would prompt emigration to Israel. Both Makow and Chamish are Jews.
Harold von Braunhut — the Jewish inventor of Sea Monkeys — was also a committed antisemite who donated his profits to white supremacist organisations in the 1980s and 90s.
Sepehr retains a large audience for his videos, although some of his fans claim that he has ruined his reputation. “If he had come forward with this from the get-go he’d at least have preserved his credibility,” they said. “If you’re with the ‘bad guys’ but you're trying to prove you’re not, be honest.”
“Look! I’m not Ashkenazi!….oh, whoopsie, did I forget to mention my dad was Sephardic? No matter, I’m only REALLY Jewish if my mum is! Never mind that Hitler would have murdered me anyway…” 🤨
Frank Collin(Cohen) was another Jewish man who lied about his ethnicity as a leader of a neo nazi organization. He was later caught diddling kids, and at that time his background came out to the public.