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Ben Shapiro Receives Death Threat from White Nationalist Follower

"Alright, Ben Shapiro, you've spun your last dreidel," said an extreme far-right activist in a video, before he fired three shots from a revolver at a gun range in a video shared by the watchdog group StopAntisemitism.

Aidan Duncan, who also goes by the pseudonym Smiley the Fren, joked about shooting American Conservative Jewish political commentator Shapiro in a now-deleted Instagram video of Duncan at a gun range in Nevada, Martin reported.

Duncan's comments referenced Shapiro's Orthodox Jewish faith — a dreidel is a traditional spinning top played with by Jews on the holiday of Hannukah.

A Twitter account allegedly belonging to Duncan responded to the attention by challenging Shapiro to a debate.

The account associated with Duncan also shared a one Twitter user responding to Martin's exposing of Duncan by threatening that "when your crumbling system inevitably fails, we're retaking Colorado, for God, and banning gays, Jews, and journo [journalist] scum like you from ever laying eyes on our glorious gold plains or our majestic mountain peaks. No more women behind the wheel, either."

Supporters of Shapiro also reacted strongly to Duncan's video.

"People have been telling the Jewish people that we’ve spun our proverbial last dreidel for over 2000 years," wrote Jewish educator David Bashevkin in response to the shooting range video. "But here we are. Still spinning."

"Once again, fellow Jews, arm yourselves if you feel comfortable with it," advised radio producer Cameron Gray.

Duncan is associated with the Groyper movement, an extreme-right white nationalist group that generally follows political commentator Nick Fuentes, who also has a history of antisemitic comments and antagonism toward Shapiro. On Duncan's Instagram, he can be seen posing for photos with several far-right activists, including Fuentes. 

According to a 2019 report on Fuentes that appeared on the StopAntisemitism website, Nicholas Fuentes started his Jew-hating online career in 2014 when he began posting racist and bigoted videos to his YouTube channel, America First (YouTube has since removed the channel for hate policy violations).

StopAntiSemitism.org also reported that Fuentes, affectionately referred to as “Nazi Nick” by his loyal followers, first attended Boston University but was forced to leave by students angered over his involvement at the 2017 Unite the Right White Nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. He now heads up the “Groyper Army”, a loose network of alt right figures who are vocal supporters of the white supremacist.

Since 2016, Fuentes gained an even bigger following when he pretended to be a true supporter of the current White House Administration. StopAntiSemitism.org reported that along with his YouTube channel, Fuentes used to run the Nationalist Review, a white supremacist podcast with James Allsup, another neo-Nazi, alt-right supporter; the podcast was terminated after the two had a fight.

In 2019, Fuentes used an analogy of Cookie Monster baking batches of cookies in an attempt to deny the horrific murder of 6 million innocent Jews during the Holocaust, telling his podcast audience that the number “just doesn’t make sense” to him, as was reported by StopAntiSemitism.org. Many have opined that this open and unashamed denial of the facts of the Holocaust is atrocious and disgusting.

On his other social media platforms, which include Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram, Fuentes makes many outrageous and sickening anti-Israel and antisemitic comments, as was reported by StopAntiSemitism.org. The site commented that, “It’s extremely puzzling why Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram are willing to lend Holocaust deniers such as Fuentes, and others like him, a platform for clear antisemitism.”

Fuentes frequently targets Christians who support Israel or as he claims ‘are working for the Jews’. StopAntiSemitism.org reported that In one of his videoblogs (now removed from YouTube for policy violation), Fuentes attacks Matt Walsh from The Daily Wire and states Walsh is a “shabbos goy traitor. That’s what it is, folks. He hates white people. Race traitor- you work for Jews”.

Nazi Nick also takes his antisemitic tirades out on the president of Turning Point USA’s (TPUSA), Charlie Kirk, tweeting Charlie has some obsession about supporting Israel. StopAntiSemitism.org reported that a 2019 TPUSA event at Ohio State University that featured Charlie Kirk was crashed by Groypers (what the alt-right followers call themselves), as the gate crashing Groypers chanted anti-gay and antisemitic slurs. Fuentes was credited for hijacking the event.

Fuentes often takes advantage of his young followers naiveté, many of them teenagers he refers to as Zoomers, telling them not to tell his parents if they get “red pilled”. StopAniSemitism.org reported that according to the alt-right, taking the red pill is the beginning of a process of radicalization in which an individual becomes enculturated in an extreme, reactionary worldview. Fuentes also encourages his followers to post antisemitic pictures and memes to his social media platforms.