Nathanael Kapner

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Milton Kapner.

Milton L. Kapner (b. 5 September 1950), also known as Brother Nathanael, is a writer, political and religious activist from the United States. Born to a Jewish family, Kapner was drawn to the figure of Jesus Christ and after a time around the "Jews for Jesus" movement, converted to Orthodox Christianity in 1988. Kapner spent some years around the Greek Old Calendarist movement in Massachusetts, even becoming a novice at the Holy Transfiguration Monastery of the Holy Orthodox Church in North America (HOCNA), as well as later with the American diocese of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church in Colorado.

Kapner is best known, however, for his activism on the internet. On his website, Real Jew News, which was for a time known as Real Zionist News, he creates well researched and objectively true articles exposing the crimes of his former Jewish supremacist co-tribesmen. As well as his own website, which is part of the Brother Nathaniel Foundation, he has become prominent in the social media through his short and effective videos on YouTube which cover the same topics and have received millions of views. This has seen Kapner become a prominent figures in the alternative media, far beyond traditionalist Orthodox circles. He has featured on the websites of Rense and The Ugly Truth.

Background

Childhood and early life

Milton L Kapner was born on 5 September 1950, to Solomon and Rebecca Kapner, both Jewish. He was raised in Pittsburgh, but claims that his family were accepting of Christians and he was allowed by them as a child to sing Christmas carols with his Catholic neighbours at Christmas every year.[1] In 1968, Kapner became part of the Cultural Marxist hippie counter-culture, grew out his hair and beard and attended the Art Institute of California.[1] He played guitar in a rock band called Rebecca and the Sunnybrook Farmers,[2][3] which between 1968 and 1971, opened for Jethro Tull, Alice Cooper, and Blood, Sweat and Tears amongst others[1] and released an album. He fell in love with a violinist named Ilene Novig, who also played in this band, but she refused to marry him.

With the 1960s psychedelic movement now fading, he cut his hair and beard, moving back East to Pittsburgh and took a job as a straight commission salesman, selling industrial chemicals, fertilizers, paints and cleaners to factories. He claims that at one point he was earning at least a six figure salary a year.[4] Kapner held this job for twenty five years and in his spare time became involved in the Jews for Jesus movement, associated with Messianic Judaism. In 1987, he transferred to a new job in Boston, Massachusetts working as a salesman for State Chemical Company, living next to Paul Revere's park on Salem Street.[1]

Orthodoxy: HOCNA and ROAC

Kapner converted to Orthodox Christianity in 1988, joining the Holy Orthodox Church in North America (HOCNA). This had began as the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, Massachusetts and was under the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia until 1986. By the time that Kapner joined it was in communion with the Greek Old Calendarists of the Auxentios Synod. Kapner claims that a mystical event had overcome him, telling him to dedicate his life to Jesus Christ and not to be a salesman.[1] Leaving his job as a salesman, he joined the Holy Transfiguration Monastery as a novice in 1992 (in Orthodoxy, a novice joins a monastery for three years training before becoming a monk) under the Abbot of the monastery, Fr. Isaac Adondakis. The monastery had 30 monks and while there Kapner made religious icons and incense which was sold to sustain the monastery and prayed. Relations with the monastery deteriorated and Kapner literally came to blows with Fr. Isaac in 2002, before leaving the Massachusetts monastery in 2003.

Following this, Kapner joined the American diocese of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC). This organisation has its roots in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, where underground priests who opposed Communism operated in Russia independent of the Sergianist Moscow Patriarchate (it later split with the ROCOR in 1995). Kapner became associated as a novice with the Dormition Skete monastic community of five monks at Buena Vista, Colorado in the mountains under Bishop Gregory George.[5] After staying there for two years, he came to violent blows with George and after being asked to leave the monastery, refused, before being arrested by the police.[6] Kapner rented an appartment in Leadville to be a "street-preacher" in Summit County, Colorado, first protesting in Wal-Mart and their changing of "Merry Christmas" signs to "Happy Holidays" by singing Christmas songs in the store.

Celebrity internet activist

Kapner began to post on the internet in 2005, including at traditionalist Orthodox website such as EuphrosynosCafe.com under the name "Nathaniel Kapner" and opened a blog on Live Journal called +CHURCH NEWS+. This blog was mostly polemical in basis and dealt with the internal personality rivalries and conflicts within the True Orthodox and Old Calendarist movements, particularly as it pertains to the United States. During this early period of internet activism he was still under the ROAC, at the St. Basil of Kineshma Mission, Colorado Springs as a subdeacon. In 2007, Kapner came under the Patriarchate of Jerusalem for a brief time and severed associations with "True Orthodox" communities, lauding instead Vladimir Putin and Alexy II Ridiger of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Kapner's website began to focus more specifically on Jewish supremacist criminality after around 2008 and it was renamed Real Zionist News. This, over the following years, would see Kapner develop from a minor personality in traditionalist Orthodox circles, to a well known internet celebrity with topics of interest in the alternative media. Kapner produced brief, to the point articles, which expose to the general public in an understandable way the war of his former tribesmen against humanity. He founded the Brother Nathanael Foundation in 2010 and opened a channel on the social media website YouTube, starting with the video A New Vision for America. He changed the name of his website to Real Jew News sometime in 2011. After much of the ROCOR reunified with the Moscow Patriarchate, Kapner began attending their services in New York, however Archbishop Kyrill Dmitrieff of San Francisco and Western America has released a statement attacking him.[7]

Controversies

An article which has seen eyebrows raised[8][9] in regards to Kapner is, The Clergy’s Charge by David Abel featured in the Boston Globe in 2002.[10] It describes Kapner as a homeless man living in a green Buick at Brookline, Massachusetts, where he would attend the Young Israel synagogue in a bright yarmulke and behave in an eccentric manner. Eventually because of his behaviour he was made unwelcome and was quoted as saying "I've been excommunicated. It's the worst thing that can happen to a Jew."[10] He was committed to a hospital.[10] Kapner has yet to fully explain anyway this incident in a sufficient manner and what he was doing with the Jews at that time. Kapner has been defended, however, by John Kaminski who sees the information which Kapner puts out as more important than his biographical details.[11]

Fr. John, a priest in southern California, who claims to have known Kapner for a year while he was at the Buena Vista monastery has authored an online piece criticising him.[6] The priest claims that Kapner admitted to him that he suffered from mental illness; obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and bipolar disorder. He claimed that Kapner had spent time in several mental hospitals.[6] John Sanidopoulos, who runs the popular Orthodox blog Mystagogy,[12] claims that Kapner was never made a monk, that he was only ever a novice and then a sub-deacon. For this Kapner has been criticised for wearing a pectoral cross, the skufia and performing blessings with a cross as if he were a priest. As well as this, his unusual facial expressions and dancing as if he was mocking Orthodoxy has been pointed out, but this may be attributed to his mental illness, rather than whether or not he is genuinely a Christian convert.[13]

Quotes

“ I was enthralled with Jesus. Everything he said was pure gold. I studied the prophecies dealing with His coming and was blown away. How could these people (the Jews) not see–both then and now–that He was the fulfillment? I called my rabbi back in Pittsburg and gave him what I thought would be music to his ears–‘Rabbi, good news! The messiah came, and it was Jesus!’ Obviously, he was not as thrilled as I was. He immediately called my mother and told her I had ‘lost it’ and needed help. My parents brought me home and started taking me to see Jewish councilors and when my parents could see it was going nowhere they took me to see the rabbis, about half a dozen, mostly Hassids and Lubavitchers. I showed them the scriptures in the Old Testament dealing with the Messiah. They told me to leave the Old Testament out of it and quoted the Talmud instead, and especially the really horrible things in it dealing with Jesus and His mother. They told me over and over that Jesus was a freak and his mother was a prostitute. I was livid but maintained my composure. The rabbis rolled their eyes every time I spoke up in Jesus’ defense and after a while I knew it was a waste of time. ”

See also

External links

Controversies and criticisms

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Summit Daily (10 September 2010). "Highway 9 conversion". 
  2. ↑ Tyme-Machine (10 September 2010). "Rebecca and the Sunnybrook Farmers - Birth (US 1969 psychedelia)". 
  3. ↑ YouTube (10 September 2010). "Rebecca & The Sunnybrook Farmers - Oh Gosh (Running through the Forest)". 
  4. ↑ Real Jew News (10 September 2010). "My Life As An Orthodox Monk". 
  5. ↑ George was later made an Archbishop and instituted the Old Calendarist Genuine Orthodox Church of America after being deposed from the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Ripoff Report (10 September 2010). "Milton Kapner Brother Nathaniel Milton is a mentally ill. Denver, Colorado". 
  7. ↑ Pravmir (10 September 2013). "Statement from the Chancery of the ROCOR Synod of Bishops". 
  8. ↑ Euphrosynos Cafe (10 September 2010). "Milton Kapner Exposed! Expose!". 
  9. ↑ Stormfront (10 September 2010). "Interesting article about Brother Nathanael Kapner". 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 David Abel (10 September 2010). "The Clergy's Charge". 
  11. ↑ John Kaminski (10 September 2010). "In Defense of Brother Nathaneal Kapner". 
  12. ↑ Mystagogy (10 September 2010). "ROCOR Statement on Brother Nathanael Kapner ". 
  13. ↑ It should be noted that Sanidopoulos' complaints about "anti-semitic poisonous rants" are likely an attempt by a diaspora Greek to be seen as a "real American", by aping cowardly WASP-defined cultural norms, which include kissing Jewish backside. These kind of people are embarassed about the Jew-wise nature of the Orthodox in the Old Country and want to just keep their heads down and live a middle-class American way of life, the kind of life an Israel-firster WASP from the Republican Party could applaud. There is no contradiction between Orthodox and writing firmly Adversus Judaeos as St. John Chrysostom proves.
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