The Forward has published Ari Feldman’s big expose on clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, whose books and videos on religion, morality and psychology have made him an international sensation.

Juxtaposing Peterson's picture with Adolf Hitler's, the headline on the article read: “Is Jordan Peterson Enabling Jew Hatred?”

You can guess what followed after that: “Jordan Peterson is a public intellectual adored by neo-Nazis. … The neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer called Peterson ‘The Savior of Western Civilization’… Part of why people on the far right like Peterson is because he is not afraid to talk about the Jews. … Peterson’s followers range from avowed neo-Nazi communities like the Daily Stormer to frustrated young men looking for a scapegoat …”

And so it went. By the end of the article, you had the impression a horde of jackboots march behind Herr Peterson’s goosesteps.

Wondering the actual extent of Peterson’s support at the Daily Stormer, I looked up the “Savior” reference and discovered it’s in a vague three-sentence blog post written by a guy calling himself Joe Jones. It turns out he was likely being ironic about praising Peterson as the messiah. Because, just a month before his ambiguous “Savior” comment, he wrote: “Jordan Peterson is a faggot and his fans are also faggots.” One of his other posts is titled: “Jordan Peterson’s Fans are Massive Faggots with Daddy Issues.”

A little more investigation on the site revealed that Joe Jones wasn’t the only Daily Stormer contributor cracking jokes about Peterson’s being some sort of Savior. Another guy, Roy Batty, wrote: “Listening to members of the Jordan B. Peterson cult, you might think that the guy was a sort of Christ figure. … I just see it all as an acting prop. A cheap shtick to make normies think he’s deeper and more father-like than he really is.”

Somebody else named Andrew Anglin added that Peterson wasn’t simply a faggot but a “pretentious, smarmy faggot,” and posted an article titled “Seven Hour Video on Why Jordan Peterson is a Piece of Shit.” Yes, seven hours. And in a different post, he wrote: “Peterson is full of shit, no matter how you slice it.”

I could go on with other curses hurled at Peterson, but you get the picture. Feldman cited just one example from the hate site—Joe Jones’s seemingly ironic post—to support his sweeping claim that Peterson is adored by far-right racists. Unless “faggot” and “piece of shit” mean something different in neo-Nazi land, it appears Feldman stretched the truth.

Unscrupulously, Feldman also hid from readers all the notable Jewish individuals from across the political spectrum who’ve written or spoken positively about Jordan Peterson and his work. To name a few: Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Harvard’s Steven Pinker, psychiatrist Norman Doidge, professor Jonathan Haidt, author Howard Bloom, novelist Melanie Phillips, journalist Barbara Kay, professor Gad Saad, editor Jonathan Kay, comedian Dave Rubin, writer Cathy Young, biologist Bret Weinstein, author Ben Shapiro, comedian Bill Maher, New York Times columnists David Brooks and Bari Weiss.

It’s frankly astonishing that not one editor at the Forward had the professionalism to insist on gathering some testimony on behalf of the accused from any of these reputable people. Evidently, at the Forward, it’s perfectly acceptable journalism to ask a loaded question about a man and then stack the deck against him by quoting only his accusers. One of those anti-Peterson complainants—Heidi Beirich from the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center—even suggested (without any evidence) that Peterson could be seen as “a possible ally in Holocaust denial.”

It’s difficult not to roll your eyes at all this. But you can understand why Peterson got outraged about it, tweeting soon after the article’s publication:



The most contemptible journalist I ever had the carelessness and naivete to talk with produces the most contemptible piece yet written about me @aefeldman https://t.co/z7O9v1ci3D pic.twitter.com/aE4BdixqZa — Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) May 12, 2018

Hard to argue with that. In sum, what Feldman did was to 1) lie about a neo-Nazi’s opinion of Peterson; 2) use that lie to suggest he has a vast neo-Nazi following at the Daily Stormer; 3) conceal all the Jews who like him; and 4) seek out political partisans to smear him as a possible Holocaust denier.

It’s as unethical as it’s unconvincing. Even the most superficial reading of Peterson’s oeuvre suffices to show he’s an uncompromising enemy of anti-Semitism–and a real friend to the Jewish people. As he demonstrates in his detailed response to Feldman, he has spent the last 30 years “lecturing and teaching about the horrors of the Holocaust.”

But in these times of clickbait media, neither the gravity of the Holocaust nor the meaning of Jew-hatred seemed enough to rouse journalistic conscience at the Forward. “I do not feel ashamed of the article I wrote,” Feldman later wrote in a jabbing email to Peterson. One wonders if he and his publication have any shame at all.