Michael D. Rectenwald is an American author, former professor, and lobbyist. A member of the Mises Caucus of the Libertarian Party, he has written about 19th-century British secularism and is a critic of the contemporary social justice movement.[1]
Rectenwald's 2018 memoir states that he is the seventh of nine children.[3] He is Catholic. He has said he was raised in a German and Italian neighborhood in Pittsburgh, and that he "didn't know what a Jewish person was until I was an adult, frankly".[4]
Rectenwald was a Professor of Liberal and Global Liberal Studies at New York University for more than ten years before retiring in January 2019.[8]
On September 12, 2016, Rectenwald created the anonymous Twitter account @antipcnyuprof, tweeting on the topic of social justiceideology on North American colleges and universities. A student reporter for the Washington Square News, New York University's weekly student newspaper, discovered him; he subsequently gave an interview revealing himself as the faculty member behind the account. At the time, he described his politics as "left-communist".[9]
In a November 3, 2016 Washington Post op-ed, Rectenwald claimed that two days after the student interview, he was summoned by NYU Liberal Studies Dean Fred Schwarzbach and was "strongly encouraged to take a paid leave of absence".[10] Schwarzbach denied Rectenwald's claims and posted all email correspondence between the two from November 1 through November 11, which showed Rectenwald requesting the leave himself.[11] Rectenwald went on paid leave in September 2016. In January 2018, he sued NYU and four of its professors for defamation. The case was dismissed with prejudice against Rectenwald.[12] In October 2018, Rectenwald invited Milo Yiannopoulos to speak in one of his classes. Yiannopoulos's visit was postponed for reasons of safety.[8]
Research contributions
Rectenwald has written on the origins of the movement called secularism, which was founded in London in 1851 by George Jacob Holyoake.[13] In "Secularism and the cultures of nineteenth-century scientific naturalism", Rectenwald argued that Holyoake's secularism "represents an important early stage of scientific naturalism".[14] In Holyoake's Secularism, Rectenwald locates a precursor for Charles Taylor's version of secularity as the immanent frame that structures the conditions of belief and unbelief in modernity.[15] According to a review in Victorian Studies, "Rectenwald thus offers a revisionist interpretation that, rather than understanding Holyoake's leadership of the free thought movement as a failed rhetorical attempt to make society more secular, sees it as marking a distinct moment in modernity."[16]
Views
Critique of social justice and leftism in academia
In 2018, the conservative New English Review Press published Rectenwald's memoir, Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage. In the memoir, Rectenwald critiques the contemporary social justice culture in academia, arguing that it has promoted an authoritarian and dogmatic culture in parts of academia. He was later dropped by the publisher.[17][18]
Rectenwald has self-published a novel called The Cabal Question, which he originally wanted to call "The Jewish Question". In the book, according to The Intercept:
"a former professor finds his worldview transformed when a friend "thrusts him into the JQ", or Jewish question, as the book's Amazon summary puts it, working with "a steadfast ex-occultist turned Christian nationalist to trace the strands of the cabal's reach". The story mirrors his own evolution of getting "J-pilled", or "Jew-pilled", Rectenwald has said, though he insists the novel is not about promoting antisemitism but rather "a Christian redemption story".[2]
Rectenwald has posted about the "Jewish mafia" on X at least 43 times.[2] He has claimed that the 2023 October 7 attacks on Israel were a "false flag" operation. In March 2026, Rectenwald criticized the Iran war, saying, "Don't die for 'israel'. Don't die for the Syn@gogue of S@t@n".[4]
Anti-Zionist America PAC
In 2025, Rectenwald launched the Anti-Zionist America PAC (AZAPAC), a political action committee. The organization describes its mission as opposing the influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups in American politics.[19][4] Rectenwald said, "We're not like leftist anti-Zionists, calling for 'from the river to the sea' and all this nonsense. We are not trying to say the State of Israel should not exist. That is not our concern. Our concern is the U.S. government only, and what it's doing."[4]
As of February 2026, at least two candidates have rejected AZAPAC's endorsement, including Anthony Aguilar (G), a candidate for the House of Representatives in NC-13. Aguilar's campaign stated that anti-Zionists "are falsely accused on antisemitism on a regular basis... For that reason, we want to avoid being associated with any group whose statements or actions raise credible concerns of actual antisemitism."[2]
As of June 2026, its endorsed candidates have included:[22]
Rectenwald, Michael, and Lisa Carl. Academic Writing, Real World Topics. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press. (May 28, 2015).
Rectenwald, Michael, Rochelle Almeida and George Levine, eds. Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age. Boston: De Gruyter. (September 25, 2015).
Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion and Literature. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. (2016).
Rectenwald, Michael and Lisa Carl. Academic Writing, Real World Topics. (Concise Edition). Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press. (July 20, 2016).
Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage. Nashville. TN; London, UK: New English Review Press. (2018).
Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom. Nashville, TN; London, UK: New English Review Press. (September 30, 2019).
Rectenwald, Michael. Beyond Woke. New English Review Press. (May 18, 2020).
Thought Criminal. New English Review Press. (December 1, 2020).
The Great Reset. World Encounter Institute/New English Review Press. (January 10, 2023).
The Cabal Question. Independently published (April 13, 2025).
Selected articles
"Reading Around the Kids". In Constance Coiner and Diana Hume George, eds. The Family Track: Keeping Your Faculties while You Mentor, Nurture, Teach, and Serve. University of Illinois Press, (1998): 107–13.
"Local Histories, Broader Implications". College Composition and Communication 60, no. 2 (2008): 448.
Smythe, Thomas W. and Michael Rectenwald. "Craig on God and Morality". International Philosophical Quarterly. 51.3. 203 (September 2011): 331–38.
"Secularism". In Margaret Harris, ed. George Eliot in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2013): 271–78.
"Secularism and the Cultures of Nineteenth-century Scientific Naturalism". The British Journal for the History of Science. 46.2 (June 2013): 231–54.
"Mid-Nineteenth-Century British Secularism and its Contemporary Post-Secular Implications". In Michael Rectenwald, Rochelle Almeida and George Levine, eds. Global Secularisms in a Post- Secular Age. Boston: De Gruyter (2015): 43–64.
"Introduction: Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age". In Michael Rectenwald, Rochelle Almeida and George Levine, eds. Global Secularisms in a Post- Secular Age. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter (2015): 1–24.
"Secularism as Modern Secularity". In Ryan T. Cragun, Lori Fazzino, Christel Manning, eds. Organized Secularism in the United States. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter (November 2017): 31–56.
"'Social Justice' and Its Postmodern Parentage". Academic Questions. 31.2. (April 10, 2018): 130–139.
↑Rectenwald, Michael. (2016). Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion and Literature. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 106.
↑Reagles, David G. Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion, and Literature by Michael Rectenwald (review). Victorian Studies, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Summer 2017), pp. 681–682.
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