Former New York City comptroller Brad Lander, who is running for Congress, visited a Queens mosque, which has a history of Holocaust denial and promoting Hamas, to accuse Israel of genocide and recite a verse of the Quran about the Islamic doctrine of divine unity.
The Middle East Media Research Institute published a video on Thursday of Lander, who is Jewish, attending Friday prayers at the Al-Khoei Islamic Center on May 15.
“I believe, as a proud Jewish New Yorker, that Israel’s genocide in Gaza is a desecreation, is a violation of the understanding that everyone is created in God’s image,” Lander said.
He added that he believes that the Israeli “occupation” of Lebanon is “on its way potentially to being a genocide as well.”
Lander, who is running in New York’s 10th Congressional District, then recited, in Arabic, the Quran’s Surat al-Ikhlas, which includes verses that God is “begetteth not nor was begotten, and there is none comparable unto Him.”
David Frum, the former Bush administration speech writer and writer for the Atlantic, who is Jewish, said that those verses are a sectarian rejoinder to Christians.
“The verse Lander recited was an Arabic-language denunciation of the Christian doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ,” Frum wrote. “Jewish candidates for office normally show more respect for the majority faith in this country.”
In the video clip of Lander speaking at the mosque, which has gone viral on social media, the prayer leader of the mosque can be heard reciting the Shia Ziarat of Imam Mahdi, which prays for the Mahdi, a messianic figure in Shia Islam, to bring about “the killing of the infidels with your sword.”
The prayer is commonly recited by Shia Muslims on Fridays.
The Al-Khoei Islamic Center also has a history of Holocaust denial and of supporting Hamas, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Thursday.
The mosque’s sheikh, Fadhel Al-Sahlani, who has also met with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, said in a 2006 interview with the New York Sun that the Nazis’ murder of 6 million Jews “has been exaggerated.”
“The numbers which have been mentioned are too much,” the sheikh said. He allowed that the killing of Jews during the Second World War was “an injustice.”
In a follow-up interview with BeliefNet after his comments sparked controversy, Al-Sahlani said there are “great scholars,” who dispute the number of Jews killed and who believe that it was “done by the Zionists.”
He confirmed to the interviewer that his source for that belief was the infamous Holocaust denier David Irving.
Al-Sahlani also praised Hamas in November 2023, one month after the Oct. 7 attacks, as having made “great change.”
“Hamas has made a big difference not only for the Arab Muslim world, but the whole world, the whole world, mashallah,” he said, expressing gratitude to God.
JNS sought comment from Lander about his visit to the mosque.
An Emerson College poll released on Thursday suggests that Lander holds a commanding lead in the Democratic primary for 10th district in his challenge against incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.).The race is widely seen as a reflection of the state of Democratic politics in New York City, pitting the AIPAC-endorsed, pro-Israel Democrat Goldman against Lander, a progressive and early Mamdani ally, who routinely accuses the Jewish state of genocide.
The Emerson poll has Lander leading the race with 57% of the vote against Goldman’s 23%.
