Brad Lander, a former New York City comptroller who is Jewish, delivered a victory speech in the backyard of Gowanus, a Brooklyn beer garden, after defeating Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) in the Democratic primary for New York’s 10th Congressional District on Tuesday night.
As the crowd chanted “Brad, Brad! Brad, Brad!” Lander, whom New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani supported, called for “a new humanism” in politics.
“I will be one of the Jewish members of Congress most willing to stand up for Palestinian human rights,” Lander told the crowd. “I will stand firmly against bigotry aimed at Jews.”
Lander, who pushed Goldman to say that Israel is guilty of “genocide” leading up to the election, defeated the incumbent by a wide margin. He had 55,060 votes (65.8%) to Goldman’s 28,445 (34%), with about 90% of votes counted at press time, according to the Associated Press.
Israel was a pivotal issue in the race, in which AIPAC was used, and became accepted, as a slur.
Mamdani referred to AIPAC and its supporters as “monsters” last week, and Lander, who self-identifies as a liberal Zionist, “struggled” earlier on election day to defend that claim, according to Politico.
Lander told the magazine’s Playbook that he agrees with the mayor that “a lot of negative forces are at play” in AIPAC support in U.S. races, but he “would not offer a direct defense of Mamdani’s phrasing, which Jewish leaders have said evokes antisemitic tropes, despite being repeatedly pressed,” Politico reported.
“I can only be responsible for the words I use,” Lander told the magazine. “I’m going to keep trying to simultaneously be critical when I think it’s necessary, but also build in a spirit of unity and humanity.”
“We ran this campaign like a team sport, because that’s what it takes to stand up to billionaires and bullies, and that’s what I intend to do in Congress,” Lander told supporters at the victory party.
“Our team of progressive champions has been winning across the country, and our ranks will keep growing, tonight and in the months ahead,” he said.
Lander quoted two statements from Hillel, the Jewish sage, from “Chapters of the Fathers” in both English and Hebrew at the event. “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” he said.
He also quoted Hillel’s statement, “In a place where there are no men, try to be a man.” He interpreted it as, “In a place where no one is acting human, strive to be human.”
“Because that is exactly the moment we are living in,” he told the crowd.
The anti-Israel group IfNotNow celebrated Lander’s win as “a blueprint for the future for both the Jewish community and the Democratic Party,” stated Morriah Kaplan, the group’s executive director.
“He ran a bold, unapologetically Jewish campaign that rejected pro-war lobbies like AIPAC and the endless flow of U.S. weapons to Israel,” she stated.
Sam Markstein, national political director at the Republican Jewish Coalition, referred to a Williamsburg cafe owner returning Goldman’s money and saying that his business wasn’t welcome, because he supports Israel, in a statement to JNS.
“There is only one party where supporting Israel doesn’t get you run out of office, or the coffee shop,” he told JNS. “Dan Goldman is no friend of ours, and yet he is being run out of his own party over support for the Jewish state.”
“That tells you everything about where the Democrat’s party base is,” he said.
The district covers lower Manhattan and sections of Brooklyn, including Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights and Sunset Park. It is said to be between 10% to 20% percent Jewish.
Lander has for decades lived in Park Slope, where he, his wife and two young adult children are longtime members of Kolot Chayeinu, a congregation in the neighborhood that is independent of any religious denomination. It is a place, according to its website, “where doubt can be an act of faith and all hands are needed to build our community.”
Before his unsuccessful run for mayor last year, Lander served as city comptroller. Earlier in his career, he ran the Fifth Avenue Committee, a nonprofit that advances affordable housing in Brooklyn.
He enthusiastically embraced Mamdani’s endorsement and campaigned with him, writing in promotional materials that they go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Mamdani has said that he would have the Israeli prime minister arrested in New York City, and his spokeswoman said that synagogues violate international law when they host pro-Israel events. (A mayoral rep later said that the spokeswoman meant events that promote sale of land in Judea and Samaria.)
Lander attended a mosque service with the Muslim mayor and recited a prayer.
His coalition-oriented approach appealed to voter Manny Fidel, a podcaster who came to the victory party.
“To me, he feels like a big-tent Democrat and doesn’t want to alienate people, which is why he opposed the Park Slope Food Coop” recent vote to boycott Israeli products, Fidel told JNS. “That’s what you want in a politician, especially in today’s divisive political time.”
Katie Unger, a board member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, attended the event as a representative of the group. She also co-founded the group’s electoral arm, the Jewish Vote, which endorsed Lander in the race and in his run for mayor against Mamdani.
The group “has been Brad’s political home for over 30 years,” Unger told JNS. Lander thanked it, among others, in his remarks.
His win in the primary “is very exciting,” Unger said. “This is our largest district with well over 1,000 members, who have been craving representation that profoundly understands that Jewish values means taxing the rich, means standing up with our neighbors against ICE and means standing up to a genocide.”
Israeli and U.S. officials and leaders of major Jewish organizations have said repeatedly that Israel is not guilty of “genocide,” and many have said that it is antisemitic to accuse Israel of such war crimes in its defensive war against Iran-backed terror proxies, including Hamas.
Ruth Messinger, a veteran Democratic activist who was a member of the New York City Council from 1978 to 1989, was at Lander’s victory party and told JNS that he “has done brilliant work, he knows the issues, is progressive and thoughtful and he’s a great organizer.”
“We need organizers in Congress on the progressive side to make positive change, especially as we get rid of Trump,” the 85-year-old, who stumped for Lander during the campaign, told JNS, before begging off in search of a beverage
The fight between Lander and Goldman—both Jewish progressive—got ugly in the campaign’s waning weeks, particularly around the issue of AIPAC and congressional funding for Israel.
The topics took up the first 15 and 20 minutes of the two televised debates they held and became a defining issue separating the two.
In his victory speech Lander addressed Goldman.
“I want to specifically praise how you responded to the toxic rhetoric that you and your staff faced over the past couple days with gratitude and grace,” he said. “That’s an approach we need more of in public life.”
