The Free Beacon reports that the mosque’s longtime imam has questioned the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust and suggested it was made up ‘by Zionists’
House candidate Brad Lander (D., N.Y.) offered a stirring message of solidarity in a Queens mosque whose imam is a notorious Holocaust-denier.
Lander, the former New York City comptroller who is mounting a strong primary challenge to oust Rep. Dan Goldman from New York’s 10th district, promised the congregants he will work with Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s (D., N.Y.) far-left “Squad” in the House. He even chanted in Arabic during his remarks.
“In Congress, I will not vote for any more U.S. military aid to Israel, not the bombs that are destroying the hospitals and schools in Gaza, not the occupation in Lebanon,” Lander told the assembled crowd at the Al-Khoei Islamic Center in Jamaica, Queens, during a May 15 visit.
Lander—who is backed by New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani (D.)—has made criticizing Israel a key feature of his campaign against Goldman. In his address to the mosque, he falsely accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and said the country’s actions in Lebanon were also “on its way, potentially, to being a genocide.”
“The kind of partnership I developed with Zohran, I hope to come to have with Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar,” he said.
Lander also chanted in Arabic for the congregation. Later on in the service, an unnamed imam called for the death of infidels (it is a matter of theological debate whether Lander, who is Jewish, would be considered an “infidel” himself).
“The verse Lander recited was an Arabic-language denunciation of the Christian doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Jewish candidates for office normally show more respect for the majority faith in this country,” Atlantic writer David Frum posted to X on Thursday.
A new Emerson College poll shows Lander leading Goldman by 37 points among primary voters, driven by overwhelming support from the young, largely Brooklyn-based progressives who put Mamdani in office. Lander has made Goldman’s record of supporting Israel a key issue in the campaign, and his trip to Queens—which is far from the district he’s running to represent—gave him another platform to attack the Jewish state.
The Lander campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Video of the moment was first reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute on Thursday—just hours after a Washington Free Beacon report identified the mosque’s longtime spiritual leader as a Holocaust-denier.
In January 2006, Al-Khoei imam Sheikh Fadhel Al-Sahlani, told the New York Sun that that Jewish deaths in the Holocaust had been “exaggerated.”
“The numbers which have been mentioned are too much,” Al-Sahlani told Sun reporter Russell Berman. “The numbers, the reasons, we have to study more.”
In another interview in April 2006, Al-Sahlani said the Holocaust was “done by the Zionists” and expressed admiration for British Nazi apologist David Irving, then in prison in Austria on charges of Holocaust denial.
The sheikh has also offered approving words for Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.
On Nov. 3, 2023, less than a month after the slaughter, Al-Sahlani lauded the effort.
“One movement can make a great change,” he said. “What we are witness[ing] now [is] one movement from Hamas, it’s [made] a big [difference] not only for the Arab Muslim world, but the whole world, the whole world, mashallah.”
Mashallah can be loosely translated as “Allah has willed it.”
Mamdani has long been chummy with Al-Sahlani—visiting the mosque at least three times since January 2025, records show. During his most recent visit in February, Mamdani participated in Ramadan celebrations and told those assembled “it feels like returning home to be here.”
In a statement to the Free Beacon, Mamdani declined to condemn the imam—but said he did not agree with his comments.
“Sheikh Fadhel Al-Sahlani’s Holocaust denial and comments about Hamas are diametrically opposed to the mayor’s values and everything he has said and stood for,” Mamdani spokesman Sam Raskin said. “Like many elected officials, the mayor has visited many houses of worship and religious institutions across New York City. No visit should ever be construed as an endorsement of every statement made by every individual affiliated with those institutions.”
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