{"id":282810,"date":"2026-06-30T21:25:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T21:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/282810\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T21:25:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T21:25:28","slug":"a-2028-letter-to-losing-brad-lander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/282810\/","title":{"rendered":"A 2028 letter to losing Brad Lander"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brad Lander is riding high. New York City\u2019s former comptroller is all but assured of winning a congressional seat this November after beating incumbent Dan Goldman<\/a> to represent the heavily liberal Brooklyn\/Manhattan 10th District.<\/p>\n

But one thing his progressive credentials can\u2019t shed is his Jewishness \u2014 and with a Democratic Socialists of America<\/a> increasingly colored by antisemitism, that may make him useful, until he isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my imagined letter to him, dated two years from now, the morning after the 2028 primary, when Lander discovers exactly when \u201cuseful\u201d runs out:<\/p>\n

Dear Brad,<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry to hear of your loss in this week\u2019s congressional primary to a DSA candidate, closing out your leadership of the 10th District after just one term.<\/p>\n

You made a deal with the devil in 2026 \u2014 knocking out Dan Goldman, a mensch who stood by his principles even as the political ground shifted beneath him.<\/p>\n

I remember 2026 like it was yesterday. How you called Israel\u2019s war against those seeking its destruction a \u201cgenocide\u201d \u2014 and pointed to your own Jewishness as the credential to say so.<\/p>\n

How you refused AIPAC\u2019s money as a badge of honor and stood silently as Mayor Mamdani called AIPAC \u201cmonsters\u201d trafficking in \u201cdark money\u201d<\/a> \u2014 one of the oldest and ugliest antisemitic tropes.<\/p>\n

How you stood at your victory party flanked by the mayor and his coalition who have made hatred of the Jewish state their platform.<\/p>\n

And then there was the smaller indignity that should have told you everything. Primary day, 2026: the mayor\u2019s wife posted her support for other candidates and said nothing about you. Not a word. You told yourself it was an oversight. It wasn\u2019t. It was a preview.<\/p>\n

We asked you to stem the hemorrhaging of Israel support inside your own party, to name the line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism \u2014 you stayed quiet on both.<\/p>\n

We asked you to go to Israel as the district\u2019s elected voice \u2014 you never went. And to stay in relationship with the Jewish state, even while objecting to her government \u2014 no different than the 70% of Israelis who share your views on Bibi Netanyahu. We asked you to be a bridge. You were a tool of convenience.<\/p>\n

Because then the DSA fielded one of its own against you and pronounced you a Zionist puppet. You, who built a campaign premised that there was no such thing as too far left on Israel, discovered there is always someone further out on the ledge.<\/p>\n

They told you it was never about being a Jew \u2014 only about being a Zionist \u2014 as if the two could be peeled apart, as if your Jewishness had nothing to do with the nation they demanded you disown.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an old teaching about the man who thinks he can ride the tiger and dismount whenever he likes. You didn\u2019t tame the coalition you joined. You were, for one term, useful \u2014 until the moment it decided to disown you. You could renounce the policy, the lobby, even Zionism, but you could not renounce being a Jew.<\/p>\n

And when your new friends went silent as you were ripped apart by someone even purer than you, you finally understood what abandonment feels like.<\/p>\n

Our rabbinic sages teach that the penitent stand in a place the wholly righteous cannot reach \u2014 not despite having strayed, but because of it. Jews don\u2019t turn our backs on other Jews. Despite your miscalculation, despite the term you\u2019ve spent believing the DSA\u2019s love was stronger than your people\u2019s \u2014 we will not turn our backs on you.<\/p>\n

The door is open, Brad. Welcome back.<\/p>\n

Cosgrove is rabbi of Park Avenue Synagogue<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brad Lander is riding high. New York City\u2019s former comptroller is all but assured of winning a congressional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,299,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-282810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-opinion","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}