Dan Goldman for NY 10
Integrity and Decency Matter in Politics
After 33 years in Brooklyn, I moved to and now vote from Portland, Maine. But if I did still vote in New York, I’d proudly cast my vote for Dan Goldman in New York’s 10th Congressional race, the true progressive in this race who has already spent two terms resisting the fascistic overreach of the Trump administration.
Dan Goldman was the lead counsel in the first Trump impeachment; he now serves as a member of the House Judiciary Committee and House Homeland Security Committee, where he defends our civil rights and the rule of law every day. While Dan’s opponent, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, gets photo-opp arrests and Zohran Mamdani hugs, Dan did the actual work of releasing – 44 to date – unjustly jailed people.
In a city where the affordability and housing crisis is very real and deeply felt by countless New Yorkers across every age and racial demographic, Dan has earned the endorsement of 95% of NYCHA Association presidents. Not a single NYCHA Association leader has endorsed Brad.
The range of endorsements that Dan Goldman has earned is truly impressive and again, demonstrates how he is the real progressive in this race. They include Governor Kathy Hochul, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Former House Leader Nancy Pelosi, Manhattan Boro President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and numerous State Senators, State Assemblymembers and former City Council Speakers along with both the current NYC Comptroller Mark Levine, as well as the former NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer. Dan has over twenty union labor endorsements, including AFL-CIO, DC 37, Teamsters Local 237, Building and Construction Trades Council and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). He is also endorsed by eight of the nine local Democratic political clubs in NY 10 along with many national progressive organizations, including Planned Parenthood, J Street, Equality Pac and a slate of leading gun control groups.
After reading this list, one must ask why Brad Lander – a supposed progressive who has built his political career serving the very people and organizations that are endorsing his opponent Dan Goldman – is not out pounding the pavement for the two-term Congressman.
The reason is simple. Brad needed a job.
That’s the catch with career politicians. The fever of seeking office is infectious and runs hot. After serving one term as Comptroller, where Brad proudly declared himself a Zionist (including declaring himself one on X when I – progressive Zionist – was canceled at a DUMBO bookstore) and never once attempted to divest New York City pension funds from Israeli companies, Brad badly miscalculated the first time by running to succeed New York Mayor Eric Adams. He had his hat handed to him by the incendiary assent of anti-Zionist Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, who defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo (44% to 36%), while Brad earned the consolation prize of third place (11%)
Brad miscalculated a second time by lobbying for and assuming Mamdani would appoint him First Deputy Mayor. Nope. But who wants to stand on the unemployment line? So if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
Brad reinvented himself under the tutelage of Mamdani’s political Rasputin and social media guru Morris Katz and became, overnight, Brad Lander the anti-genocide, “soft Zionist,” who suddenly woke up to the legitimately debatable claims of genocide in Israel’s war with Hamas by becoming a single-issue candidate in a congressional district that recently passed a BDS resolution at the Park Slope Food Coop. Despite his scholastic bona fides as a University of Chicago alumnus, Brad claims he only recently learned about Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer who coined the term “genocide,” campaigning to establish the Genocide Convention, from one of his kids – in a shameless ruse hatched no doubt in an age demographic focus group. (In the history program at the University of Wisconsin in the 1980s, you couldn’t study the lessons of 20th century Europe without learning about Raphael Lemkin but I digress…)
Here’s Brad’s X Tweet after I was canceled at Powerhouse Books:
Speaking of social media cookie trails, don’t forget when Brad the Zionist ate at Miriam in Brooklyn after resistance cowards graffitied the Israeli establishment, accusing it of serving “genocide cuisine.”
After being crushed twice by Mamdani (neither Mayor nor First Deputy) Brad woke up to a new reality. Winning would require abandoning allies and principles for the glory of victory.
So now the former Comptroller who invested in Israeli companies; who stood with canceled Zionists; who supported peace-loving, apolitical, coexistence local restaurateurs, now sits for photo-ops, campaign videos and rallies with hate-filled, radicalized politicians, imams and activists who deny Israel’s right to exist, accuse Israel of crimes against humanity while ignoring worse human rights abuses and genocides elsewhere on the globe, and traffic in the most insidious antisemitic tropes about the evils of Jewish money in politics.
Brad now plays for a different team, aligning himself for the purposes of election with the most radicalized voices tearing apart the Democratic Party.
Team Zohran Mamdani, which seeks to dismantle the Jewish state.
Team Claire Valdez, which seeks to dismantle the Jewish state.
Team Darializa Avila Chevalier, which seeks to dismantle the Jewish state.
Whatever it takes to win, I guess.
But it’s perverse, opportunistic, lacking principle, and grotesque. Even Brad admits he feels “queasy” doing it, admitting the antisemitic tropes he’s playing.
To be absolutely clear, Congressman Dan Goldman is persistently, vocally, forcefully on the record, opposing the policies and actions of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Congressman Goldman has spoken out on numerous occasions against the immoral pogroms by fanatical Israeli settlers against innocent Palestinians in the West Bank; and Congressman Goldman has been a vocal supporter of regime change in Israel and helping move the Jewish state toward a more just and peaceful resolution of this agonizing conflict, now more than a century old.
But Lander, in order to get a job I guess, has chosen to willfully ignore the genocidal intent of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, widely reported and undeniably attested by following the playbook of his avowed anti-Jewish state Svengali, Zohran Mamdani.
If only it were just sad. But it’s not. It’s damning, shameful, and morally outrageous. Because of how well it’s been poll tested, not a day goes by where Brad doesn’t use “Goldman” and “AIPAC” in the same sentence (even though Brad admitted to the New York Times that this may invoke antisemitic tropes of Jews, money and power).
Brad, who in his earlier political biography used to say he was once interested in being a rabbi, would do well to humble himself before the wisdom of the first century rabbis who authored Pirke Avot, one of Judaism’s most revered ethical works.
“Be careful with the ruling authorities for they do not befriend a person except for their own needs; they seem like friends when it is to their own interest, but they do not stand by a man in the hour of his distress.” (Pirke Avot 2:4)
Such reflection seems lost upon a once promising public servant.
If you live in New York’s 10th Congressional District, cast your vote for Congressman Dan Goldman. For working New Yorkers. For affordable housing. For fair and just treatments for immigrants. For resistance against Trump’s unjust and illegal policies. For peace and coexistence for Israelis and Palestinians. For decency. For integrity. For you and your families.
These are the times when being an "honest" politician means publicly standing by your bigotry, hate and ugliness, with either a smear or a smile. In this way Trump and Mamdani are one and the same. They know that now is the moment others will fall into line and give up their better values to follow their "honesty" or at least excuse it. Sad that in Brad's case its for a "job", and no different from so many others who latch onto the limelight while others do the real work. I am from NY and been following this. Thank you for the stark outline of the environment here and doing what you can to promote a much better option. I sincerely hope Goldman wins.
Really nice piece on a deeply shameful and despicable person.