Bruce Blakeman, the Jewish Republican running for governor of New York, drew criticism from Jewish groups for saying that congressional candidate Brad Lander “would be a camp guard in the concentration camp if he could.”
Blakeman’s comment Wednesday came during a discussion on the conservative network Newsmax about New York’s Democratic primary results on Tuesday. Lander, who is Jewish, was one of the three progressives endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to win their race.
“Brad Lander, he’s a disgrace,” said Blakeman, who has often cast his race against Gov. Kathy Hochul as a fight against the New York mayor, a strident critic of Israel. “He’s anti-American, he’s antisemitic even though he’s Jewish.”
Lander responded in a statement on Thursday, in which he said that New Yorkers will “resoundingly reject Blakeman’s far-right MAGA bigotry this November,” when he faces Hochul.
“We named our son after Marek Edelman, a leader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising,” Lander said. “That’s how seriously I take the legacy of Jews who fought Nazis.”
Lander, who beat the pro-Israel incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman by more than 30 points, describes himself as a liberal Zionist, while taking a much more sharply critical stance toward Israel than Goldman, including by labeling Israel’s campaign in Gaza as a genocide.
Blakeman is a staunch Israel supporter who recently appeared at a Jerusalem real estate expo that attracted protesters and included some properties beyond the pre-1967 line in East Jerusalem.
“I don’t know where Bruce Blakeman went to Hebrew school, but I was taught that ‘Never Again!’ means never again to anyone,” Lander said. “Standing up for Palestinian human rights doesn’t make me any less proud to be Jewish, or any less serious about fighting antisemitism.”
“Kapos” historically refers to the Jews who assisted Nazis in death camps, under threat of execution. It has been used as an insult in inter-Jewish politics in recent years, especially among Jewish right-wingers denouncing anti-Zionists and in some cases any liberal Jews.
New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, Congress’ most senior Jewish member, condemned Blakeman’s comments and said in a statement that Lander would be “a great member of Congress.”
“For Bruce Blakeman to invoke the Holocaust to smear a fellow Jewish man is beyond the pale — it is a grotesque desecration of the memory of six million Jews,” Nadler said.
J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group that had endorsed both Lander and Goldman, wrote that “Blakeman’s attack on Brad Lander — a Jewish leader deeply committed to Israelis and Palestinians alike — is corrosive and wrong.”
“No amount of vitriolic language from Blakeman or others will erase the fact that a growing number of American Jews reject the false choice that fighting for Israel’s future means abandoning the Palestinian people,” J Street wrote on social media.
David Greenfield, CEO of the Met Council, a Jewish charity, wrote that he has spent much of his 20-year relationship with Lander fighting over politics and policy, “especially Israel.”
“But Brad genuinely wants Israel to exist and thrive even if I think he’s going about it in the wrong way,” Greenfield wrote. “Blakeman needs to apologize.”
The Anti-Defamation League published a statement on Thursday condemning the abuse of Holocaust imagery, which did not name Blakeman, but which a spokesperson confirmed was spurred by his remarks.
“The Holocaust was a singular event in world history. Invoking concentration camps and Nazi analogies to score political points dishonors the memory of six million murdered Jews,” the ADL wrote. “No matter how strongly you agree or disagree with someone, the Holocaust is not a rhetorical device.”
Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a community outreach group, called Blakeman’s comments “disgusting, yet sadly par for the course.”
The progressive advocacy group New York Jewish Agenda, of which Lander was a founding member, called Blakeman’s comment “totally out of bounds,” adding that it is “appalling to weaponize one of the most painful moments in Jewish history to criticize the policy positions of Jewish public officials.”
Randi Weingarten, the Jewish president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote that Blakeman’s remarks were “fearmongering of the worst kind” and “shows that he lacks the temperament to be Governor.”
Blakeman, meanwhile, followed up his comment with a clarification on Thursday: “Maybe camp guard was too strong, but certainly collaborator.”
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