The Lander Lesson
Updated: Sep 5
Be Careful What You Wish For
Jonathan S. Greenwald is Founder and Executive Director of The Greenwald Family Impact Foundation (TGFIF), a nonprofit focused on strengthening Jewish communities, supporting Israel and confronting antisemitism through high-impact philanthropic initiatives.
In this article, he examines Insights on Brad Lander: Leadership, Vision, and explors the prostitution of principle for victory.
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Brad Lander got what he wished for.
In June, the former New York City comptroller defeated incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in the Democratic primary for New York’s 10th Congressional District. It was a rout, roughly two-to-one.
Two Jewish Democrats. Two self-described Zionists. One of the most Jewish congressional districts in America.
But by 2026, what each meant by “Zionist” had come to look very different.
Israel was hardly the only issue in the campaign. But it became one of the clearest distinctions between the candidates.
Lander went further.
Lander won.
And the paint was barely dry on his victory before some people on the political ground toward which he had moved told him he was not welcome.
Their objection?
He was still a Zionist.
Where Lander Started
Return to October 2023.
After Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, Lander’s response was unequivocal. When the Democratic Socialists of America promoted a demonstration in Times Square the following day, Lander condemned it. He later described the rally as “heinous” and its rhetoric about Hamas as “vile.” He canceled his DSA membership.
Lander was no conservative on Israel. He had long described himself as a liberal Zionist, sharply critical of Israeli policy and supportive of Palestinian rights.
But there appeared to be a line.
Over the next two years, that line moved.
In September 2025, appearing alongside Zohran Mamdani, Lander said he had not done enough to speak out against what he called Israel’s “war crimes,” “ethnic cleansing” and “forced starvation.” He called for “a coalition of anti-Zionists and liberal Zionists.”
At the time, he still resisted describing Israel’s conduct as genocide, saying the term closed ears rather than opened them.
A month later, he began using it.
By the 2026 congressional primary, the distinction with Goldman was explicit. Lander attacked Goldman over AIPAC, his votes for American military assistance to Israel and his refusal to characterize Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide. Lander opposed additional military assistance, including aid for Iron Dome.
None of this tells us why Lander changed.
Political beliefs evolve. Events change people. The chronology establishes no motive.
So what does it establish?
In 2023, there appeared to be a line.
By 2025, that line had moved.
By 2026, Lander was criticizing Goldman for refusing to move with it.
Then Lander won.
Was this conviction catching up with events? Political instinct catching up with the electorate? Some combination of both?
We cannot know.
But are we wrong to ask?
The Goldman Test
Goldman was hardly Lander’s ideological opposite. He is a devoted Democrat who served as lead counsel in the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
He also calls himself a proud Zionist.
Goldman supported Israel as a Jewish and democratic state while backing Palestinian self-determination and a two-state solution. He criticized policies of Israel’s democratically elected government. As the primary approached, he even criticized AIPAC.
Goldman accommodated a changing political environment too.
But he stopped.
He would not call Israel’s conduct genocide.
He would not abandon American military support for Israel.
Lander continued.
Goldman lost.
Lander won.
Coincidence? Conviction? Political judgment?
Perhaps some of each.
We cannot know.
Nor can we say that Israel determined the election.
But what lesson would an ambitious politician draw from the result?
There had already been another episode worth watching.
In 2024, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro became a leading contender to join Kamala Harris’s presidential ticket. His positions on Israel, Gaza and campus protests became a significant source of progressive opposition, even though other contenders held broadly similar positions.
Harris chose Tim Walz.
We cannot say Shapiro’s Jewishness or his Israel positions cost him the vice presidency. The evidence does not establish that.
But ambitious Jewish Democrats could hardly have missed the episode.
What lesson did they take from it?
Give Bernie This
Which brings us, improbably, to Bernie Sanders.
I disagree profoundly with most of what Sanders has said about Israel.
But give Bernie this:
At least Bernie never pandered.
His criticism of Israel long predates the current political moment. After Oct. 7, Sanders condemned Hamas’s barbarity and affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself before turning to increasingly severe criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war.
Many American Jews, including this writer, strongly disagree with him.
But disagreement is not opportunism.
One need not agree with a man’s principles to recognize his willingness to stand by them.
And that distinction brings us to the uncomfortable question.
Where Is the Line?
There is nothing dishonorable about compromise.
There is nothing dishonorable about changing one’s mind.
But surely there is a line somewhere.
Where?
When does compromise become accommodation?
When does accommodation become a price paid for acceptance?
And when does that price become something more troubling the prostitution of principle for victory?
Did Brad Lander cross that line?
We do not know.
But his story gives us reason to ask where the line is.
And perhaps an even more revealing question follows:
Can political accommodation ever purchase permanent acceptance when the price of acceptance is ideological conformity?
Yesterday’s concession becomes today’s expectation.
Today’s expectation becomes tomorrow’s minimum.
And tomorrow?
There can always be another test.
Robespierre encountered the infinitely more lethal version of that political dynamic: movements preoccupied with ideological purity can eventually begin examining the purity of their own.
The comparison is about the mechanism, not the consequences.
The mechanism is recognizable.
The Purity Test Returns
The paint was barely dry.
Barely two months after Lander’s primary victory, he appeared at a demonstration outside Madison Square Garden protesting the persecution of religious minorities in India.
Some demonstrators welcomed him.
Others demanded that he leave.
“We don’t want no Zionists here,” one protester shouted.
Not everyone rejected Lander. Other demonstrators defended him, and organizations involved with the event apologized afterward.
But some did.
Consider the progression.
Lander had come to call Israel’s conduct genocide.
Not enough.
He had moved against military assistance.
Not enough.
He had built political alliances with anti-Zionists.
Still not enough.
Why?
For some of those protesters, one fact remained disqualifying:
He was still a Zionist.
Perhaps the more revealing question, then, is not whether accommodation helped Lander win.
The question is whether accommodation ever finishes the transaction.
How much is enough?
One more position?
One more word?
One more distinction between yourself and those with whom you once stood?
And if the price changes after you have paid it, what exactly did you buy?
Was It Worth It?
Brad Lander won.
That is what we know.
We do not know whether the coalition that helped propel him through the primary will endure. We do not know what further demands may be made of him or how he will respond.
He has not served a day in Congress.
The paint isn’t even dry.
Perhaps every change reflected conscience.
Perhaps every position was one Lander would have adopted with no congressional seat to win.
Perhaps his political evolution will prove principled, his coalition durable and his judgment correct.
Perhaps it won’t.
We cannot know yet.
But almost immediately after Lander won, some people standing on the political ground toward which he had moved told him that he still had not moved far enough.
He was still a Zionist.
And that raises a question considerably older than Brad Lander.
How many times have Jews believed that one more accommodation, one more demonstration of solidarity, one more distinction between ourselves and other Jews would finally settle the question of acceptance?
And how many times has the price changed?
Perhaps the Lander Lesson is not yet a lesson at all.
Perhaps it is simply a question whose answer has not yet been written.
The paint isn’t even dry.
Was it worth it?
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