Andre Sayegh, the mayor of Paterson, New Jersey, marked the beginning of the Muslim month of Ramadan with a Hilal lighting ceremony on February 28. He declared his city the “capital of Palestine” and “the fourth holiest city in the world.”
“I’m not the one who said it, but I heard people say that Paterson is probably the fourth most halal or holiest city in the world. Jerusalem, Mecca, Medina, and Paterson, New Jersey,” the 50-year-old Democrat said.
“Paterson is the capital of Palestine in the United States of America,” he later added, referring to Paterson as “The Mecca of New Jersey.”
Sunnis revere Mecca and Medina as the two holy cities in Saudi Arabia. While some Sunnis believe the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to be the destination of Muhammad’s miraculous night journey as described in the Koran, most believe the al-Aqsa Mosque (the further mosque) is in al-Juraana in Saudi Arabia.
Kairouan, Tunisia, is considered the fourth holiest city connected to Islam.
The Palestinian American Community Center (PACC) and the Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC) supported the event.
Paterson is the nation’s second-largest Muslim per capita, with 25,000 to 30,000 out of a total population of 160,000. Paterson enforces Islamic policies, such as closing schools on Muslim holidays, serving halal food in public schools, and broadcasting the Adhan (Muslim call to prayer) on loudspeakers throughout the city. Officials reportedly raised Palestinian flags on government buildings and promoted Paterson as a Palestinian-Islamic hub.
The main street in the city was also renamed “Palestine Way,” and the city government actively promotes anti-Israel BDS legislation.
The Hilal lighting ceremony, where Sayegh made these remarks, was supported by the Palestinian American Community Center (PACC) and the Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC), two organizations that have faced criticism for anti-Israel rhetoric.
Sayegh, a practicing Catholic, was born in Paterson, the son of a Syrian mother and a Lebanese father. Fluent in Arabic, he became Paterson’s first Arab-American mayor when he was elected in 2018, running ironically on a ‘One Paterson’ platform that promised to deemphasize ethnic differences to unite the city.
