LONDON (AP) – London’s newly elected Muslim mayor paid respect Sunday to the millions of Jews slain in the Holocaust as his first official act in office.
Sadiq Khan made Sunday’s appearance at a north London ceremony following a racially charged election campaign during which Conservative Party opponents sought to portray him as an apologist for Islamic extremism and to highlight cases of alleged anti-Semitism within the ranks of Khan’s Labour Party.
The annual Yom HaShoah event inside a rugby stadium brought together thousands from London’s Jewish community, including more than 150 Holocaust survivors and a combined choir from five Jewish elementary schools. Khan attended alongside Lord Levy, one of Labour’s most senior Jewish supporters and the party’s former lead fundraiser.
Khan said he was honored to “meet and hear from Jewish survivors and refugees who went through the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust.”
London’s previous Labour mayor, Ken Livingstone, was suspended last month from the party after he claimed that Adolf Hitler had supported the Zionist aim of establishing Israel. Livingstone, who served as mayor from 2000 to 2008, has defended his comments and has vowed to fight potential expulsion from Britain’s main opposition party.