A long-shot contender for New York attorney general met with members of a Black Hebrew Israelite sect that the Simon Wiesenthal Center identified as “one of the most extreme” groups pushing antisemitic myths that modern Jews are demonic imposters.

Republican former prosecutor Saritha Komatireddy — running against incumbent Attorney General Letitia James — on Monday posted photos on X of herself in what she indicated was an impromptu meeting with members of the group Israel United in Christ. She deleted the post on her account shortly afterward, but it remained up on the candidate’s webpage as of this writing. 

“Some of the best conversations happen along the way,” she wrote. “Enjoyed stopping to speak with the men of Israel United in Christ and hearing their perspectives.”

The perspectives of Israel United in Christ, as documented by the Wiesenthal Center, include that Black, indigenous and Spanish-speaking peoples of the Americas are the true descendants of the biblical Hebrews and that modern Jews are “fake” and “imposters” whose identification with the land of Israel is based on “fables.” The sect’s leaders have also referred to Judaism as a “synagogue of Satan,” and spread conspiracy theories about Jewish world domination and Jews’ role in the transatlantic slave trade.

The Anti-Defamation League, meanwhile, catalogued a 2020 sermon in which the fringe group’s founder and other high-ranking members referred to Jews as “the devil” and “the house of demons,” and singled out Hasidim as “evil despots.”

Komatireddy’s campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The Republican has otherwise aggressively pursued Jewish voters, vowing to declare a “state of emergency” over rising antisemitic hate crimes and picking up an endorsement from Elisha Wiesel, the son of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel.