Michigan Jewish leaders on Tuesday urged former Vice President Kamala Harris — who is set to campaign with the party’s Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, in Michigan this week — to appeal to El-Sayed on issues related to antisemitism and Israel.

Meanwhile, one prominent Jewish Democratic leader and fundraiser in the state said that, without seeing significant changes in rhetoric from El-Sayed, he’s not willing to vote for him, even as the state’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, said this week that she plans to support El-Sayed.

The group of Jewish leaders, writing to Harris under the banner of the Nonnegotiable Michigan campaign, said that they are longtime supporters of her and the Democratic Party, and called on her to press El-Sayed to accept the five demands on Jewish issues and Israel that the Nonnegotiable campaign has presented.

The leaders highlighted Harris’ own history of fighting antisemitism and standing with the Jewish community, including hosting a Hanukkah celebration at the vice president’s residence and working with her Jewish husband, Doug Emhoff, on the national antisemitism strategy.

“As Vice President, you told us plainly that antisemitism ‘must be condemned unequivocally’ — no caveats, no context, no hesitation,” the letter reads. “When you accepted the Democratic nomination –– with many of us in Chicago cheering you on –– you proudly affirmed your commitment to Israel’s sovereignty and safety; you knew that promise did not contradict Palestinian dignity, security, freedom or self-determination, which you called for in the very same breath.”

The leaders said that Harris’ own stance and her understanding of antisemitism is clear, while El-Sayed “has had every opportunity to meet our request to support our basic needs. So far, he has declined even to respond” while employing antisemitic tropes and rejecting Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.

“When you stand beside Dr. El-Sayed on September 22nd, we urge you to call on him to say what he has thus far been unwilling to say: that Jewish safety, including for Zionists, is nonnegotiable,” the leaders said. “That our right to define our own identity is nonnegotiable. That Jewish statehood and self-determination in our ancestral homeland is nonnegotiable. That our full, proud participation in the Democratic Party is nonnegotiable.”

During a press call on Tuesday morning, David Kramer, a prominent Jewish donor and top Democratic official, said he was still uncomfortable supporting El-Sayed unless he agreed to a set of conditions the Jewish community laid out earlier this month. Kramer served as finance chair for Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s (D-MI) 2024 campaign and was campaign chair for Rep. Haley Stevens’ (D-MI) 2026 Senate campaign. He was also a prominent member of the Jewish Democratic effort supporting Harris in Michigan in 2024.

“I was involved with Michigan Jews for Harris. We had a pretty significant group that was, and we were proud to stand with her, and particularly proud of the work that she did with Doug Emhoff to combat antisemitism, and felt that she was a stalwart supporter of our community and the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Kramer told Jewish Insider. “We think that she’s particularly well-suited to raise non-negotiables with Abdul, given her support of our community and her unique understanding of our issues and the need for our security.”

Kramer told reporters that, if El-Sayed does not embrace the five conditions laid out by the Nonnegotiable campaign, “I’m not comfortable, at this point, voting for him.” Other Jewish leaders on the call, largely clergy who said that they were not willing to disclose who they were voting for, stopped short of explicitly making such a commitment.

Cantor Regina Lambert-Hayut added that Harris has a “very particular bird’s-eye view of what it means to be on the receiving end of a constituency feeling unheard or unsupported,” referencing the Uncommitted Campaign — which El-Sayed helped lead in 2024.

That campaign “cost — maybe fully or maybe in part — Democrats the election,” Lambert-Hayut said.

“I feel that she really understands this, and maybe she, someone with her integrity and her wisdom, could help appeal to Dr. El-Sayed to understand that every constituent matters, and to completely ignore the Jewish constituency, especially those of us who want to be able to support him, is something that I hope that she would be able to help him understand better,” she continued.

Rabbi Michael Moskowitz also emphasized that the Nonnegotiable campaign’s message extends beyond El-Sayed and Michigan. “It’s a national message we need to get out there to any candidate to understand how we feel as a Jewish community, and if that our votes count, and they need to help us in the midst of these concerns.”

El-Sayed responded dismissively when pressed on his support for the Uncommitted campaign on Tuesday, ahead of his appearance with Harris, arguing that the campaign was only designed to oppose President Joe Biden, not Harris, though many prominent Uncommitted leaders continued to pressure and protest Harris through the general election.

Kramer’s comment that he is not currently prepared to vote El-Sayed stands in contrast with Nessel, the Democratic AG, who endorsed him on Tuesday. Nessel made the endorsement alongside El-Sayed on the “For the Sake of Argument” podcast hosted by progressive activist Lori Goldman. 

Nessel had previously been critical of El-Sayed and the Michigan Democratic Party more broadly, saying that she felt unsafe attending the party convention, but subsequently told Jewish Democrats in the state that they should put the “needs of the world above even our own self-interest and, yes, even our own survival.”

Kramer praised the Michigan Democratic Party and elected officials for their prompt condemnation of an incident last week in which an activist harassed and threatened Stevenson Capitol Hill for her support for Israel.

The activist involved is an officer of the Michigan Democratic Party, but the party is undertaking removal procedures. He also signed onto a letter of Jews supporting El-Sayed’s campaign, though El-Sayed also condemned his actions.

“It’s of great concern when any leader is accosted that way and things are thrown at them that are so damaging and alarming,” Moskowitz said on the press call.