The outcome of Michigan’s bruising Democratic Senate primary last week, where Abdul El-Sayed claimed a narrow victory over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in an upset championed by the anti-Israel left, is looming over the next intraparty showdown being held in Minnesota on Tuesday — the latest in a series of proxy battles between the party’s mainstream and left-wing flanks.

In an echo of Michigan, the bitter Democratic primary for an open Senate seat in battleground Minnesota this week is pitting a moderate House member with a long-standing pro-Israel record, Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), against an outspoken progressive, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, whose attack lines have frequently centered on AIPAC, which spent over $30 million in its unsuccessful effort to help Stevens.

The Minnesota primary is, in the closing stretch, likewise revolving around questions of electability for Democrats in the must-win November contest. Craig has pointed to controversies amid Flanagan’s tenure in government as vulnerabilities Republicans are eager to exploit — most notably including the welfare fraud scandal that prompted Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to abandon his reelection campaign for a third term earlier this year.

Flanagan, in addition to her anti-AIPAC messaging, has hammered Craig over what she has described as a “disqualifying” vote approving the Laken Riley Act — legislation requiring the detention of unauthorized migrants charged with certain crimes — the optics of which have been damaging in the wake of President Donald Trump’s protracted immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Craig has expressed regret for her vote.

But unlike Michigan, where El-Sayed claimed the nomination by less than one point after polls had suggested a double-digit blowout, the Minnesota matchup has been seen as neck-and-neck, the outcome of which is hard to predict, experts say. Recent independent surveys have shown a statistical dead heat in the final weeks of the primary, with each candidate garnering around 40% of the vote.

The candidates’ equivocations over AIPAC and individual ties to the group have also emerged as fault lines in recent weeks, complicating the ideological divisions that have shaped other primaries in which Israel and Middle East policy have featured prominently.

In a reflection of the extent to which AIPAC is now viewed as a liability in Democratic primaries, Craig has distanced herself from the group, which has not officially made an endorsement in the race even as its donor network has contributed to her campaign. The congresswoman, who is backed by several pro-Israel lawmakers including Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), has said she is not accepting contributions from AIPAC’s political arm in her current campaign.

During a recent debate, Flanagan said AIPAC had been Craig’s “biggest funder throughout her entire political career,” while claiming her own “values do not align with” the group. Flanagan has cast AIPAC as part of “a band of super villains” in the race now trying to “buy this election,” language some Jewish leaders say they have found unsettling amid rising antisemitism.

Flanagan, however, acknowledged last month she had met privately with AIPAC after The Minnesota Star Tribune obtained a video recording of remarks to Jewish community members — also reviewed by Jewish Insider — in which she said the outreach was “important” for her “to make sure that we’re building that relationship.”

Flanagan claims that AIPAC turned against her and came to regard her as a “threat” when she confirmed her support last year for Senate resolutions to block arms sales to Israel. She has since endorsed a House amendment to end aid to Israel, which Craig rejected, further illustrating her policy disagreements with the group.

Craig, for her part, has sharply dismissed the lieutenant governor as “completely disingenuous about her soliciting support from AIPAC,” claiming that she “has been very hypocritical” because of her efforts to demonize the group.

While Flanagan has insisted she was not seeking an endorsement in her outreach to AIPAC officials, she did write an Israel position paper that she submitted to the group as part of their discussions, according to two people familiar with the matter. 

Manny Houle, a pro-Israel Democratic consultant in Minnesota, confirmed to JI that Flanagan presented a Middle East policy paper to AIPAC and said that he had personally reviewed the document. He said he no longer had a copy, which JI was unable to obtain, but he recalled that she “was open to conditioning aid” to Israel and said she “put a lot of pressure and fault on Israel and occupation,” among other “key factors” he characterized as distinguishing Flanagan from Craig.

Houle, a former director of progressive outreach for AIPAC in the Midwest, said his impression had been that Flanagan wrote the paper and sought the group’s feedback early in her campaign last year because she viewed it as part of a broader process. The lieutenant governor “would have been open to engaging within the network of donors” affiliated with AIPAC, Houle claimed, “but when she realized that wasn’t going to be the case,” she pivoted to a more hostile position.

“Many key advisors to Peggy are anti-AIPAC, so it’s hard for me to think she’d ever honestly in good faith engage with the organization,” Houle explained to JI. “I’ve had conversations with her throughout the race trying to get her to tone down her rhetoric” on Israel issues, he added, “but to no avail.”

A spokesperson for AIPAC did not return a request for comment.

Alexandra Fetisoff, a spokesperson for Flanagan’s campaign, did not directly address the AIPAC paper in a statement responding to a request for comment. “Flanagan disagrees with AIPAC’s deeply unpopular political agenda and the catastrophic actions of” the government led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Fetisoff told JI on Friday.

“Flanagan believes what has happened in Gaza is genocide, a position in line with the United Nations,” Fetisoff said. “Flanagan has consistently condemned antisemitism, and will continue standing with Jewish Minnesotans against hate.”

Last week, American Priorities, a new super PAC created to counter AIPAC’s influence in Democratic primaries, began spending in the race to help boost Flanagan, spending over $50,000 on an ad calling her a “fighter” who would “stand up to Trump” while touting her support from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Flanagan also claims backing from the state Democratic Party and retiring Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), whom she is vying to succeed, along with leading progressive critics of Israel such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).

Doug Rossinow, a professor of history at Metro State University in St. Paul, who has tracked divisions over Israel in the state Democratic Party, said the “AIPAC issue flew under the radar until pretty recently” in the election. “The Flanagan-Craig contest is, compared to Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary race, a classic case of Minnesota understatement and even passive aggression,” he told JI. 

“Flanagan lately has made an issue of Craig’s history of support from AIPAC,” he noted, “but Craig, unlike Haley Stevens, doesn’t want to own that or talk about Israel.” Meanwhile, Flanagan has stated “little about her own position on Israel” and the region, he added, “unlike El-Sayed in Michigan,” a fierce critic of Israel who has refused to acknowledge its right to exist as a Jewish state.

One state party activist described the race as “a little bit less black and white than Michigan,” while noting the contrasts between Craig and Flanagan are not as drastic. “I see it as a toss-up,” he said of the primary.

Joe Radinovich, a Democratic consultant based in Minneapolis, added that while the national political mood has favored populist progressives, he believes there is reason to interpret the closer-than-expected finish in Michigan as a relatively promising omen for Craig, who flipped a GOP-held swing district in 2018.

“The dominant narrative has belonged to the further left wing of the party, populist candidates and people decrying AIPAC and Israel,” Radinovich, who said he is supporting Craig but is not involved in the primary, told JI in an interview on Friday. “But if I’m on the Craig campaign and looking at the results of the election in Michigan, I’m feeling some wind in my sails.”

Mara Kunin, Craig’s campaign manager, projected confidence in a statement on Friday. “National and state Republicans are making a serious play for this Senate seat and primary voters understand that we can’t risk putting up a weak candidate in the general election,” she said, adding Craig “is positioned to win this race on Tuesday and seal the deal in November.”

The Democratic nominee is expected to face Michele Tafoya, a former NFL sideline reporter who is heavily favored to win the Republican primary, in November. The GOP’s Senate campaign arm has indicated that it views Minnesota among four pickup opportunities as the party seeks to retain its majority in the chamber. 

“It is very saturated, very ugly and very negative,” another state party activist said about the primary, which has otherwise seen a flood of outside spending from opposing groups. “I think that AIPAC will have an impact in the race, but social services fraud could be more important,” he told JI. “Whoever wins, it will sort of say which issue” carries the most weight.

In her first cable news interview since her Senate primary loss on Wednesday morning, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) told CNN that Jewish voters who are concerned about Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s hostility towards Israel are “going to have to make a personal and private decision” as to who to support in November. 

Stevens also told CNN on Friday that she is a “Zionist Democrat in Michigan.”

In her first cable news interview since her Senate primary loss, Haley Stevens told CNN she is "a Zionist Democrat in Michigan" and suggested voters concerned about El-Sayed’s stance on Israel "need to make a personal and private decision” as to who to support in November. pic.twitter.com/ub9OVJAoey

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) August 7, 2026

Just before he was declared the winner in the Democratic primary for the pivotal Michigan Senate race, El-Sayed doubled down on his criticism of Israel on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” calling the Jewish state “bloodthirsty” and saying his critiques go beyond the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

El-Sayed, who made his opposition to AIPAC a central part of his campaign message, sought to ease tensions with skeptical Jewish voters after winning the nomination, addressing what he called “an issue that has been focused on in this race.”

“To all of my sisters and brothers of the Jewish faith,” he said in his televised remarks, “I want you to know that my commitment to your safety, my commitment to Jewish safety, is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters.” He also spoke about his experience going to a seder during the campaign, where in an awkward turn of phrase, said he was able to “break bread” with his Jewish friends.

On Friday, Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers argued that the “vast majority of people” rejecting El-Sayed — whose bid he framed as a “campaign filled with anger, divisiveness, calls for violence and the views that are out of touch with your values”— have “a home with us.”

Addressing Michigan Democrats in a videotaped message, Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers said that the “vast majority of people” rejecting Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed — whose bid he framed as a “campaign filled with anger, divisiveness, calls for violence and the views that are out of touch with your values”— have “a home with us.” 

“If you’re among the majority of Democratic voters that woke up on Wednesday feeling hopeless because the person who won does not represent your values, well, just know there is still hope,” Rogers said seated next to his wife, in a 90-second video message released on Friday.

“Michigan deserves a senator who is ready to sit with you, hear from you and represent you.

The parents across Michigan who want an education system that sets up their kids for success have a home with us. Grandparents across Michigan who are heartbroken from watching their kids and grandkids leave the state, you have a home with us,” he continued. 

“To young people who are looking for real solutions to our housing affordability crisis, you have a home with us. To families who don’t want higher taxes and lower paychecks, you have a home with us. The fight is far greater than just left versus right. The fight is for the very soul of our nation. Over the next 90 days, I’m going to work hard to earn your trust, to earn your support and earn your vote.” 

Most Democrats quickly coalesced behind El-Sayed after he narrowly clinched victory in Michigan’s Democratic primary on Wednesday morning, while Republicans quickly attacked El-Sayed’s extremist history and ties. 

Just before he was declared winner, El-Sayed doubled down on his criticism of Israel on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” calling the Jewish state “bloodthirsty” and saying his critiques go beyond the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said on Wednesday that he believes Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan has put the state in play for Republicans in November. 

Fetterman made the comments in an interview with Jewish Insider in the hours after Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) conceded to El-Sayed in what was a competitive and contentious primary. The Pennsylvania Democrat said he expects El-Sayed will struggle to reach moderate voters without distancing himself from antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker and his record of extremist comments, including remarks that America deserved 9-11 which Republicans are already revisiting in campaign ads.

“He will quickly discover a primary is a much different situation in this state [than the general election], when you’re accountable for winning the other side. I can’t wait to see him campaign for the general. I have got my popcorn for that,” Fetterman told JI. “Will he denounce Hasan Piker? Because Piker is already calling moderates ‘Islamophobic pieces of s***.’ Will he campaign with him? Will he denounce his views? I am daring him to continue to campaign with Hasan Piker now.”

“Think about how volatile a guy like Piker is,” Fetterman said. “He’s already gone off and exploded because El-Sayed was saying how now we have to mend fences.”

Fetterman called El-Sayed “a dream for a Republican candidate,” adding that he would spend millions on political advertisements highlighting El-Sayed’s relationship with Piker if he were the GOP candidate in the race. 

Fetterman argued that El-Sayed’s close margin of victory over Stevens — less than one point — shows that his win is not indicative of a shift in the state’s overall electorate. 

“I don’t know why El-Sayed described this as a big movement. He thinks that this was an incredible win and that’s just not the case,” he told JI. “Just the opposite — he barely won by 14,000 votes.”

“He really ran the under-four mile politically, palling around with a dude that loves Hamas and thinks America deserved 9/11,” he added. “I mean, will that stick? We’ll see, but overall, this takes largely what had been a safe seat for Democrats and absolutely puts it in play now. Mike Rogers barely lost to [Sen.] Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) [in 2022].”

Asked if he’ll consider endorsing former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), El-Sayed’s Republican opponent in the contest, Fetterman said, “I’m not making any endorsements in this race.”

The Pennsylvania Democrat expressed skepticism that El-Sayed would be able to win over pro-Israel and Jewish voters in November, specifically pointing to his defense of the perpetrator of the violent attack on Temple Israel in the Detroit suburbs earlier this year. “Nothing justifies the heinous attack that we saw on Temple Israel,” Fetterman said.

“Every other word out of his mouth is AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC. Imagine what that must look like to a Jewish voter,” Fetterman said of El-Sayed. “Essentially he has defined his race by opposing Jewish money or saying Israel is the aggressor, and he aligns himself with some of the worst people.”

“I’m not a member of the Jewish community, but I can’t imagine how anyone could vote for him in good conscience,” he continued. “How could a Jewish voter in Michigan vote for a guy that refused to condemn a terrorist that crashed his car into a synagogue to kill 150 Jewish children? That’s disqualifying, and it’s appalling.”

Fetterman argued that, “This is a guy that has similar views to Piker. We all know why Abdul El-Sayed was sad after we incinerated Iranian leadership. Remember what Hamas has done to defenseless Israeli and Jewish civilians on 10/7. Piker is the guy that cheers for that organization. I don’t know how you are able to reconcile that.”

Fetterman also took aim at Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for his endorsements of El-Sayed in Michigan and failed Senate candidate Graham Platner in Maine, who Sanders withdrew his support for after he was accused of sexual assault. The Pennsylvania senator, who has publicly sparred with all three men in recent months, criticized Sanders’ candidate choices as detrimental to Democrats retaking control of the Senate. 

“Bernie Sanders is not flipping seats,” Fetterman said. “He is trying to put volatile and terrible candidates into otherwise more safe kinds of opportunities for Democrats.”

He went on to add that he does not plan to endorse the Democrat in the race, while noting that El-Sayed would likely not want his support. 

“I can’t ever endorse him, not to think he’d even want mine, and not because he’s called me an asshole or because I’m an ogre that belongs on a pike,” Fetterman said, referring to comments El-Sayed made about him earlier this month. “It’s because he’d have to renounce people like Piker and some of those extreme community leaders that were very much involved with standing with Iran and engaged in rhetoric that describes America as evil. They’re just essentially anti-American people, ironically, while they are living in our country.”

Good Thursday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover the fallout from Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory over Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, and talk to Jewish Democrats in the state who are considering crossing party lines to vote for GOP nominee Mike Rogers in the November election. We report on the obstacles facing Rep. Ed Case ahead of a challenge from his left in Saturday’s primary in Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District, and cover a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing examining Muslim Brotherhood networks and affiliates in the United States. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Benny Stanislawski, Tom Kahn and Gianni Infantino.

We also have a new on-demand Live Briefingthat you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• U.S.-led talks between Israel and Lebanon in Rome are slated to conclude today, after yesterday’s discussion was cut short by several hours “due to events on the ground,” the State Department said.
• The decision to pause talks came after the IDF conducted strikes in southern Lebanon over what it said were “blatant violations” of the ongoing ceasefire by Hezbollah, including an incident in which two IDF reservists were killed and four seriously wounded by an explosive device in southern Lebanon.
• Reports continue to indicate Iran and Oman are inching toward a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz after earlier agreements on the issue fell apart. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday that Tehran and Muscat were close to finalizing an agreement, so long as “certain parties do not obstruct this process” — an apparent reference to the U.S.
• Tennessee is holding its primary elections today. In the state’s 5th District, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), a far-right lawmaker, is facing a serious primary challenge from Charlie Hatcher, a former state commissioner of agriculture.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MATTHEW KASSEL

Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in Michigan’s bruising Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday is forcing many Jewish leaders in the state to confront an uncomfortable decision as they now look ahead to the general election in November.

Several Jewish Democrats in the battleground state are now indicating that they will break with a party they have long called home and instead vote for the Republican nominee, Mike Rogers, in the November election, citing their continued alarm over El-Sayed’s hostile rhetoric toward Israel as well as remarks they have interpreted as indifferent to rising antisemitism, among other concerns.

“I can’t vote for El-Sayed,” Michael Horowitz, a Jewish community leader and Detroit businessman who supported Stevens, a pro-Israel moderate, told Jewish Insider. “So many things I find despicable about him, not the least of which is his close association with Hasan Piker,” the antisemitic Twitch streamer, who Horowitz said “demeans America, demeans Jews and demeans all but the most radical among us.”

Horowitz confirmed he was now “leaning strongly to Rogers,” a former congressman who narrowly lost in his bid for Senate last cycle. “And I have heard from many in the Jewish community who say they will be supporting Rogers,” he said on Wednesday.

Hannan Lis, a Democratic fundraiser and Jewish leader who splits his time between Michigan and Israel, was among those who had told JI before the primary that he would vote for Rogers in the general election if El-Sayed won the nomination, noting he knows “many” Jewish Democrats who plan to do the same.

His reservations about Republicans preserving their Senate majority by picking up the Michigan seat held by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), he clarified, were superseded by his objections to El-Sayed’s stances on Israel and responses to antisemitism. “El-Sayed is no Democrat,” he claimed.

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.

CASE STUDY

Generational challenge threatens Ed Case in Hawaii’s under-the-radar primary

Rep. Ed Case (D-HI), a moderate pro-Israel Democrat in Hawaii who was first elected to the House in 2002, has not drawn a serious primary threat in several years. Now, as he prepares to defend his seat in a primary on Saturday that has largely flown under the radar, some Democrats are warning that the 73-year-old could be at risk of losing to a younger challenger capitalizing on a national political environment that has proven unfavorable to Democratic incumbents amid broader calls for generational change from the party’s activist base, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

While you were sleeping: “It’s one of those sleeper races where there’s definitely an upset brewing,” said a Democratic operative who worked on the Case campaign until a few months ago, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid professional reprisals. “Ed is running a poor race,” the former staffer told JI, echoing other observers who described a sluggish approach in which Case has largely foregone campaign events and avoided debates with his opposition.

Read the full story here.

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ON THE HILL

Cruz links El-Sayed’s victory to Muslim Brotherhood network in United States

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), speaking at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that he organized to examine Muslim Brotherhood networks and affiliates in the U.S., suggested that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was tied to such networks and that his Democratic primary win represented a victory for them. “Behind El-Sayed’s political rise sits a much older and more entrenched institutional network,” Cruz asserted, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Zoom out: Kyle Shideler, a senior analyst for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, testified under questioning from Cruz that El-Sayed’s win concerned him given the nominee’s father-in-law’s ties to Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups and El-Sayed’s own relationship with groups connected to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “It shows the success of the Muslim Brotherhood network over multiple decades. It achieved what they said they were going to achieve, which was to normalize support for Hamas and normalize support for terrorism,” Shideler said.

Read the full story here.

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COMMUNITY CONCERN

Jewish Dems ‘disappointed’ in Michigan Senate results, stop short of endorsing El-Sayed

Jewish groups expressed concern on Wednesday about the victory of Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, highlighting his extreme rhetoric on Israel and the broader rise of the far left, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Reactions: Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer said in a statement that the group was “disappointed” by the results of the primary, in which the group had endorsed and campaigned strongly for Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). Soifer congratulated but stopped short of endorsing El-Sayed. AIPAC, while declining to preview specific plans, indicated it intends to stay engaged in the Michigan race through November. “Our members remain determined to ensure that voters reject Dr. El-Sayed and his radical anti-Israel agenda in November,” spokesperson Deryn Sousa told JI.

Read the full story here.

Trump’s take: President Donald Trump, speaking at an event in Las Vegas on Wednesday, said al-Sayed “hates Jews and he hates Israel,” adding, “He’s a man of hate, and now he’s going around saying, ‘Oh I love everybody.’ He doesn’t love everybody. Put him in office, and you’re going to find out what he loves.” 

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WITHHOLDING SUPPORT

Moderate Michigan Rep. Hillary Scholten does not offer endorsement of El-Sayed

Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI), a moderate Michigan lawmaker representing a swing district, broke with most other Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation in declining to offer an explicit endorsement of Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, after offering strident criticism of him during the primary campaign, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Matthew Shea report.

What she said: “Congratulations to everyone who participated in Michigan’s hard-fought primary elections last night, and thank you to every voter who made your voice heard. In these close elections, we want you to know — you are HEARD,” Scholten said in a statement that did not mention El-Sayed. “Now our focus turns forward. I’ve always said I’ll work with anyone committed to lowering costs, expanding affordable health care, creating more opportunity, and fighting corruption. I mean that.” 

Read the full story here.

Phone a friend: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani refused to close the door on a trip to Michigan to campaign for El-Sayed, whom Mamdani praised for what he described as a focus on “the concerns of working-class Americans” — even as he tried to explain away El-Sayed’s poor performance in the areas where working-class voters live, JI’s Will Bredderman reports.

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RACE RHETORIC

El-Sayed calls Israel ‘bloodthirsty’ in first post-primary TV interview

Appearing on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, Abdul El-Sayed doubled down on his criticism of Israel, calling the Jewish state “bloodthirsty” and saying his critiques go beyond the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.

What he said: “I think we’ve seen the worst of what the Israeli government has done [under Netanyahu] but don’t forget that we’ve been talking about an illegal apartheid regime for a very, very long time, and that supersedes Netanyahu himself,” El-Sayed said. “I understand that Netanyahu is a big reason why they’ve gotten so aggressive and frankly so bloodthirsty under his reign, but I also understand that it’s impossible for us to say we want a two-state solution while we’ve been aiding, arming and abetting the very people who have been trying to foreclose on the possibility of a Palestinian state.” 

Read the full story here.

It’s all over: Democrats quickly coalesced behind El-Sayed after the far-left candidate narrowly clinched victory in Michigan’s Democratic primary on Wednesday morning, while Republicans quickly pounced on his extremist history and ties, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

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Worthy Reads

Reassessing Reality: The Atlantic‘s Jonathan Chait contends that, in order to wrest back their party from the far left, moderate Democrats will have to reevaluate some of their core stances, including support for AIPAC and Israel. “Fending off a leftist insurgency will be all but impossible unless Democrats reject AIPAC’s endorsements and stop supporting unconditional aid for an Israel that no longer works toward a two-state solution. Democrats also have to stop passively allowing multiple candidates to split the mainstream vote while the leftist vote consolidates behind a single candidate, as occurred in Michigan’s Seventh District and the Wisconsin governor’s race. But the greatest challenge for mainstream liberals is to find a way to engage in and win the substantive argument with the left.” [TheAtlantic]

Lemons into Lemonade: Tablet‘s Jacob Siegel argues that the U.S.-Israel alliance is loosening, and that the moment presents an opportunity for Israel to reduce its dependence on Washington and diversify its alliances. “A greater degree of separation between the United States and Israel is not only inevitable, it is desirable. Many supporters of Israel seem to be aware only of the significant challenges that this will create for the small country. They overlook the significant opportunities it presents for Israel’s growth. … With the chapter closing on its role as an outsize client state, Israel needs to develop itself as an independent regional power that is a desirable partner by virtue of its ability to innovate technologies and project force.” [Tablet]

Fashion Faux Pas: In The New York Times, John Galliano biographer Dana Thomas cautions against the decision by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to honor the designer, who was convicted of antisemitic abuse after praising Adolf Hitler. “Not all great creators deserve a retrospective, and someone as incendiary as Mr. Galliano certainly shouldn’t be the subject of one during his lifetime, when he stands to profit from the honor personally. With ‘John Galliano: Horizons,’ the Met and Ms. Wintour are selling the idea that they can tell the rest of us how to think about a difficult and divisive figure. Maybe they didn’t notice that idea has gone badly out of fashion.” [NYTimes]

Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.

Word on the Street

Asked about an Axios report that claimed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “confronted” him over their diverging policy views during his visit to Washington last week, Vice President JD Vance said in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, “He didn’t confront me. We had a nice and frank conversation. … I would describe it as a pleasant but direct conversation”…

The White House denied a Washington Post report that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth clashed last week at Camp David over the war in Iran; the Post reported that the president asked why he had been misled about a shortage of munitions…

A group of far-right figures, including Tucker Carlson, outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and former National Counterterrorism Center head Joe Kent — who gathered over the weekend at Carlson’s Maine home — are considering launching a third-party political organization…

The Israeli Foreign Ministry denounced a joint statement adopted by Arab states — including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt, among others — whose foreign ministers convened in Jordan on Wednesday to discuss Israel’s policies in Jerusalem and said that Israel, which the statement claimed “has no sovereignty” over the city, had “alter[ed] the Arab Islamic and Christian identity of occupied Jerusalem”…

The IDF is investigating a reported arson attack by Israeli settlers in a Palestinian village in the West Bank overnight in which suspects allegedly set fire to homes and attacked residents, including children…

A new Israel Democracy Institute survey found that a majority of Israelis believes the integrity of the October election is in danger…

The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen said on Wednesday that they struck a Saudi oil tanker in the northern Red Sea, escalating the group’s stated blockade against Riyadh and strikes on Saudi ships that have thus far been focused in the southern Red Sea, near the Bab el-Mandeb strait…

James Stavridis, former supreme allied commander of NATO, argues in Bloomberg that a Saudi-led naval coalition could help protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks, though it would likely still require U.S. and European intelligence and logistical support to be effective…

An Azerbaijani official said on Turkish TV that Baku lobbied Israel to stop the Knesset from voting to recognize the Armenian genocide…

FIFA officials gathered in Morocco this week reaffirmed their support for Gianni Infantino, days after the FIFA president faced widespread criticism from within the organization over a plan to privatize elements of the World Cup…

The Atlantic investigates whether al-Qaida, 25 years after the 9/11 attacks, is quietly rebuilding or if its core organization is effectively defunct…

A new poll shows left-wing Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva‘s lead over conservative challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, narrowing ahead of the country’s October elections…

Benny Stanislawski, previously the communications director for Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), is joining Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Brooks‘ congressional campaign as communications director…

American University’s School of Public Affairs named Tom Kahn as director of its Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies; Kahn, who served as acting director for the past year, was the longest-serving staff director in history for the House Budget Committee…

Find on-demand Live Briefing updates throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.

Pic of the Day

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law hosted 34 law students from leading law schools, including Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, NYU and Vanderbilt, for its three-day Law Student Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., this week. The students received training in civil rights law, Title VI, free speech and advocacy on behalf of Jewish students from a range of experts, including Brandeis Center founder Ken Marcus, pictured here addressing attendees.

Birthdays

Actor, director, producer and screenwriter, Soleil Moon Frye turns 50… 

Retired founding partner of the Jaffe Family Law Group, Daniel J. Jaffe turns 89… Esports executive and casino owner, he is a three-time bracelet winner at the World Series of Poker, Lyle Berman turns 85… Professor emerita and former dean at Bar Ilan University, Malka Elisheva Schaps turns 78… Film director, television director, producer and screenwriter, Brian Michael Levant turns 74… Austrian businessman with many U.S., Israeli and Eastern European investments, Martin Schlaff turns 73… Former state treasurer of Virginia and then state secretary of finance, she is now a gourmet popcorn manufacturer, Jody Moses Wagner turns 71… Professor of public diplomacy at The Fletcher School of Tufts University, she was formerly undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, Tara D. Sonenshine turns 67… Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at The George Washington University Medical Center, Alan J. Lipman, Ph.D. turns 66… Israeli diplomat, he served as Israel’s consul general in NYC between 2000 and 2004, Alon Pinkas turns 65… NASA astronaut who spent 198 days on the International Space Station, he brought 18 bagels from his family’s bagel store in Montreal into space, Gregory Chamitoff turns 64… Chair of White & Case’s white collar practice group, Joel M. Cohen… Executive director of public affairs and policy communications at the American Council on Education, Jonathan Riskind… CEO of Elluminate (formerly known as the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York), Melanie Roth Gorelick… Vice chair of Jewish California and a board member of JFNA and JCRC Bay Area, Susie Sorkin… Television and radio sports anchor on ESPN and ABC, he was one-half of the “Mike & Mike” team but now hosts his own ESPN morning program, Mike Greenberg turns 59… Chief economist at The Burning Glass Institute, Gad Levanon, Ph.D…. Law professor and associate dean at Michigan State University College of Law, David Blankfein-Tabachnick turns 55… Former boxing commentator and co-host of ESPN’s “This Just In,” Yiddish speaking Max Kellerman turns 53… Co-founder and former CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick turns 50… Founder and CEO at Climb Together which helps prepare people from low-income backgrounds for entry level jobs, Nitzan Pelman… Screenwriter and television producer, he is best known for creating and executive producing the Fox teen drama “The O.C.,” Joshua Ian Schwartz turns 50… Former comms director for Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral general election campaign, Jeffrey Lerner… Creative director and visual strategist, Rachel Gogel… Member of the New York State Assembly, Simcha Eichenstein turns 43… Winner of two gold medals in swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, he is now CEO of Gather Campgrounds north of Austin, Garrett Weber-Gale turns 41… Director of strategy and policy at K2 Space Corporation, he is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, Corey A. Jacobson… Reporter at San Antonio Express-News, Elizabeth Teitz… Special advisor at the Department of Homeland Security and former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Hunter Pollack turns 29…

Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in Michigan’s bruising Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday is forcing many Jewish leaders in the state to confront an uncomfortable decision as they now look ahead to the general election in November.

Several Jewish Democrats in the battleground state are now indicating that they will break with a party they have long called home and instead vote for the Republican nominee, Mike Rogers, in the November election, citing their continued alarm over El-Sayed’s hostile rhetoric toward Israel as well as remarks they have interpreted as indifferent to rising antisemitism, among other concerns.

“I can’t vote for El-Sayed,” Michael Horowitz, a Jewish community leader and Detroit businessman who supported Stevens, a pro-Israel moderate, told Jewish Insider. “So many things I find despicable about him, not the least of which is his close association with Hasan Piker,” the antisemitic Twitch streamer, who Horowitz said “demeans America, demeans Jews and demeans all but the most radical among us.”

Horowitz confirmed he was now “leaning strongly to Rogers,” a former congressman who narrowly lost in his bid for Senate last cycle. “And I have heard from many in the Jewish community who say they will be supporting Rogers,” he said on Wednesday.

Hannan Lis, a Democratic fundraiser and Jewish leader who splits his time between Michigan and Israel, was among those who had told JI before the primary that he would vote for Rogers in the general election if El-Sayed won the nomination, noting he knows “many” Jewish Democrats who plan to do the same.

His reservations about Republicans preserving their Senate majority by picking up the Michigan seat held by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), he clarified, were superseded by his objections to El-Sayed’s stances on Israel and responses to antisemitism. “El-Sayed is no Democrat,” he claimed.

Dennis Bernard, a Jewish leader in Michigan who backed both Rogers and Stevens in their respective primaries, said that the “word is out on a few Rogers fundraisers targeting historical Jewish Dems,” efforts that he described as “co-led” with Jewish Democratic donors.

“Candidly,” he added, “the only area that may not jump on Rogers is the highly progressive Ann Arbor community,” which he called “very small.”

Bernard, national chair of government relations at the Jewish Federations of North America, told JI that it would likely take a few more days for such events to materialize as donors now “settle down and organize” in the wake of the primary. “Everyone is jumping in,” he said. 

One Democratic fundraiser in Michigan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive subject, said he was “absolutely certain” that “several large Jewish Dem donors” will be supporting Rogers. 

“I would guarantee there will be fundraisers for him hosted by high-profile Jewish Dems,” he told JI.

The fundraiser, who backed Stevens, said that hours after the race had been called on Wednesday he was “already contacted by Rogers surrogates” seeking to make inroads with Jewish Democrats whose support could prove consequential in what is expected to be a close race.

The surrogates’ pitch, as he put it: “Essentially that as Jews, we need to put our communal well-being ahead of the party.”

It remains to be seen whether the depth of Jewish Democrats’ fears of electing El-Sayed will ultimately translate to a meaningful boost for Rogers’ bid amid a national political environment that is less favorable to Republicans.

Still, Rogers and his supporters have said they are eager to court Jewish Democrats alienated by their party as support for Israel has emerged as a litmus test on the far left — particularly in Michigan, where Jewish Democratic leaders have recently voiced fears of antisemitic harassment from anti-Israel activists in the state.

Alyssa Brouillet, a spokesperson for Rogers, told JI on Sunday that his campaign was “beginning to see more and more Jewish Democrats coming to us who feel abandoned by their party.”

“Mike Rogers stands with the Jewish community in Michigan and across the country,” she said, “and he will continue fighting to make life better for working families all across the state.”

In a video ad posted to social media on Wednesday, Rogers highlighted his opponent’s close ties to Piker, featuring past comments in which the streamer said “America deserved 9/11,” among other controversial remarks that have faced scrutiny. “You are who your friends are, and Abdul El-Sayed’s are radical leftists who hate America,” Rogers wrote.

The Republican Jewish Coalition called El-Sayed “a direct threat to Michigan’s Jewish community” in a statement on Wednesday that urged Jewish voters in the state to get behind Rogers in the general election.

“To our friends in Michigan’s Jewish community, including the tens of thousands who have voted Democrat their entire adult lives and now find themselves politically homeless: this is the moment for real change and action,” said Matt Brooks, the RJC’s CEO. “There are more than 100,000 Jewish voters in the Wolverine State. We are not a rounding error, we are the decisive margin. Mike Rogers has earned your vote.”

Even as El-Sayed quickly won backing on Wednesday from national Democratic leaders hoping to unite the party for a must-win election, the Jewish Democratic Council of America stopped short of an endorsement, underscoring the extent to which the divisive primary has left some Jewish leaders rudderless after Stevens’ defeat. 

“While we are disappointed in the final result of the Michigan Senate race, the razor-thin margin isn’t the resounding win for the far-left that was predicted,” said Halie Soifer, the JDCA’s CEO. “We are proud of the race run by Rep. Haley Stevens, and we thank her for her consistent and principled leadership standing with Jewish Americans. We congratulate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed on his victory after a difficult and divisive primary.”

Several nonpartisan Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, released statements on Wednesday condemning El-Sayed. 

Deryn Sousa, a spokesperson for AIPAC, whose super PAC invested over $30 million on an aggressive effort to boost Stevens, said in a statement that the group’s “members remain determined to ensure that voters reject Dr. El-Sayed and his radical anti-Israel agenda in November,” indicating it intends to back Rogers in the general election.

AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, did not return a request for comment, but sources told JI the group was all but certain to support Rogers, who was recognized as a pro-Israel hawk while serving in the House from 2001 to 2015.

For his part, El-Sayed, who made his opposition to AIPAC a central feature of his campaign messaging, sought to ease tensions with skeptical Jewish voters on Wednesday, addressing what he called “an issue that has been focused on in this race.”

“To all of my sisters and brothers of the Jewish faith,” he said in his televised remarks, “I want you to know that my commitment to your safety, my commitment to Jewish safety, is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters.”

But many Jewish leaders in the state suggested that they would be unmoved by such appeals — especially as El-Sayed has continued to use incendiary rhetoric while discussing Israel. In an interview on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday morning, for instance, he doubled down on his criticism of Israel, calling the Jewish state “bloodthirsty” while saying his critiques go beyond the government led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

His comments faced criticism from Democratic Majority for Israel, which said “El-Sayed should be working to build a bigger tent and earn the trust of Jewish Michiganders” but was instead invoking “an age-old antisemitic trope that is especially dangerous amid rising violence against Jews.”

Asher Lopatin, a rabbi who serves as director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor and endorsed Stevens, told JI he has “heard from several people who say that they will campaign for Rogers and support him and tell others to vote for him.”

“I have not spent a lot of time looking into his positions,” Lopatin added, “but I can say clearly that I will not be voting for Abdul El-Sayed and I wish more Democrats would come out and say they will not be voting for him.”

Some Jewish Democrats in the state have confirmed privately that while they cannot bring themselves to vote for Rogers, they will leave their ballots blank or write in another candidate due to their reservations about El-Sayed.

Despite widespread objections to El-Sayed within Michigan’s mainstream Jewish community, others suggested that their loyalty to the Democratic Party outweighed those concerns. “I know Jewish Dems who will vote for Rogers,” Richard Lenter, a Jewish community activist in Detroit, told JI. “I am leaning toward voting for El-Sayed while holding my nose.”

Michigan state Rep. Noah Arbit, a Jewish Democrat who has been outspoken against antisemitism in his party, declined to confirm whether he would vote for El-Sayed, even as he expressed strong concerns about past comments in which the candidate has dismissed Zionists as “illiberal” and refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

“Abdul’s rhetoric has been alarming and dangerous for my community,” Arbit, whose district in suburban Detroit includes a sizable Jewish constituency, said in a message posted to Facebook Wednesday morning. “There is a profound need for him to come to the table and attempt to repair the harm he has caused, to see what semblance of trust and confidence may be built.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), speaking at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that he organized to examine Muslim Brotherhood networks and affiliates in the United States, suggested that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was tied to such networks and that his Democratic primary win represented a victory for them.

“[Democrats’] campaign is now openly embracing terrorist organizations waging war on America. Behind El-Sayed’s political rise sits a much older and more entrenched institutional network,” Cruz asserted.

Kyle Shideler, a senior analyst for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, testified under questioning from Cruz that El-Sayed’s win concerned him given the nominee’s father-in-law’s ties to Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups and El-Sayed’s own relationship with groups connected to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“It shows the success of the Muslim Brotherhood network over multiple decades. It achieved what they said they were going to achieve, which was to normalize support for Hamas and normalize support for terrorism,” Shideler said.

He also said that Muslim Brotherhood-connected groups have partnered with organizations including the Democratic Socialists of America, united around a “shared revolutionary objective of advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. Constitution.”

El-Sayed, who did not respond to a request for comment, has accused opponents of using Islamophobia to attack him because they lack responses to his policy proposals.

The hearing — which was not attended by any lawmakers other than Cruz — focused primarily on CAIR and other groups that Cruz and witnesses said were linked to a Muslim Brotherhood network in the United States, as part of a long-running plan to infiltrate and usurp Western civilization from within and offer support for Hamas and other terrorist organizations, including by working with and co-opting other groups.

Cruz and the witnesses emphasized that CAIR leaders were part of a 1993 meeting of Muslim Brotherhood-linked anti-Israel activists, captured on an FBI wiretap, in which the activists plotted to undermine the Oslo accords and support Hamas through a range of spinoff and front organizations, including the Holy Land Foundation and Islamic Association for Palestine, which have been shuttered for funneling support to Hamas.

“The Holy Land Foundation prosecution revealed that these organizations do not operate in isolation; they function as part of a broader Muslim Brotherhood ecosystem,” Cruz said. “The events we witnessed on college campuses after Oct. 7 [2023] did not emerge from nowhere. They were not spontaneous. They were not organic. They were the product of an organized network that has spent decades building influence inside the United States.”

Shideler described CAIR as so central to the Muslim Brotherhood’s plans that it received explicit approval and support from Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt. 

Lara Burns, a retired FBI special agent and senior research fellow at the George Washington University Program on Extremism, said that the wiretapped meeting indicated that CAIR was created “to defend and protect the other elements of the Hamas support network and to pressure others to adopt its narratives or remain quiet.”

Burns was a lead investigator in the Holy Land Foundation case and later supervised national security and counterterrorism investigations and prosecutions.

She emphasized that CAIR has never disavowed the Holy Land Foundation and that it warrants further investigation, also noting that the group had sought to thwart the seizure of documents during the Holy Land Foundation investigation that proved the existence of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood support networks domestically.

Burns emphasized that terrorist infrastructure has existed in the United States for decades, under the guise of charity, advocacy and activism. The network, she said, seeks to funnel support to and rally public support for Hamas; infiltrate universities, media and politics; and reshape American curricula. She said groups in the Muslim Brotherhood network continue to carry on the same agenda and some individuals and groups are still likely providing material support for terrorism. 

Arielle Klepach, senior counsel at the National Jewish Advocacy Center, described CAIR and its affiliates as “a foreign terror-supporting movement on American soil, targeting our Constitution and our founding principles.” 

“I would ask you to remember three things: these organizations are dangerous, they are in our schools and they hide by abusing the very legal system they are working to dismantle,” she continued.

Klepach said that the federal government should work to enforce existing laws to counter this network, arguing for imposing sanctions and prosecuting Muslim Brotherhood-connected groups for material support for terrorism and racketeering and reviewing their tax-exempt status. She said Congress should work to close loopholes that have allowed such groups to avoid legal accountability by shuttering and rebooting under new names with similar leadership.

She also warned that CAIR and other similar groups are receiving and distributing tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding.

Shideler said that the Holy Land Foundation case provided a trove of intelligence and evidence on the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood support network and its efforts to infiltrate and influence all areas of American life, but that the federal government had subsequently failed to pursue further action, and CAIR and other linked groups have obstructed and dodged efforts to seek justice.

Democrats announced in advance that they planned to boycott the hearing, describing it as Islamophobic and targeted at Muslims writ large, but ultimately none of Cruz’s Republican colleagues appeared to ask questions of witnesses either.

Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI), a moderate Michigan lawmaker representing a swing district, broke with most other Democratic members of the Michigan congressional delegation in declining to offer an explicit endorsement of Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed as of Wednesday afternoon, after offering strident criticism of him during the primary campaign.

“Congratulations to everyone who participated in Michigan’s hard-fought primary elections last night, and thank you to every voter who made your voice heard. In these close elections, we want you to know — you are HEARD,” Scholten said in a statement that did not mention El-Sayed. “Now our focus turns forward. I’ve always said I’ll work with anyone committed to lowering costs, expanding affordable health care, creating more opportunity, and fighting corruption. I mean that.”

A Scholten spokesperson did not respond to a request for clarification on whether this constituted an endorsement of El-Sayed.

Scholten said that she is a “proud, commonsense Democrat” and said that she’s focused on helping to elect “similar candidates around the country.”

During the campaign, as a vocal supporter of Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), Scholten suggested she might struggle to support El-Sayed in the general election.

“I will not stand beside someone who has allowed distinctly anti-American sentiment to enter our public dialogue,” she said in one interview.

In another, she criticized El-Sayed for campaigning with antisemitic and anti-Israel influencer Hasan Piker. 

“To campaign with Hasan Piker, who said America deserved Sept. 11 — sure, he went on to disavow those comments, but I’m telling you, nobody on my team would ever, you know, come even close to making a comment like that,” she said. “I think that condoning behavior like this from candidates like Abdul El-Sayed is taking us in a direction that we don’t want to go as a party.”

Other Democratic moderates, with the exception of maverick Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), are largely keeping their heads down following the election, with several contacted by JI declining to comment or not responding to requests. 

Other Democrats are backing El-Sayed.

“He worked hard. People in Michigan had their word last night, and I imagine he’s going to work really hard over the next 90 days to win this race, and it’s obviously a critical one,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said. “If we’re going to fix some of the problems created by this president, we’ve got to win back the Senate.”

Asked whether he believes the narrow margin of victory for El-Sayed might imperil his chances in November, Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), who had supported Stevens in the primary, offered a short response: “Yeah, he could win. Definitely.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said he hasn’t met El-Sayed but noted that Stevens had endorsed him and “my sense is that whatever divisiveness there might have been because of the primary, they’re … past it.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) declined to comment on El-Sayed’s history or his decision to campaign with Piker, and said that he doesn’t think “generalizations are possible from one race” about the direction of the party, “whether it’s in Brooklyn or Michigan.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani refused to close the door on a trip to Michigan to campaign for newly minted Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, whom Mamdani praised for what he described as a focus on “the concerns of working-class Americans” — even as he tried to explain away El-Sayed’s poor performance in the areas where working-class voters live.

The mayor extended his congratulations from Manhattan to the Wolverine State, lauding in particular El-Sayed’s slogan of “money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all.” Unlike fellow democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Mamdani did not travel to Michigan during the primary to support El-Sayed, but left open the possibility he would visit before the general election.

“My focus thus far has been on New York City. And what I will tell you is I know that many New Yorkers were incredibly excited at the results,” Mamdani, speaking after an unrelated event, said in answer to a question of whether he would consider making the trip. Asked whether he would completely rule out such a campaign jaunt, he answered: “I’m here right now.”

Mamdani answered in the affirmative when asked whether El-Sayed was the kind of candidate he hoped to see change the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, he stayed clear of the issue that fueled their most fervent support online: Israel.

“I am proud to be part of a movement of politicians and candidates who are looking to put working-class Americans back at the heart of our politics,” the mayor said. “And that’s our focus here in New York City, and just from what we’re seeing in Michigan, that’s what Michiganders want … to be their focus come November.”

Yet the mayor struggled to answer why, like his own map in the 2025 primary against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the results from Tuesday night showed El-Sayed performing poorly among the lower-income voters whose interests he purportedly championed. El-Sayed’s strongest precincts, like Mamdani’s, were home to many college students and well-compensated professionals.

Mamdani suggested those voters had been duped by ad campaigns.

“When you are facing $60 million in outside spending, you are facing almost what feels like surround sound,” he said. “People are hearing a message about you again and again and again. And to win this race as someone who is not currently holding elected office, it’s a testament to what he ran on, and also to the way he ran the campaign.”

Jewish groups expressed concern on Wednesday about the victory of Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, highlighting his extreme rhetoric on Israel and the broader rise of the far left.

Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer said in a statement that the group was “disappointed” by the results of the primary, where the group had endorsed and campaigned strongly for Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). She congratulated but stopped short of endorsing El-Sayed.

“While we are disappointed in the final result of the Michigan Senate race, the razor-thin margin isn’t the resounding win for the far-left that was predicted,” Soifer said. “We are proud of the race run by Rep. Haley Stevens, and we thank her for her consistent and principled leadership standing with Jewish Americans. We congratulate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed on his victory after a difficult and divisive primary.”

Soifer also highlighted that “mainstream Democrats, including many of the candidates JDCA has endorsed, remain the key to winning back control of Congress” and emphasized that Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) and Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss “overwhelmingly defeated challengers on the far-left.”

AIPAC, while declining to preview specific plans, indicated it intends to stay engaged in the Michigan race through November.

“Our members remain determined to ensure that voters reject Dr. El-Sayed and his radical anti-Israel agenda in November,” spokesperson Deryn Sousa told Jewish Insider.

In a letter to members, AIPAC President Bernie Kaminetsky said that the group will continue to “stand up for what is right, ensure pro-Israel voices are loudly heard in Congress, and fight even harder to ensure the U.S.-Israel alliance grows stronger.”

“In Abdul El-Sayed, a fiercely anti-Israel candidate has emerged as the Democratic nominee. His statements about Israel, AIPAC, and the Jewish community are outrageous and offensive, and his ascent is part of a much larger, profoundly worrying trend we are closely tracking,” Kaminetsky added, praising Stevens and her support for Israel. “This narrow loss stings, but [Stevens’] defeat doesn’t change our principled opposition to the dangerous policies El-Sayed wants to bring to the U.S. Senate.”

Tacitly acknowledging setbacks across the political map, Kaminetsky emphasized, “Our conviction will not be measured in a single race or a single cycle. This is a generational fight, and we remain undeterred in our mission. Our political fight is not just about strengthening America’s partnership with Israel. It is also about the future of America and our individual rights to engage in our democracy.”

In a rare statement on campaign politics, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt also highlighted the group’s concerns about El-Sayed’s rhetoric.

“Throughout the campaign, ADL has called out nominee Abdul El-Sayed for peddling in antisemitic tropes … or for campaigning with notorious bigot Hasan Piker,” Greenblatt said in a video statement. “Campaign trail rhetoric and actions send clear signals about what a person believes and what a political party thinks is permissible.”

“We are not going to stop, and we will keep calling on political leaders and candidates from both parties to reject antisemitism and to commit to combating it whenever and wherever it occurs,” Greenblatt continued.

ADL Michigan regional director Elyssa Schmier said in her own statement that “Jews across Michigan and the country are alarmed by the rhetoric that defined this race and its implications for the future of political norms in our country.”

Calling out a series of specific comments by El-Sayed, without naming him directly, Schmier said that “anyone seeking public office should know better than to normalize antisemitic tropes” and that “we are calling on political leaders to reject antisemitism outright and demand better.”

The American Jewish Committee, which also rarely comments on electoral politics, likewise issued a statement strongly condemning El-Sayed.

The group called his victory “a deeply troubling reflection of the growing mainstreaming of divisive rhetoric and exclusionary politics in America. At the same time, Congresswoman Stevens’ strong showing demonstrates that there is still a place and support for nuanced, moderate voices,” it continued.

“We are concerned by El-Sayed’s framing of American politics as a zero-sum game that too often casts those who disagree as the enemy,” the statement continued, accusing him of “delegitimiz[ing]” those who disagree with him, an “approach [that] is fundamentally at odds with the principles of civility, pluralism, and robust democratic debate that are central to our democracy.”

The group also condemned El-Sayed’s past comments on Israel and its supporters and said that “most Americans agree that political rhetoric of this nature has gone too far,” calling for voters“to reject extremist rhetoric from all candidates — no matter their party — that perpetuate this divisive approach.”

The group said it would continue efforts to engage leaders around the country “who seek to reclaim American politics from the extremes.”

In a separate statement, AJC CEO Ted Deutch said that he saw during his time as a member of Congress “that when leaders treat those who disagree with them as enemies, the communities they represent feel the consequences” and emphasized “AJC’s work to reject extremist politics.”

Democratic Majority for Israel also criticized El-Sayed after his primary win for calling Israel “bloodthirsty” in a Wednesday morning interview.

“El-Sayed should be working to build a bigger tent and earn the trust of Jewish Michiganders. Instead, this morning he described the government of the world’s only Jewish state as ‘bloodthirsty’ — an age-old antisemitic trope that is especially dangerous amid rising violence against Jews,” the group said. “His language is inflammatory. He should retract it and apologize.”

Appearing on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, Abdul El-Sayed, who was about to be declared the winner of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, doubled down on his criticism of Israel, calling the Jewish state “bloodthirsty” and saying his critiques go beyond the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I think we’ve seen the worst of what the Israeli government has done [under Netanyahu] but don’t forget that we’ve been talking about an illegal apartheid regime for a very, very long time, and that supersedes Netanyahu himself,” El-Sayed said when asked about the extent of his issues with Israeli policy.

On MS NOW this morning, Abdul El-Sayed, who was about to be declared the winner of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, called Israel “bloodthirsty” and said his critiques go beyond the government of Netanyahu.@DanielleCoh07 reports: https://t.co/KJK1aVqxe8 pic.twitter.com/azCjXPGAUs

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) August 5, 2026

“I understand that Netanyahu is a big reason why they’ve gotten so aggressive and frankly so bloodthirsty under his reign, but I also understand that it’s impossible for us to say we want a two-state solution while we’ve been aiding, arming and abetting the very people who have been trying to foreclose on the possibility of a Palestinian state,” he continued.

He said the U.S. should “hold foreign actors accountable to international law,” claiming Israel has “conducted a genocide, has at baseline done apartheid and has taken us into a war we have no business fighting. So why, of course, are we sending money to that country to fund their military?”

On his position on foreign aid to Israel, El-Sayed said he doesn’t believe in “unconditional foreign military aid” to Israel, nor to other countries including Egypt, where his family emigrated from, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.

The Democratic nominee said his message to Jewish voters who backed his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) because of his message on Israel, is that his “commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own kids. We have a responsibility to take on antisemitism in all of its forms wherever we see it. It’s the same responsibility we have to take on Islamophobia. … So the things that bring us together are so much bigger than the things that divide us.”

Democrats are quickly coalescing behind Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed after the far-left candidate narrowly clinched victory in Michigan’s Democratic primary on Wednesday morning, while Republicans quickly pounced on El-Sayed’s extremist history and ties.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who came within a percentage point of defeating El-Sayed, promptly congratulated him on his victory and offered her support.

“I want to congratulate Abdul El-Sayed on winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. He is a doctor, a community health official, a Rhodes Scholar, and a dedicated Michigander. I am proud to offer my support as he takes on Mike Rogers in the general election,” Stevens said. “This was a thorough and rigorous campaign that brought out the full span of views within the Democratic Party — and that is why we have primaries.”

She emphasized the need for Democrats to come together in support of El-Sayed, saying, “We must elect Democrats up and down the ballot. We need to flip some important House seats. We need to re-elect my friends Hillary Scholten and Kristen McDonald Rivet. We need to win this Senate seat, because Elissa Slotkin deserves a partner like Abdul in the U.S. Senate.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) also offered support for El-Sayed in a statement.

“Abdul El-Sayed has run an energetic campaign that inspired thousands of Michiganders across the state, with a clear focus on lowering costs and standing up for working families,” the pair said. “Democrats are united by a common purpose: putting a check on Donald Trump by defeating his Republican enablers and taking back the Senate. We look forward to working with Abdul and Democrats across Michigan to win this seat in November.”

Retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), who had initially planned to stay out of the race but ultimately endorsed Stevens, said that the party must come together behind El-Sayed to block Rogers.

“Both candidates ran strong campaigns focused on improving the lives of all Michiganders. But now it’s time to come together as a party and rally around our nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, to make sure Mike Rogers never sees the floor of the U.S. Senate,” Peters said. “I’ve repeatedly said that I will support our nominee because the most important election is in November.”

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who declined to endorse El-Sayed in the primary, offered her support while also saying little about El-Sayed personally and focusing on the need to keep the seat in Democratic hands.

“Congratulations to @AbdulElSayed for winning the Democratic nomination for Senate. It’s been a long primary, but now it’s time to gear up to beat Mike Rogers (again) and win up and down the ticket,” Slotkin said. “There is nothing more important than the mission of the next 90 days: uniting, keeping this seat blue, flipping the House and Senate, and providing a real check on President Trump.”

Meanwhile, Republicans have quickly pounced on El-Sayed, highlighting his extreme history.

“Abdul isn’t just another liberal. He’s an extremist. He wants to empty prisons and put murderers and sex offenders back on our streets. He pledged his support to the Muslim Brotherhood and campaigns with people who refuse to condemn terrorism,” Republican nominee former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) said. “I spent years hunting terrorists and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. Never in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9/11.” His comment was apparently a reference to El-Sayed’s ties to far-left streamer Hasan Piker, who championed El-Sayed in the primary.

Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, declared in a statement that El-Sayed is the “most antisemitic U.S. Senate candidate in America” and called on Jewish Democrats, who he said could prove “decisive” in the November general election, to back Rogers.

“Abdul El-Sayed is a direct threat to Michigan’s Jewish community,” Brooks said. “El-Sayed has called the government of the Jewish state as ‘evil’ as Hamas, ‘struggled’ to say that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state, and empathized with a terrorist who tried to murder Jewish schoolchildren at Temple Israel in the Detroit suburbs — and yet, Michigan Democrats just picked him as their nominee for the United States Senate.”

The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate GOP leadership, announced a six-figure digital ad campaign describing El-Sayed as “dangerous.”

As Abdul El-Sayed pulls ahead in the final days of Michigan’s bitter Democratic Senate primary race, Republicans are eyeing a chance, in the general election, to peel support from disaffected Jewish Democrats anxious about their party’s sharp turn to the left on Israel and its tolerance for actions they view as antisemitic.

For many Jewish Democrats in Michigan who have long called the party home, the bruising lead-up to the primary on Tuesday has been difficult to experience, as El-Sayed, a far-left former public health official, has continued to gain traction while fiercely attacking Israel, using anti-Zionist rhetoric and centering his messaging on opposition to AIPAC, the pro-Israel advocacy group whose super PAC is aggressively promoting Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in a record ad barrage that has exceeded $30 million.

If Stevens loses, Republicans are eager to present former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the GOP’s presumptive nominee who was narrowly defeated in his bid for Senate last election cycle, as a safe alternative to El-Sayed for Jewish Democrats in the general election who may not be able to stomach voting along party lines.

“I think that Jewish voters and many Democrats in general feel” the party “has moved away from them,” Bobby Schostak, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party who sits on the Republican Jewish Coalition’s board, told Jewish Insider, calling Rogers “unconditionally and unapologetically pro-Israel and part of the fight against antisemitism in America.”

He predicted that Jewish Democrats “are going to flock to” Rogers “come November if El-Sayed wins the nomination,” referring, among other things, to the candidate’s refusal to distance himself from the antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker and controversial remarks following a foiled terrorist attack against a synagogue in Michigan in March in which he said, “Hurt people do hurt people.”

“Playing that response back is all it takes,” Schostak said of the anticipated GOP attacks against El-Sayed in the still-hypothetical general election. “That clearly showed his position and lack of concern for Jews and Jewish children,” he added of the comments. “I don’t think it takes much more than that.”

Sam Markstein, a spokesperson for the RJC, which has endorsed Rogers, said that “Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat is at the center of the political battlefield” in the fight for control of the upper chamber.

“I think there’s a real opportunity for Mike and other Republicans in Michigan to build on Jewish support,” Jason Cabel Roe, a GOP strategist who has served as the executive director of the state’s Republican Party, told JI.

“With nearly 100,000 Jewish voters in a state where the margins of victory are incredibly close,” he said in a statement to JI, “Michigan’s Jewish community will once again be a decisive group in one of the most important contests in the country this November.”

Markstein suggested that “Michigan Jews are well aware of the stakes,” pointing to divisive comments in which El-Sayed declined to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and said “I call bullshit” on “a definition of antisemitism to include a foreign government and its leaders,” among others that have faced scrutiny.

“I think there’s a real opportunity for Mike and other Republicans in Michigan to build on Jewish support,” Jason Cabel Roe, a GOP strategist who has served as the executive director of the state’s Republican Party, told JI.

While he called El-Sayed’s rhetoric on Israel “a big factor” influencing that dynamic, Roe argued there are deeper issues at play, notably including the Democratic state party convention in April at which pro-Israel candidates were heckled by activists and an attorney with a history of praising Hezbollah was nominated to sit on the University of Michigan Board of Regents.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Jewish Democrat, said last week that she planned to skip her party’s nominating convention next month, citing the episodes as sowing fears of antisemitic harassment.

“What happened at the” state convention “has really animated Jewish donors and voters and moved them in the direction of Republicans,” Cabel Roe explained to JI. “I think it’s very significant.”

Alyssa Brouillet, a spokesperson for Rogers, said his campaign is “beginning to see more and more Jewish Democrats coming to us who feel abandoned by their party.”

“It’s easy to see why when you have a candidate in this race who fundraised off of Oct. 7 and sympathized with the terrorist attacker who attempted to mass murder 140 kids at Temple Israel synagogue. That’s terrifying,” she told JI in a statement. “Unlike his opponents, Mike Rogers stands with the Jewish community in Michigan and across the country — and he will continue fighting to make life better for working families all across the state.”

The former congressman, recognized as a pro-Israel hawk while serving in the House from 2001 to 2015, has also raised concerns over rising antisemitism as well as anti-Israel sentiment on the far right, which he has said the GOP needs to more forcefully fight.

He has said publicly that it “doesn’t matter” who he faces in the general election, claiming he is confident that he will beat either of them. During a private call with supporters last month, he said that he would be “in good shape” if El-Sayed clinched the nomination as opposed to the moderate Stevens, describing him as “so radical,” according to audio obtained by CNN.

Polling has suggested that a general election matchup between Rogers and El-Sayed would be competitive.

It remains to be seen if the depth of disillusionment among Jewish Democrats in Michigan who feel their party is abandoning them will ultimately translate to a vote for Rogers should El-Sayed be the nominee — given accompanying reservations with how it could help Republicans flip a crucial seat held by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI).

But Stevens herself in some ways gave Rogers a path to make inroads with Jewish Democrats who distrust El-Sayed when she directly accused her opponent of antisemitism in a fiery social media post on Thursday underscoring the increasingly personal animosities in the closing stretch of the primary.

“After Tuesday, you will see a plethora of Jewish Democrats openly supporting Mike Rogers,” said Dennis Bernard, national chair of government relations at the Jewish Federations of North America, adding such support could help tip the scales in a general election that is expected to be close. He said Rogers has been doing “significantly more events in the Jewish community” and is being more favorably received than last cycle, when he lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a Jewish Democrat.

“Everyone in America understands you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans,” she wrote in the post addressed to El-Sayed, after he had taunted AIPAC and called her the “least capable candidate in America.”

A spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, did not return a request for comment about its plans for the general election.

A source familiar with UDP’s thinking told JI that “no decision has been taken yet because we’re not there,” but suggested that the group would support Rogers if Stevens loses to El-Sayed. “What would the expectation be?” the source told JI. “That they would do everything they can do to beat this guy.”

Dennis Bernard, a Jewish leader in Michigan who says he supports both Stevens and Rogers in their respective primaries, echoed others who told JI that even as there are Jewish Democrats planning to pull the lever for Rogers if Stevens loses on Tuesday, they are not willing to admit that publicly until the results are in.

“After Tuesday, you will see a plethora of Jewish Democrats openly supporting Mike Rogers,” said Bernard, national chair of government relations at the Jewish Federations of North America, adding such support could help tip the scales in a general election that is expected to be close. He said Rogers has been doing “significantly more events in the Jewish community” and is being more favorably received than last cycle, when he lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a Jewish Democrat.

Hannan Lis, a Democratic fundraiser and Jewish leader who splits his time between Michigan and Israel, said he would vote for Rogers in the general election if El-Sayed wins the nomination, adding he knows “many” Jewish Democrats who plan to do the same.

His reservations over the prospect of Republicans preserving their Senate majority by picking up the Michigan seat, Lis told JI, were overshadowed by his deeper objections to El-Sayed and his views on Israel and antisemitism. “El-Sayed is no Democrat,” he told JI.

“If Abdul El-Sayed wins the primary, I will have to spend more time seeing if El-Sayed is as dangerous to Israel, America and American Jews as he appears — and I haven’t seen anything so far to the contrary — and I will also spend some time examining Mike Rogers’ record on Israel and other issues that the Jewish community cares deeply about,” Asher Lopatin, a rabbi who serves as director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor and is backing Stevens, told JI.

El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment about tensions with Jewish voters. 

One pro-Israel strategist in the state who is close to Stevens estimated, on gut instinct, that it was more likely what he called mainstream Jewish Democrats who support Israel would not vote at all rather than pull the lever for Rogers if El-Sayed is the nominee, pegging that number at some 50% of the community. 

He speculated that 25% of such voters would support Rogers because they are “disgusted with Democrats,” while another 25% could swallow their concerns and choose El-Sayed, motivated by loyalty to their party.

Asher Lopatin, a rabbi who serves as director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor and is backing Stevens, said he is trying to keep an open mind for the general election if the congresswoman loses, even as he has “been deeply disturbed by many quotes from El-Sayed regarding Israel and by many of his ads, in which AIPAC is attacked as what I see as an antisemitic dogwhistle.”

“If Abdul El-Sayed wins the primary, I will have to spend more time seeing if El-Sayed is as dangerous to Israel, America and American Jews as he appears — and I haven’t seen anything so far to the contrary — and I will also spend some time examining Mike Rogers’ record on Israel and other issues that the Jewish community cares deeply about,” he told JI.

Lopatin added that he would also “want to make sure” that Rogers is “someone who can stand up to” President Donald Trump.

Noah Arbit, a Jewish Democratic state legislator in Michigan who is outspoken against antisemitism in his party, declined to confirm how he would vote in a general election without Stevens as the nominee, even as he has accused El-Sayed of helping to “stoke and inflame hatred against Jews” and grappled with whether he belongs in a party he sees as “hostile” to his community.

For now, he told JI, “I’m entirely focused on winning a third term representing my district in Greater West Bloomfield,” a heavily Jewish suburb of Detroit, “and electing a Democratic House, Senate and governor in Michigan.”

Michael Horowitz, a Jewish community leader and Detroit businessman, was reluctant to engage in any hypotheticals before the primary’s end. “I still think Haley is going to pull it out on Tuesday,” he told JI on Friday. 

Pressed to clarify how he would vote if she loses, he wrote in a text, “I try to avoid playing games with the Devil,” inserting an upside-down smiley face emoji reflective of the uncomfortable position that Jewish Democrats now find themselves confronting as the primary finally comes barreling to a close this week.

In a late-night tweet five days before Michigan’s high-stakes Democratic Senate primary, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) explicitly accused her opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, of trafficking in antisemitism.

Stevens’ post came in response to a video in which El-Sayed attacked AIPAC for supporting her, as he called her “literally the least capable candidate in America.” He has made criticism of AIPAC a central tenet of his campaign.

“Abdul, we were both on the ballot in 2018. I was capable of winning my competitive primary and general election. You lost,” Stevens wrote in the post, which was uploaded at 10:30 p.m. on Thursday, referring to El-Sayed’s run for governor. “You lost by over twenty points to Gretchen Whitmer and you will lose to [GOP nominee] Mike Rogers by talking like this.”

“Everyone in America understands,” Stevens continued, “you want to blame all of your problems on Jewish Americans.” 

Stevens has generally avoided mentioning AIPAC on the campaign trail, even as it has spent tens of millions of dollars backing her, as the pro-Israel group has fallen out of favor with rank-and-file Democrats. After a new poll showed her trailing El-Sayed by 15 percentage points, Stevens ratcheted up her rhetoric. 

She also pledged in her post to “lower the costs of groceries, ban stock trading for elected officials, stop Trump’s abuses of power and protect Michigan manufacturing” — and said El-Sayed will just turn into “a celebrity whining and writing books to get even richer.”

United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-affiliated super PAC, is running a new ad targeting Abdul El-Sayed, a far-left Democrat in Michigan’s closely contested Senate primary, over his past support of the “uncommitted” movement and his criticisms of popular Democratic leaders — a messaging strategy the group has used as an effective attack line against anti-Israel opponents in previous election cycles.

The 30-second TV spot, released on Tuesday in advance of the Aug. 4 contest, cites comments in which El-Sayed had criticized Barack and Michelle Obama while accusing El-Sayed of “helping Trump win” the election in 2024 because of his promotion of the “uncommitted” effort that urged Democratic primary voters to leave their ballots blank as a protest against former President Joe Biden’s support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.

“With our democracy on the line against Donald Trump in 2024, El-Sayed told Democrats to vote ‘uncommitted,’ even after Gov. Whitmer warned those efforts would help elect Donald Trump,” the narrator says, referring to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who last week endorsed El-Sayed’s rival, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a pro-Israel Democrat backed by AIPAC.

“Disrespecting women. Attacking the Obamas. Helping Trump win. That’s the real Abdul El-Sayed,” the ad concludes.

While UDP has invoked similar rhetoric in other ads hitting El-Sayed, the new spot is the first to mention his ties to “uncommitted,” a campaign first launched in Michigan that is emerging as a key point of tension for the insurgent candidate — particularly with Black leaders who believe the movement helped contribute to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat in the battleground state.

An image of Harris is shown in UDP’s new TV ad, but the former vice president is not named directly by the narrator. 

UDP is also running two new digital ads — aimed at younger voters ages 18-25 who have been drawn to El-Sayed’s anti-establishment bid — that accuse him of making sexist remarks toward women and saying he was “one of the reasons Trump won,” again referring to his “uncommitted” activism.

Earlier this month, Stevens likewise highlighted El-Sayed’s alignment with “uncommitted,” while alleging he called Harris’ campaign “nauseating.”

El-Sayed, for his part, has sought to downplay his association with the movement, claiming in a recent campaign ad that he was “the first Muslim American leader to endorse Kamala Harris for president,” even as fact-checkers have deemed that statement inaccurate.

In a statement to Jewish Insider on Tuesday, Patrick Dorton, a UDP spokesperson, called El-Sayed “a bad Democrat” who “has repeatedly advocated positions that lose elections for Democrats.”

“That’s why Republicans are desperate to have him be the nominee,” Dorton said. “They know they can beat him.”

A new poll commissioned by the Michigan Education Association, which has not made an endorsement in the primary, found Stevens leading former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the Republican nominee, by two points in a hypothetical general election matchup, making the race a toss-up. El-Sayed, by contrast, was trailing Rogers by seven points in the open-seat race to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), which Democrats see as key to control of the Senate, according to the poll.

El-Sayed, an outspoken critic of Israel, has made AIPAC’s investment in the race a centerpiece of his messaging, as the group has grown increasingly toxic among Democrats. UDP’s spending to help Stevens has so far exceeded $30 million.

The pro-Israel group is also targeting former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who is seeking a rematch in next Tuesday’s House primary in St. Louis against Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) — after he unseated her last cycle with a significant financial boost from UDP.

In recent weeks, UDP has run ads attacking Bush for past comments criticizing Biden and Harris, echoing the messaging it deployed two years ago to help oust the former Squad member who was among the most strident critics of Israel in the House.

A new TV ad released by UDP on Tuesday further dinged Bush as an absentee lawmaker who passed “zero bills” in Congress and called her opposition to the bipartisan infrastructure package in 2021 a vote “against Democrats.”

“Cori Bush has her own agenda, and it hurts St. Louis,” the ad claims.

One week before Michigan’s closely watched Democratic Senate primary, a new poll shows Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) leading former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers by two points if she proceeds to the general election — with her opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, trailing Rogers by seven points.

Among voters who said they definitely plan to vote in the general election, the more moderate Stevens currently leads Rogers 47% to 45%, making the race a toss-up. In an El-Sayed-Rogers matchup, Rogers leads El-Sayed, a far-left former public health official, 48% to 41%. 

The poll’s findings provide evidence for one of Stevens’ central campaign messages, which is that she stands the best chance of defeating Rogers in a key swing state and ensuring that Democrats hold onto the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI). 

Among independent voters, Stevens and Rogers are nearly tied, with Rogers at 40% and Stevens at 39%. Independent voters overwhelmingly prefer Rogers to El-Sayed, with 47% saying they would support Rogers and 19% pledging to back El-Sayed. 

The poll was commissioned by the Michigan Education Association — the state’s largest teachers’ union, which has not made an endorsement in the race — and an organization called Business Leaders for Michigan. It was conducted between July 22 and 24. The survey did not ask respondents their preferences in the Aug. 4 primary.

If Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary has become a test case for the saliency of AIPAC and Israel as a political issue for Democratic voters, then Monday night’s debate between Abdul El-Sayed, a far-left former public health official, and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) served as the ultimate battlefield — and illustrated the gulf between the two candidates on the issue.

Over the course of an hourlong debate, El-Sayed made clear that he believes his opposition to AIPAC and to Israel will help him win next week’s election. Stevens, meanwhile, did not even utter the word “AIPAC.” 

Stevens outlined her views on the Middle East, arguing that she and El-Sayed diverge because she supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while he has not acknowledged Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. She touted her support for Michigan’s Jewish community and mentioned the work she did to advocate for the hostages after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. 

Debate moderator Roop Raj, an anchor on FOX 2 News, prodded Stevens on her support from AIPAC, pushing her to discuss the group’s spending in the race, but she largely avoided doing so. 

“Absolutely not,” Stevens said when asked by Raj whether voters should be concerned that she will do AIPAC’s “bidding” when she wins the seat. 

Mostly, she turned the transparency questions on her opponent, attacking El-Sayed for not releasing all of his financial disclosure forms and for benefitting from a super PAC to which his father-in-law has contributed $200,000. 

“I don’t think there’s much difference between super PACs going in for Abdul or super PACs going in for me,” Stevens said, when asked about AIPAC spending $46 million in the race. “We have a problem with campaign finance reform in this country.”

El-Sayed did the same, but in reverse: When she called out his lack of personal financial transparency, he went after her for benefiting from outside spending in the race.

The first question of the debate, to El-Sayed, was about how he would work to make Michigan more affordable. His answer: eschewing campaign donations “from the corporations who are jacking up your prices in the first place,” a category in which he placed AIPAC. 

“Just last week, our friend here voted to send 3.3 billion of your tax dollars to a foreign government. That is the pro quo that comes with the quid of $30 million spent by AIPAC,” El-Sayed said. “It really comes down to how are you funded.” 

Stevens, when asked about affordability, talked about regulating utilities in the state and promising to be a “proven fighter.” 

When Stevens described being “robbed by Washington, D.C., and [President] Donald Trump,” and pledged to fight corruption in public office, El-Sayed said he agreed that Michiganders are being robbed — but by AIPAC, not Trump.

“The money that we should have to invest in our schools is being sent to foreign governments to destroy other people’s schools instead of investing in our own, and that is exactly what AIPAC wants you to do, and why they’re spending so much money to get the congresswoman elected,” El-Sayed said.

With less than two weeks until Michigan’s contentious Democratic Senate primary, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer endorsed Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) on Friday, offering a burst of momentum to the moderate Democrat’s campaign against progressive, anti-Israel firebrand Abdul El-Sayed. 

“Haley will do whatever it takes to get things done for people in Michigan, and we need her now more than ever,” Whitmer said in a video announcing the endorsement. 

Whitmer had conspicuously avoided making an endorsement in the race, which until weeks ago was a three-way contest between Stevens, El-Sayed and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. After McMorrow dropped out, the race between Stevens and El-Sayed tightened. 

El-Sayed has made opposition to Israel a core tenet of his campaign, targeting Stevens for receiving backing from AIPAC and for supporting the U.S.-Israel relationship. 

In the endorsement video, Whitmer did not mention El-Sayed; she talked about Stevens as a candidate who will “get things done.”

“She knows what Michigan families are going through, and that’s how I know she will always put Michigan first,” Whitmer said.

Good Tuesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on a fundraiser for Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed that is being cohosted by a Democratic Party operative who praised her grandfather’s Nazi service, and spotlight Ed Miliband, who was announced as the U.K.’s foreign secretary on Monday. We talk to Jewish Democrats in Washington state who feel increasingly isolated in their own party, and interview Joel Rubin, a former Jewish liaison for Sen. Bernie Sanders, about his concerns that his one-time boss is promoting antisemitic candidates. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Micah Lasher, Ron Dermer and Khalil Al-Hayya.

We have also launched a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• President Donald Trump is slated to meet today with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at 11 a.m. ET. The meeting comes as Israel moves forward with its plan to withdraw from “pilot zones” in southern Lebanon where the Lebanese Armed Forces will move in and administer the area in accordance with the framework agreement established last month between Beirut and Jerusalem.
• The White House is reportedly mulling a proposal from Middle East mediators including Qatar, Egypt and Pakistan for a 10-day ceasefire to halt fighting between the U.S. and Iran. Earlier today, officials in Bahrain confirmed that sirens sounded in the Gulf state ahead of what was believed to have been another Iranian attack.
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine are slated to appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee this morning to testify about the Trump administration’s $88 billion supplemental funding request for the Pentagon.
• The House Intelligence Committee is convening a hearing today on the next generation of terror threats, with former National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster set to testify.
• Arizona is holding its primaries today, with the GOP’s gubernatorial race between Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Dave Schweikert (R-AZ) taking center billing. The winner will face Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs in November.
• We’re also closely watching the primary results in Arizona’s 1st District, a swing district based in Scottsdale with a sizable Jewish population, which Schweikert is vacating to run for governor. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is backing former TV news anchor Marlene Galan-Woods over former state Rep. Amish Shah, who was the party’s 2024 nominee. The GOP front-runner is former NFL kicker and CBS Sports sideline reporter Jay Feely.
• In New York, Jewish Women International is hosting a day-long workshop series focused on Jewish women in the workplace.
• More than a dozen Jewish and pro-Israel groups, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Israeli-American Council, the Jewish Federations of North America and Christians United for Israel, are hosting a virtual tribute to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tonight ahead of his funeral next week.
• The three-day Gulf Research Meeting kicks off today in Cambridge, U.K. Speakers include Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud; Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari; Mohammed Ibrahim Al Dhaheri, the deputy director of the United Arab Emirates’ Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy; and Arab World Institute President Anne-Claire Legendre. 

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

In recent weeks, following the collapse of the memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has fired dozens of times on Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

At the same time, it has sustained fire from the U.S., whose military bases across the region have been targeted by the Islamic Republic, with several service members killed. And all the while, Tehran has targeted commercial ships transiting through the strait.

But as focus on the conflict with Iran has shifted from addressing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions to the Strait of Hormuz, Israel has stayed out of the fighting — despite Iranian threats earlier this month to target the Jewish state if the U.S. attacks did not cease.

There is no upside for Israel to reenter the fight, especially when the issue of the Strait of Hormuz falls outside of the objectives set by Israel at the start of the war earlier this year. (This, despite the widespread sentiment among Israelis that this year’s war did not improve Israel’s security situation, according to polling last month from the Israel Democracy Institute.)

Key among the goals laid out by Israel was degrading Iran’s ballistic missile program and setting back elements of its nuclear program. Reopening Hormuz is an American objective, not an Israeli one. With Israel having made the calculus that the most immediate Iranian threats have been blunted — at least in the short term — the current mission has become an American one.

“Israel’s best move is to not move — yet,” Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Jewish Insider this morning. “Washington does the striking. Israel keeps its fire and its threats in reserve, waiting for one of two triggers: a U.S. request to join, or an Iranian regime foolish enough to hit Israel and invite the reprisal that has been promised.”

Despite Iran’s threats to target Israel, such a move would likely be a strategic misstep for the Islamic Republic. Iran’s blockade of the strait and its attacks on Arab and Gulf states are an attempt to reassert its dominance over the region and demonstrate its ability to impact the global energy market. Tehran also appears to be betting that sustained attacks across the region will push Arab states to pressure the U.S. to accept an agreement to reopen the strait, handing the Islamic Republic a win.

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.

BLUE STATE BLUES

Washington state’s Jewish Democrats fight for a place in a party they no longer recognize

The past few years of rising tensions in the Democratic Party over Israel and antisemitism have been marked for many Jewish Democrats in Washington — one of the country’s bluest states, which has a Jewish population of about 90,000 — by disappointment, anger and a growing sense of isolation within a party they have spent decades supporting. But the answer, they say, is not to walk away; rather, it’s to try to reclaim influence from within, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.

Rebuilding: That effort begins with rebuilding the party’s own Jewish infrastructure. The Washington State Democratic Party’s Jewish caucus has gone “by the wayside, because it takes a lot of organizing and energy to keep it up,” said Linda Clifton, a longtime member of the caucus. “It’s all volunteer [work], and people had other jobs and other things they had to pay attention to. I think we need to revive it, and there’s been some effort to do that … but I think people are so disheartened that that becomes very difficult,” she continued.

Read the full story here.

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Bernie Sanders’ 2020 Jewish liaison says his old boss is promoting antisemitism

Joel Rubin, a former State Department official who led Jewish outreach for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) 2020 presidential campaign, is now excoriating his former boss and the movement he has built for elevating stridently anti-Israel candidates — most notably former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Notable quotable: “I think what Sanders and the Sanders operation have done is shove into our system the most categorically anti-Israel, antisemitic candidates that we’ve seen in a generation — if ever, certainly within the Democratic Party — and it’s by design,” Rubin said in an interview with JI last week at the Aspen Security Forum. “It’s not by accident, and it’s very disruptive intentionally. The goal is to undermine Democratic unity and even rationality on Israel at this stage.”

Read the full story here.

More Dem dynamics: Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said in an interview with JI’s Emily Jacobs on Monday that the votes by more than 100 House Democrats last week in favor of an effort to end all U.S. aid to Israel indicate the party is “flirting with” making opposition to Israel the official party stance, something he said would lead him to leave the caucus. 

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NOT SO FUNNY MONEY

Michigan Dem who praised grandfather’s Nazi military service hosting fundraiser for Abdul El-Sayed

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is slated to appear at a campaign fundraiser this weekend that is co-hosted by Kelly Neumann, a controversial Democratic fundraiser in Michigan who faced scrutiny earlier this year for a 2024 Facebook post on Veterans Day that praised her grandfather, who fought for the Nazis in World War II, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Pulled out: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who endorsed El-Sayed on Monday, was initially listed as a speaker at the Saturday event hosted by Neumann, though Neumann and the campaign removed Warren from their promotional materials after JI inquired about the senator’s role. Warren is speaking at a rally for El-Sayed later that day.

Read the full story here.

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ACROSS THE POND

Ed Miliband’s appointment as U.K. foreign secretary indicates tougher British policy toward Israel to come

Ed Miliband’s appointment on Monday as U.K. foreign secretary is raising questions about how the former Labour chief will influence Israel and Middle East policy under Andy Burnham, the country’s new prime minister, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. As the first Jewish leader of the Labour party, which he helmed from 2010-2015, Miliband has long balanced his commitment to Israel’s security with vocal criticism of the Jewish state that has fueled some tensions with British Jewish leaders. 

Israel approach: During his past tenure as Labour leader, Miliband “certainly wasn’t an instinctive supporter of Israel, but he also wasn’t as hostile as some expected given his background,” Arieh Kovler, a political analyst in Jerusalem who previously served as the director of policy and research for Britain’s Jewish Leadership Council, told JI. “But that was a decade ago. Attitudes to Israel have hardened across British politics and the Labour Party with it.”

Read the full story here.

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BACKTRACK

Mamdani hedges on campaign pledge to arrest Netanyahu

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani seemed to shy away on Monday from a campaign vow — referenced in an interview over the weekend — to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even as he continued to lob rhetorical fusillades at the leader of the Jewish state, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports.

What he said: Mamdani seemed to acknowledge on Monday that such a move might exceed his authority. “My administration will follow all applicable local laws, that is our commitment, that is something we will follow through on, when it comes to adherence to local laws,” the mayor told reporters after an unrelated event, stressing again when pressed: “We will follow our local laws.”

Read the full story here.

View from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.: President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social site that Netanyahu would not be arrested “in any way, shape, or form” while in the U.S.

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SHE’S RUNNING

Darline Graham to run for full Senate term at Trump’s urging

Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) said that she will run in next month’s special election to replace her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), on the ballot as the GOP nominee for Senate in November, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. 

Mind made up: Graham, who was appointed last week to serve out the remainder of her brother’s term in the Senate, announced her decision to run for a full term in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Monday. “I’ve made a decision,” Graham said. “I’m in.” Graham told Hannity, a friend of her late brother’s, that she had been “praying a lot” and “talking to my family” about the decision, which she acknowledged she needed to make at an expedited pace due to the week-long filing period for candidates beginning on Tuesday.

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Eye on 2028: The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich interviews Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), about Kelly’s presidential considerations, Giffords’ recovery after a 2011 shooting and Kelly’s shortlisting as former Vice President Kamala Harris vetted potential running mates. “Kelly told me that he’d only ‘read parts’ of Harris’s memoir. Presumably, these were the parts that corresponded to mentions of ‘Kelly, Mark.’ He smiled when I suggested this and did not deny it. When I brought up that Harris said she was concerned that he wasn’t tested as a national candidate, Kelly grew more openly annoyed than I might have expected, given how beside the point the topic is now. … He also noted, sarcastically, that some people apparently found it charming that Walz asked for Diet Mountain Dew to drink during his VP interview. ‘[Gov. Josh] Shapiro and I asked for water,’ he said, smirking.” [TheAtlantic]

Tehran’s Tactics: In The Wall Street Journal, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh posit that Iran’s ability to withstand international economic pressure and U.S. strikes has given the Islamic Republic a “wartime advantage” over Washington. “Today’s conflict with the U.S. and Israel lets senior guard commanders, lowly IRGC foot soldiers and the rest of the theocracy’s security forces feel the fraternity of resistance against the regime’s enemies. For a dictatorship that lost most Iranians’ loyalty years ago, these wars were a boon. The zeal of the revolutionary faithful has baffled many Iranian expatriates and analysts, who see a morally, spiritually and financially bankrupt regime.” [WSJ]

Kuwait in the Crosshairs: The Financial Times’ Ahmed Al Omran looks at how the Iranian attacks across the Gulf have affected Kuwait, which has been targeted by more than 1,500 missiles and drones since the start of the war. “The sense of fear is particularly potent in Kuwait, which is still scarred by the trauma of the 1990 Iraqi invasion — a unique experience that sets it apart from other Gulf Arab states. Since the US-Israeli war against Iran started in February, Kuwait’s proximity to the Islamic republic and high concentration of American troops have made it an easy target for Tehran’s short-range missiles. … But the intensity and frequency of the attacks came as a surprise to some observers in Kuwait, which before the war enjoyed relatively cordial relations with Iran.” [FT]

A larger selection of Worthy Reads is available in our Live Briefing.

Word on the Street

Amid its escalating conflict with Iran, the White House’s social media feed posted a three-week-old poll on Monday from a right-wing polling firm indicating Americans support the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding established last month, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…

The Pentagon confirmed a New York Times report that nearly 100 American troops stationed in Jordan have been injured by Iranian attacks over the last two weeks as the Islamic Republic targets U.S. bases in the region; several of the strikes had not been made public prior to the Times’ reporting…

Israeli intelligence shared with the U.S. indicates that Iran moved thousands of centrifuges into its clandestine Pickaxe Mountain site last fall, following the 12-day war in June; read more about Pickaxe Mountain here…

The Wall Street Journal spotlights the “once-unthinkable” ideas being mulled by Washington, Beirut and Jerusalem to disarm Hezbollah in Lebanon…

The New Yorker‘s David Kirkpatrick talks to former Biden administration officials about the Biden White House’s policies toward Israel and Gaza at the height of the conflict between Israel and Hamas…

Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), who is challenging Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), removed from his campaign website family photos that featured his son-in-law, who was found to have promoted white nationalism and Nazi ideology online…

The Washington Post reports on the volatile temperament of Troy Jackson, who is expected to replace Graham Platner as the Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, during the time that Jackson served as the head of the state Senate…

Axios examines how Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) rhetoric as she campaigns for Democrats around the country resembles former President Barack Obama’s own early campaign rhetoric following the launch of his 2008 presidential bid…

Politico looks at how New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has alienated portions of the city’s electorate — including the Black, Jewish and Latino communities — that have traditionally had close ties with City Hall…

The New York Times interviews New York state Assemblymember Micah Lasher about his childhood hobby of performing magic; the New York Democrat, who won last month’s Democratic primary to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), in 1996 published The Magic of Micah Lasher, and performed on national television as a child…

Adam Hamawy and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who won their respective Democratic congressional primaries against more moderate candidates in part by attacking Israel on the campaign trail, were announced as the keynote speakers at the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ annual gala in Washington…

Hungarian chess grandmaster Judit Polgar turned down Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s offer to serve as the country’s interim president, saying she felt she lacked “the strength to take on the historic responsibility of uniting a divided nation” in the post-Viktor Orbán era…

The president of the Australian Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants testified before the country’s royal commission investigating antisemitism that increasing antisemitism in the country has “disturbing parallels” to Nazi Germany, but that he did not believe that the country was “becoming another Germany in the 1930s,” owing to Australia’s “democratic institutions, legal system and civilian civil society”…

OpenAI is reportedly starting a business development operation in Israel, having hired a senior Israeli executive from Amazon Web Services to lead the effort to develop relationships in the Israeli high-tech sector…

Air France paused its flights to and from Dubai until next week; the airline is also temporarily suspending its routes to Saudi Arabia until later this week…

Hamas announced Khalil Al-Hayya, the terror group’s top negotiator in Qatar, as its new leader; Al-Hayya succeeds Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF in October 2024…

Former Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is rejoining the Jewish Institute for National Security of America as a distinguished fellow, a position he previously held from 2021 to 2022…

Pic of the Day

Demonstrators from the Union of Jewish Students of France protested on Monday outside the Paris headquarters of French far-left party La France Insoumise following the interruption over the weekend of a Jewish DJ’s concert in Grenoble. La France Insoumise had for months been calling for a boycott of Barbara Butch’s show last Saturday, which was disrupted by anti-Israel activists.

Birthdays

Retired CEO of Sony/ATV, a large music publishing firm, he is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Martin Bandier turns 85…

President at Admar Group, Henry Dean Ostberg turns 98…  Professor in the physics department at Bar-Ilan University, he won the Israel Prize in 2018, Shlomo Havlin turns 84… Director of the Center for the Political Future at USC, Robert Shrum turns 83… Criminal defense attorney, known for representing many politicians, celebrities and organized crime defendants, Benjamin Brafman turns 78… Former member of the U.K.’s House of Commons, now in the House of Lords, Baroness Susan Veronica Kramer turns 76… Senate majority whip (R-WY), John Barrasso turns 74… Chairman and CEO at Quantitative Financial Strategies, Sanford “Sandy” Jay Grossman turns 73… Endocrinologist and professor at Columbia University’s medical school, she is an honorary president of NYC’s Central Synagogue, Shonni Joy Silverberg, MD… Professor at Columbia Law School and daughter of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Jane Carol Ginsburg turns 71… Brooklyn resident, Irene Ostrovsky… Comedian and actor, best known for his five seasons on “Saturday Night Live” ending in 1990, Jon Lovitz turns 69… Former chief rabbi of Moscow, his opposition to the Ukraine war forced him to leave Russia, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt turns 63… Literary agent at the William Morris Endeavor book department, Eric Matthew Simonoff turns 59… Actor and producer, Alysia Reiner turns 56… Professor of astronomy at MIT and winner of a 2013 MacArthur Genius Award, Sara Seager turns 55… Brazilian fashion designer best known for avant-garde designs and eclectic prints, Alexandre Herchcovitch turns 55… CEO of Fanatics, licensed sports merchandise and digital sports platform, Michael G. Rubin turns 54… Founder, president and CEO of Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) and the Electrification Coalition, Raphael “Robbie” Diamond… Rabbi of Congregation Bais Naftali in Los Angeles, his YouTube channel has over 4.6 million views, Rabbi Yoel Gold… Online media personality and director of product management at Electronic Arts (EA) in British Columbia, Veronica Belmont turns 44… CEO of Women of Reform Judaism since 2023, Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch… Clinical social worker, Aniko Gomory-Pink… Entrepreneur and political activist, she came to prominence as an African-American pro-Israel student activist at the U of New Orleans, Chloé Simone Valdary turns 33… Policy advisor at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, Zachary A. Marshall… Senior recruiter at Tines, Rachel Elizabeth Nieves… Attorney in Madrid and secretary general of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain until 2021, Elias Cohen…

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is slated to appear at a campaign fundraiser this weekend that is co-hosted by Kelly Neumann, a controversial Democratic fundraiser in Michigan who faced scrutiny earlier this year for a 2024 Facebook post on Veterans Day that praised her grandfather, who fought for the Nazis in World War II. 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who endorsed El-Sayed on Monday, was initially listed as a speaker at the Saturday event hosted by Neumann, though Neumann and the campaign removed Warren from their promotional materials after Jewish Insider inquired about the senator’s role. Warren is speaking at a rally for El-Sayed later that day.

A spokesperson for El-Sayed said Warren’s “inclusion on the flier was a clerical error by our campaign” and that she was never scheduled to speak at the fundraiser. A spokesperson for Warren declined to comment.

In Neumann’s November 2024 post, which was previously reported by JI, she said her grandfather, Albert Neumann, fought “on the German side in WWI & WWII.” She noted that he “was one of the first people in my life that accepted me as gay” and described him as “a true testament that people can change and love indeed can win.” 

Neumann, a Michigan attorney, has since deleted the post after it resurfaced earlier this year. In a March 2026 Facebook post, she apologized “to anyone who was hurt by [my] post from years ago, as that was certainly never my intention,” but blamed Rep. Haley Stevens’ (D-MI) Senate campaign for unearthing the original post. 

Neumann had endorsed state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, but after McMorrow dropped out early this month, Neumann backed El-Sayed. Neumann hosted a fundraiser for Stevens’ House reelection campaign last year. 

A spokesperson for Stevens told JI in January that Stevens would not have invited Neumann to host the event if Stevens had “seen the post celebrating Ms. Neumann’s grandfather’s service to the SS.” (The Daily Mail reported later that Neumann’s grandfather was likely in the German Wehrmacht, or armed forces, rather than the Nazi SS.) 

“The host in question has hosted or donated to several democratic senators, congresspeople, statewide elected officials and candidates, including Abdul’s opponent, Congresswoman Stevens,” a spokesperson for El-Sayed told JI. “All of us, including the host, condemn Nazi ideology.”

Neumann defended her grandfather even as she apologized for the original post. “To be clear, my grandfather was a german soldier, not a nazi,” Neumann wrote in March. In a phone call with JI on Monday, Neumann stood by this assertion and claimed that a representative from Germany’s Ministry of Defense told her the same thing.

“All I know is that I’ve been informed as a child, in growing up, and then recently again, is that they said he wasn’t a Nazi,” Neumann said. “I believe there is a distinction between a young German soldier and a Nazi in the actual regime close to Hitler.”

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum calls the idea that German soldiers were not part of the Nazi regime a “myth.”

“This belief is untrue. The German military participated in many aspects of the Holocaust: in supporting Hitler, in the use of forced labor, and in the mass murder of Jews and other groups targeted by the Nazis,” the museum states on its website. 

Neumann’s political resume is lengthy. She served as a co-chair of the finance committee for McMorrow’s Senate campaign. She also previously worked to support gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, though Neumann has since endorsed Chris Swanson, a long-shot challenger to Benson. 

Neumann told JI that she is “not antisemitic in any sort of way,” and that she regularly hosts events for Jewish politicians. Last year she hosted a fundraiser for Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss, a Jewish Democrat who is running for Congress.

“I’m not proud of my grandfather being in World War II as a young German soldier,” said Neumann. “What I am proud about is how he was so kind to me and accepted me as a minority in the ‘90s.”

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan running in the race’s far-left lane, on Sunday described Israel as a “rogue state” that has committed genocide and apartheid. El-Sayed made the comments in an interview with Manu Raju on CNN’s “Inside Politics Sunday.”

Asked whether he thought the Israeli government should be considered by the U.S. to be a foreign terrorist organization, El-Sayed answered, “It’s certainly a rogue state.” 

“I mean, they did a genocide,” he continued. “What about doing a genocide is not evil in your book? At baseline they do apartheid.”

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan running in the race’s far-left lane, on Sunday described Israel as a “rogue state” that has committed genocide and apartheid.@HaleyCohen19 reports: https://t.co/9BELSWPMXQ pic.twitter.com/vSYVTTRZJZ

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 12, 2026

El-Sayed’s comments come as Michigan’s heated Democratic Senate primary enters its final stretch. He is facing off in the Aug. 4 primary against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) — a moderate lawmaker who has been supported by AIPAC and pro-Israel donors.

Last week, El-Sayed told CNN that he did not believe that a Democratic politician’s support for Israel could be about anything other than money. Earlier in the race, El-Sayed said he struggled to answer questions about whether he believed Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state and that he believed the Israeli government was just as “evil” as Hamas.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) continued a war of words with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as she faced a barrage of attacks from her primary opponent, former public health official Abdul El-Sayed, at a debate on Tuesday in Michigan.

Netanyahu, in a CNN interview earlier on Tuesday, criticized Stevens for saying that his actions and government had made the Jewish community less safe and placed Jews in an “uncomfortable position.”

“It’s made her uncomfortable because she can’t stand up for the truth. She’s trying to, probably, excuse antisemitism,” Netanyahu said in response to a question from CNN host Dana Bash. 

Asked about the war in Iran, Stevens criticized both President Donald Trump and Netanyahu.

“We need long-term peace. Donald Trump has failed us. The prime minister of Israel has failed in that regard, and he was just coming after me on this today,” Stevens said. “Look, I am unafraid. Michigan, you are my North Star, and no illegal wars, no unilateral wars at our expense.”

She doubled down on those criticisms later in the debate.

“It is very clear that Mr. Netanyahu has not made us safer, has not brought us closer to peace, and he’s endangered Jews here in America and around the world,” Stevens said. “This is why he was just trashing me today on CNN. I am not afraid of bullies. I am not afraid to stand up, and I continue to stand up for humanitarian aid, for the U.S. to work with the countries in the region and get aid into Gaza.”

She also highlighted her work with the families of Israeli hostages formerly held in Gaza.

Stevens accused El-Sayed of opposing a two-state solution, alluding to his repeated refusal to say directly whether he believes Israel has a right to exist.

“The difference between my opponent and myself on this issue is that I believe in a two-state solution,” Stevens said. “I can say that Israel has a right to peacefully exist alongside the people of Palestine and in Gaza.”

El-Sayed argued that Netanyahu and AIPAC’s support for U.S. politicians are the primary reasons the U.S. entered the war, and emphasized that an AIPAC-linked super PAC has been attacking him and supporting Stevens.

“So long as our politicians continue to be bought off by AIPAC, do not be surprised when we fight wars that are in their best interest to … annex Lebanon or to do genocide in Gaza,” he continued.

He also argued that U.S. support for Israel, which he described as a “rogue state,” has foreclosed the possibility of a two-state solution, calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and “blank checks” to other Middle Eastern countries including Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

In response to repeated attacks over her support from AIPAC, Stevens pivoted to discussing other issues including her record in Michigan, GOP support for El-Sayed’s campaign and El-Sayed’s failure to release his tax returns, among other issues.

Responding to multiple questions from viewers and the debate moderator about the leftward shift of the Democratic Party, both candidates largely sidestepped the issue, though El-Sayed suggested he’s supportive of a shift in the party.

“I’ll tell you this: it won’t shift if we continue to elect leaders who take money from the same corporations who have broken with the interests of the American public,” El-Sayed said. “[Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer (D-NY) desperately wants one of us to be the next senator, and it’s not me. So, if you want your politics dictated by AIPAC or Chuck Schumer, then I’m not your guy.”

Stevens, meanwhile, emphasized her record in office as a “workhorse” for the state. “This has always been about Michigan,” she said, when asked whether the race was a battle over the future direction of the Democratic Party.

El-Sayed ultimately offered a similar answer, saying, “I’m not doing this because of some direction of a party. I’m doing this because of the Michiganders that I’ve gotten to see.”

As the heated Democratic Senate primary in Michigan enters its final stretch, far-left candidate Abdul El-Sayed told CNN this week that he does not believe that a politician’s support for Israel could be about anything other than money.

“Not if you’re a Democrat and you believe in human rights,” El-Sayed told CNN when asked about such a distinction. 

Asked whether it was possible to be a Zionist and be a progressive, El-Sayed said, “Every definition of a Jewish state ends up in some articulation of illiberal values, every single one.”

El-Sayed is facing off against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in the Aug. 4 primary, following state Sen. Mallory McMorrow’s departure from the race on Sunday. 

Stevens, a moderate lawmaker who has been supported by AIPAC and pro-Israel donors throughout her career, has drawn a contrast between herself and El-Sayed on the issue.

“There is a difference between me and Abdul,” she said in an MS NOW interview on Monday. “I believe in a two-state solution. I want to see the people of Palestine and in Gaza live peacefully, side by side, with the people of Israel. He cannot qualify Israel’s right to exist.”

The AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project is launching its first negative ad in the Michigan Senate race, targeting Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed, just over a month before the state’s primary elections.

According to FEC filings, the group spent more than $2 million in the initial ad buy targeting El-Sayed.

The 30-second ad highlights El-Sayed’s “long history of disrespecting women,” including criticisms of former First Lady Michelle Obama and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The ad also highlights a discrimination lawsuit — in which El-Sayed was not a defendant — that claimed he told a woman he wouldn’t work with anyone over the age of 40, as well as allegations that he attempted to pay an employee to keep silent about his disparaging comments about women.

Critics have recently highlighted El-Sayed’s disparaging comments about his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI); El-Sayed, in a recent interview, described her as a “suit with a large AIPAC account” who can’t “string together two coherent sentences.”

UDP has spent more than $10 million in the race boosting Stevens.

El-Sayed picked up a high-profile endorsement on Thursday from leading progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Stevens was endorsed this week by the Detroit News.

Also Thursday, UDP made $400,000 in advertising reservations to support Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) as he faces a comeback primary challenge from former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), whom UDP helped Bell defeat in 2024.

Delegates at the United Auto Workers convention in Detroit voted on Thursday to divest from Israel Bonds, citing the war in Gaza. 

One of the largest unions in the country, the UAW previously held an estimated $400,000 to $700,000 in Israeli bonds and securities, according to the Detroit Free Press. It has not been disclosed how much money the divestment will affect or how many members voted to pass the resolution. 

The annual convention also featured a speech from Abdul El-Sayed, a far-left, UAW-endorsed Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan who told Jewish supporters last month that he “often struggle[s]” to answer whether he believes Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. He said in an interview with CNN in April that he believes the Israeli government is just as evil as Hamas.

While UAW historically evokes imagery of assembly lines, picket lines and blue-collar solidarity, the union has increasingly drifted away from its core mission of representing autoworkers, largely driven by individuals pushing extreme political agendas that leave critics questioning their relevance to workplace issues. 

In January, 30% of the 275 employees of the Israeli-owned Breads Bakery signed union authorization cards for UAW Local 2179, the percentage necessary to petition the National Labor Relations Board for a union election. The group, which calls itself “Breaking Breads,” said in a statement, “Workers are demanding a living wage, safe workplace, and basic respect.” But the group’s demands also included that the management of the New York-based bakery chain, CEO Yonatan Floman and founder Gadi Peleg, “halt use of bakery profit to materially support the Israeli occupation.” Breaking Breads also condemned the bakery’s participation in the Great Nosh, an annual Jewish food festival in New York City, and said it will not participate in baking cookies with an image of the Israeli flag. 

A number of labor unions have seen a rise of antisemitism and anti-Israel activity since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks, despite many being historically supportive of Israel, dating back nearly a century, when many American unions donated money to the Histadrut, Israel’s national labor union. Multiple groups — including the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law — have now taken legal action against UAW branches in response to certain campaigns, which some legal experts allege were discriminatory against Israelis and Jews. 

UAW did not respond to a request for comment from Jewish Insider. 

Abdul El-Sayed, the far-left Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, suggested at an event on Friday that the Trump administration had indicted a group of anti-Israel demonstrators at the University of Michigan for their beliefs, rather than their actions.

The eight defendants, including a former staffer on El-Sayed’s campaign, who were indicted Friday have been accused of a campaign of intimidation against university officials they saw as pro-Israel and vandalism of local Jewish organizations.

“It’s a lot more about what you’re advocating for that gets you indicted or not indicted, rather than what you did,” El-Sayed said, at a Friday campaign event, according to The Detroit News.

Speaking to reporters after the event, El-Sayed said that it’s “just wrong, full stop” to target families, businesses and property as the indicted individuals alleged did, but also drew a contrast between the treatment of the eight indicted individuals and the Trump administration’s mass pardon of those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“I believe in justice, because I believe that when you break the law, you should be held accountable, but I don’t love watching our justice system treat people differently based on what it is that they were advocating for,” El-Sayed said. “Targeting people, families, properties, businesses is wrong, of course it’s wrong, but it’s also wrong when Jan. 6 terrorists do it. To watch the same Trump administration use these terms in certain ways — I think we all need to be asking the questions.”

El-Sayed previously faced criticism for his response to the attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., which some saw as excusing or rationalizing the attack.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) on X condemned El-Sayed for his “equivocation.”

“The reported planned violence and intimidation at the University of Michigan is wrong. This is simple and any leader should be able to say so,” she said. “The fact my opponent cannot bring himself to say that is concerning.”

In remarks to reporters, she said that she was “concerned about [El-Sayed’s] repeated patterns of embracing political violence and being out of step with Michigan voters,” pointing also to his decision to rally with far-left influencer Hasan Piker at the University of Michigan.

“We need leaders who are going to showcase leadership and be the leaders that we deserve, not continue to divide us and compensate for when people commit violence or threaten violence for political purposes,” she said.

Her comments have prompted scorn from El-Sayed’s campaign and allies.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) responded to Stevens’ X post by copying Stevens’ wording to criticize Stevens for refusing to describe the war in Gaza as a genocide.

Roxie Richner, El-Sayed’s communications director, accused Stevens on X of “sid[ing] with the Trump administration” and said she “can’t string two coherent sentences together.”

“Leadership requires that you have moral clarity and can say words that make sense when put in order,” Richner continued.

Abdul El-Sayed, the far-left Democratic candidate for Michigan’s Senate seat, said at an event with Jewish supporters last week that he struggles to answer questions about whether he believes Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state.

At his “Jews for Abdul” event last week in Pontiac, Mich., a recording of which was obtained by Jewish Insider, El-Sayed, in response to a question from an audience member about him sidestepping inquiries about Israel’s right to exist, said, “I often struggle with the question that people ask in this particular scenario, because what they now ask is, ‘Do you believe in the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state,’ which, to me, forces the question of a definition of what a Jewish state means.”

SCOOP | Abdul El-Sayed, the far-left Democratic candidate for Michigan’s Senate seat, said at an event with Jewish supporters last week that he struggles to answer questions about whether he believes Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state.

“I often struggle with the… pic.twitter.com/ugjbXgxUvr

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) May 27, 2026

El-Sayed continued: “I need folks who want to ask me that question [to explain] what it is that they mean by that, and how that is consistent with any form of liberal values that we say we believe in here in the United States.”

He accused Israel of “bypassing” the issue of Palestinian rights and maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel by implementing apartheid in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza, and said that the question of Israel’s right to exist overlooks “the rights of people who’ve been displaced by Israeli action” dating back to 1948.

He said that U.S. support is “funding leadership” in Israel that is opposed to a two-state solution while Palestinians do not have a voice in that conversation, and said “it’s not actually our job to decide what the peace looks like there.” 

“[Israel] exists as it stands, but nobody ever asked me about the right of Palestine to exist, because it doesn’t exist. And so I just push back on the characterization here,” El-Sayed said. 

MORE EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Abdul El-Sayed says “I need folks who want to ask me that question [to explain] what it is that they mean by that, and how that is consistent with any form of liberal values that we say we believe in here in the United States.”

Read more:… pic.twitter.com/8kaWUqwYCK

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) May 27, 2026

El-Sayed’s candidacy, positions and affiliations — particularly his campaigning with streamer Hasan Piker, who has repeatedly shared antisemitic sentiments and support for terrorism — has drawn concern from the sizable Jewish community in Michigan and nationally.

Photos from the event shared by El-Sayed’s campaign appear to show around a few dozen people in the audience, at least one of whom — who raised the question about Israel’s right to exist — said she was not Jewish.

The Jewish Democratic Council of America announced a dual endorsement on Wednesday of Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow in Michigan’s three-way Senate Democratic primary, saying “there are two candidates who stand with our community on issues of importance to Jewish voters, and there is one who does not.”

“It is because of this stark contrast of the views and values of Haley Stevens and Mallory McMorrow, compared to those of Abdul El-Sayed,” a vocal critic of Israel who has captured the enthusiasm of the far left, “that we are taking the distinct opportunity to endorse two candidates,” Halie Soifer, JDCA’s CEO, said in a statement.

The decision to issue a dual endorsement is rare for JDCA, which has long supported Stevens, a moderate pro-Israel Democrat who is favored by establishment leaders as well as AIPAC. In recent days, Stevens has won a series of major endorsements from Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), former Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, with under three months until the August 4 primary seen as key to reclaiming the party’s majority in the upper chamber.

McMorrow, who has backed efforts to restrict arms sales to Israel and called its military conduct in Gaza a genocide while also reaching out to Jewish voters in the state, stands to to the left of JDCA on Middle East policy, which backs continued U.S. aid to Israel “with no cuts or conditions,” its website states. 

In an interview with Jewish Insider, Soifer said the group had weighed those differences and engaged in “extensive conversations with McMorrow” as it made its endorsement. 

“Given the fact that her views on this issue stood in such contrast with those of Abdul El-Sayed,” who has drawn criticism for campaigning with Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer who regularly espouses antisemitic rhetoric, “we felt that it was important to send a clear message that either Stevens or McMorrow would” be preferable, Soifer explained on Wednesday.

McMorrow and Stevens have criticized El-Sayed for appearing with Piker, whose rhetoric he has refused to denounce. El-Sayed, who has been rising in recent polls — including one earlier this month in which he held a 10-point lead over his two primary opponents — has also side-stepped questions about Israel’s right to exist and said the Israeli government is just as evil as Hamas, among other inflammatory comments that have raised alarms among Jewish voters in the state.

While Soifer acknowledged concerns that Stevens and McMorrow could end up splitting the vote and inadvertently propelling El-Sayed to the nomination, she told JI the dual endorsement was meant to reflect JDCA’s broader assessment of the stakes of the race.

El-Sayed “stands alone among the most anti-Israel candidates who are running this cycle,” Soifer said, calling him an “unacceptable choice” in a state home to a sizable Jewish community. 

“We wanted to send a clear message that he is a threat both to Democrats and the chances of holding onto that Senate seat,” she added. “It is our interest to ensure he is defeated.”

Polling has indicated that the general election — where Democrats are now expected to face former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) — will be competitive.

JDCA has endorsed more than 120 candidates this election cycle. The group has so far notably refrained from offering its imprimatur to Graham Platner, the presumptive Senate Democratic nominee in Maine who has faced scrutiny over a Nazi tattoo he recently covered up and other personal controversies linked to his past online statements.

According to Soifer, JDCA plans to spend “at least six figures” in the Michigan Senate race, but she said she was not yet ready to share additional details about its strategy.

In the tight Michigan Senate race, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow has tried to present herself as a middle-of-the-road Democrat, ideologically situated between Abdul El-Sayed, an anti-Israel progressive, and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who has been endorsed by AIPAC. 

In a recent interview with leftist podcasters Matt Bernstein and Emma Vigeland, McMorrow continued to position herself as an objective observer of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and said it’s worth discussing whether the Palestinians should also have access to the Israeli-developed Iron Dome missile-defense technology, which the U.S. partially funds for Israel. 

Bernstein, the host of the queer political podcast “A Bit Fruity,” questioned McMorrow about why she supports Israel’s access to the life-saving Iron Dome systems, arguing that it empowers Israel to attack Palestinians without risk of harm to its own population, which is protected by the systems. 

While highly effective, the Iron Dome does not provide complete protection and Israelis have continued to be killed and wounded throughout the conflict.

“I don’t think anybody should live in fear of being bombed or killed. I would look at: How do we support defensive systems for Palestinians? How would we support defensive systems for Lebanese?” McMorrow said. When Vigeland sarcastically asked if the Palestinians should get their own Iron Dome, McMorrow said maybe.

“Let’s talk about that as a conversation,” McMorrow said. “I mean, the horror of living in fear of being bombed constantly. Let’s work with the outcome of how do we end the violence, period?

Then backing away from that, how do we protect people?”

She added that she wants to get to a place where Iron Dome systems are “not needed, period, for anybody.” 

McMorrow’s interview with Bernstein, which was released on Monday, was initially canceled — according to Bernstein, who said in a post on X earlier this month that her team withdrew after the podcast host told them he wanted to talk about foreign policy — but then rescheduled after Bernstein publicized the cancellation. 

Bernstein’s questions to McMorrow reflected his own anti-Israel worldview. McMorrow responded by reiterating her opposition to sending financial aid to Israel, a position that she said has evolved as even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now says he wants to end U.S. aid. 

“I would support Israel continuing to be able to purchase systems like the Iron Dome defensive systems, but I think it’s in the best interest of the United States in reducing that aid and allowing Israel to do that on their own,” said McMorrow. “I do not support the Netanyahu government. I think that they have continued to push well beyond what is proportionate, what is rational in response to the Oct. 7 attacks, in a way that is horrifying to watch.” 

McMorrow said she would have voted with the 40 Senate Democrats who supported a measure last month that sought to block some arms sales to Israel. 

“Let’s acknowledge how stunning it is that a year ago that number was significantly smaller than it is today. My views on this have evolved because the reality on the ground has evolved,” said McMorrow.

Mallory McMorrow: "I would have voted alongside the 40 out of 47 senators who voted in the past Sanders' resolution blocking arms sales" to Israel.

"My views on this have evolved because the reality on the ground has evolved," she said.

Read more about how Michigan Senate… pic.twitter.com/og2dKQ5kIv

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) May 19, 2026

When Bernstein and Vigeland pressed McMorrow to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide, she said she believes it meets “the legal definition” of the word. But she added that she doesn’t like to use it because of Jewish constituents’ “personal visceral reaction” to the word, due to family members lost in the Holocaust. And avoiding the word, McMorrow said, is a way to build consensus and not alienate voters in a swing state, even as she uses sharply critical language to describe Israel’s actions.

“There is no doubt that war crimes have been committed. There is no doubt that the pain and suffering at the vast expense of our taxpayer dollars, Matt, to your point, that we continue to pay for this, needs to end,” McMorrow said. 

Bernstein: "Do you believe Israel has committed — and is committing — a genocide?"

McMorrow: "I do believe that it meets the [legal] definition."

"What I also heard in response," the Michigan Senate candidate said, "from many of my constituents who had family that they lost in… pic.twitter.com/xCDX2WugoA

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) May 19, 2026

“I’m asking for the trust to represent 10 million people in a very diverse state that is a purple state that could very easily go to the Republicans,” added McMorrow, referring to “the goal that I think all of us on this call share: to keep a state like mine together and to not let this issue tear people, apart because if we let it tear us apart, we get [Republican Senate candidate] Mike Rogers. [Donald] Trump gets a win.” 

Bernstein has more than 400,000 subscribers on YouTube and 2.2 million followers on Instagram.

As the Democratic Party lurches left in the run-up to the midterms — and amid the rise of high-profile, far-left Senate candidates such as Graham Platner in Maine and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan — candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have gradually been making inroads and positioning themselves to win nominations in several key House races. 

This has happened without much protest or opposition from Democratic Party leadership. And given that the urban districts where the DSA-endorsed candidates have the most support are so heavily Democratic, there hasn’t been much incentive for party groups to set red lines against radicals looking to disrupt the party in these lower-profile races. 

One of the most insidious aspects of the advocacy of many DSA chapters is the demand that its endorsees cut ties with any Jewish group that recognizes the State of Israel. Some chapters celebrated or justified Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks against Israel. 

“They are trying to do in America what [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] seems to do internationally, which is to make being Jewish unacceptable in polite society,” Ron Halber, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, recently said on a webinar of D.C-area Jewish leaders. 

But despite the group’s radical views, DSA-endorsed candidates have a real shot at prevailing in several upcoming Democratic primaries in major cities. 

Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb, one of several Democrats looking to succeed retiring Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA) in his Philadelphia district, has the notoriety of recirculating an Instagram post blaming the Bondi Beach terrorist attack that killed 14 Jewish Australians on “Zionists,” insinuating the terror attack was a false flag. (His campaign later blamed a former staffer for reposting the item.)

Rabb, who has been endorsed by many of the leading anti-Israel progressives in Congress, also recently campaigned with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker. His far-left views and virulent criticism of Israel has alarmed Gov. Josh Shapiro, according to Axios, and the popular Pennsylvania governor has worked behind the scenes to oppose his campaign. 

Democratic sources familiar with the primary, however, suggest that any behind-the-scenes efforts aren’t having much effect in derailing the DSA candidate’s campaign. Rabb’s two leading opponents — surgeon Ala Stanford and state Sen. Sharif Street — are both mainstream Democrats and may potentially split the more-moderate vote. The primary is on Tuesday.

Next month, a similar clash between the Democratic mainstream and socialist wing of the party is taking place in New York City, where state Assemblymember Claire Valdez, who is backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York’s DSA chapter, is squaring off against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, the progressive establishment’s favorite. 

The race, in one of the most left-wing districts in the city, which covers part of Brooklyn and Queens, will mark a major test of Mamdani’s political capital — and whether the DSA brand is more compelling to progressives than the endorsement of Reynoso by retiring liberal stalwart Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY).

Reynoso, in an interview with The New York Editorial Board, proclaimed himself the underdog in the race despite boasting endorsements from organized labor, the outgoing congresswoman, state Attorney General Letitia James and the left-wing Working Families Party line. “Zohran Mamdani is a celebrity-status, inspiring figure at the levels of AOC and Bernie Sanders. He is a movement and is deeply important,” Reynoso said.

Meanwhile, in Denver, another DSA hotbed, Rep. Diane DeGette (D-CO) faces a primary threat from DSA-backed challenger Melat Kiros, a 28-year-old attorney. Kiros has made criticism of Israel a centerpiece of her campaign, accusing Israel of genocide, and she supports an arms embargo against the Jewish state. Kiros dominated DeGette at a districtwide party convention filled with activists in March, and the congresswoman has been airing ads touting her progressive record, in anticipation of a competitive June primary.

And in St. Louis, the local DSA chapter is again backing former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who was one of the most extreme anti-Israel lawmakers when serving in Congress, in her attempt at a comeback against Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO).

(The other major contest featuring a DSA-endorsed contender is next month’s D.C. mayoral primary, where Jewish groups have been alarmed by Janeese Lewis George’s rhetoric around Israel and antisemitism.)

All told, there could be at least four Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed lawmakers in the next Congress, with limited party efforts to marginalize the extremists from within. It underscores how fast the Democratic Party is evolving, and how quickly the guardrails that kept the party centered — and largely free of antisemitism — are falling out of place.

Good Friday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we preview the events around this weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, and report on new FEC filings indicating that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed accepted donations from an antisemitic conspiracy theorist whose son was paid tens of thousands of dollars by the campaign for consulting services. We report on new legislation from Reps. Tom Suozzi and Max Miller that aims to create buffer zones around religious institutions, and cover efforts by NY-17 Democratic candidates Cait Conley and Beth Davidson to distance themselves from Senate Democrats’ legislation to block certain military sales to Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: George Deek, Bob Iger and Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon that was set to expire this weekend was extended for three weeks following yesterday’s White House meeting, facilitated by President Donald Trump, between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the U.S. Speaking to reporters following the meeting, Trump expressed hope that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun would meet at the White House during the ongoing ceasefire. Read more here.
• It’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner weekend in Washington. Trump is slated to make his first appearance as president at the annual dinner, which will take place tomorrow night at the Washington Hilton. Around Washington, the parties on the sidelines of tomorrow night’s so-called Nerd Prom have already begun. Last night, Trump attended a dinner hosted by Skydance Paramount CEO David Ellison honoring the president and CBS News correspondents at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Read more here.
• On Long Island today, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) will hold a press conference with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt to announce the introduction of a federal version of the buffer zone bills that have been put forward in a handful of cities and states. Read our interview with Suozzi below.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S EMILY JACOBS AND MARC ROD

A who’s who of the leading names in media, tech and global and domestic politics are flocking to the nation’s capital for the scores of exclusive parties surrounding the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner this Saturday — where President Donald Trump will make his first-ever appearance as president and deliver a roast of the political press corps. 

The correspondents’ dinner, and the parties thrown in its honor, have always generated enough fanfare to maintain its status as the biggest weekend of the social calendar in Washington. This year, however, is being treated inside the Beltway as the most high-profile WHCD weekend in at least a decade, the result of Trump’s decision to participate in this year’s dinner after boycotting it for his entire presidency.

In addition to Trump’s roast, guests will be entertained by Oz Pearlman, a famed mentalist known for his mind-reading tricks. Pearlman, who is Jewish and was born in Israel, marks a shift from the traditional entertainment choice at the dinner, which is usually a monologue delivered by a comedian. Those comedians’ jokes about Trump were a factor in why the president has skipped previous dinners, and the White House Correspondents’ Association canceled its planned entertainer last year over backlash to her past comments.

The dinner could make for some awkward moments: one of the WHCA’s award winners this year is a team from The Wall Street Journal, for reporting on Trump’s ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein — an article that led Trump to sue the Journal. And that’s not to mention Trump’s routine hostility toward and criticisms of the media more broadly. It is unclear if the president will be present for the award ceremony.

Celebrities have historically flocked to Washington for WHCD weekend, though the number of famous names willing to appear for the dinner or other events dwindled during the first Trump administration. That trend began to reverse during the Biden administration, though it picked up again last year when Trump returned to office. 

Nicki Minaj, the rap superstar who has become an advocate for the Trump administration, will be attending the dinner as a guest of the Washington Times. No other media organizations have announced celebrity guests for their respective tables at the dinner. 

Regardless of a diminished turnout of famous faces, this weekend will be jam-packed with nonstop events, and it has already begun.

JI’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod will be out and about in the district this weekend, as well as at Saturday’s dinner. If you spot them at any of the events, take this as your invitation to say hello.

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Abdul El-Sayed brings in campaign cash from head of Hamas-cheering group

Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has taken donations from a deep-pocketed activist whose group spearheaded the pro-Hamas protests that targeted a Queens synagogue in January — while the far-left candidate has at the same time paid tens of thousands in campaign funds to her son, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman and Marc Rod report.

Paper trail: The latest Federal Election Commission filings show El-Sayed has received a total of $7,000 from Amani Barakat, the chair of Al-Awda-Palestinian Right of Return Coalition and a promoter of antisemitic conspiracy theories linking Jewish people to the Illuminati. It’s part of $33,550 that El-Sayed has taken in total from the Barakat family, a Palestinian-American real estate dynasty based in Southern California. 

Read the full story here.

Slotkin says: Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) joined other Michigan Democrats in condemning Amir Makled, a Democratic nominee for regent of the University of Michigan, over Makled’s past comments on social media expressing antisemitic sentiments and support for terrorism, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

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SACRED SPACES

Tom Suozzi introduces federal buffer zone bill protecting synagogues, religious institutions

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), joined by Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), introduced the SACRED Act this week, a new bill aimed at protecting attendees at religious institutions from harassment and threats by demonstrators — a phenomenon seen repeatedly outside synagogues that has spurred “buffer zone” legislation in New York and elsewhere, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Details: The bill, which applies within 100 feet of a religious institution, would create criminal and civil penalties for individuals who attempt to intimidate or obstruct someone in a manner that causes reasonable fear for physical safety to prevent them from entering or exiting a place of worship. It also applies — within that 100-foot zone — to individuals who intentionally approach within eight feet of a person seeking to exercise their freedom to worship, for the purpose of intimidating or harassing them.

Read the full story here.

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AID ARGUMENTS

Conley, Davidson distance themselves from Senate votes to block Israel aid in Jewish community forum

Cait Conley and Beth Davidson, two of the leading candidates in the Democratic primary in New York’s 17th Congressional District — among the most Jewish districts in the country — distanced themselves in a Thursday candidate forum from efforts by 40 Senate Democrats last week to block U.S. aid to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What they said: Conley, a veteran who has worked in a variety of national security roles, said that she doesn’t believe that lawmakers should be trying to determine which specific systems should be provided to allies, but she also argued that the U.S. must continue to enforce global standards to ensure that all aid recipients are meeting U.S. standards. Davidson, a Rockland County legislator, said that she wants to see the U.S. use diplomatic tools and oversight to help bring about peace, rather than threatening aid to Israel. But she added that, “before voting for more funding, I would want to see a plan of how we bring this [Iran] conflict to a close, especially with a second conflict going on right next door.”

Read the full story here.

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ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT

Harvard Youth Poll shows Gen Z voters view Israel, Ukraine as burden on U.S.

Young American adults increasingly view Israel as a burden to the United States, according to a new Harvard Youth Poll of 18- to 29-year-olds. The survey found that 46% of young Americans consider Israel to be mostly a burden to the U.S., compared to just 16% who say Israel is mostly a benefit to the U.S., Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Additional findings: Ukraine, which has also received U.S. support in its lengthy war with Russia, was also determined to be more of a burden by young Americans, though the numbers were less striking. Thirty-one percent of young Americans said Ukraine is mostly a burden, while 21% said it is mostly a benefit. Meanwhile, Washington’s relationships with Canada, Mexico and the European Union were mostly viewed as positive.

Read the full story here.

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TERROR THWARTED

18-year-old charged with planned ramming attack on Houston synagogue

A young woman was charged Thursday in a conspiracy to “kill as many Jews as possible” by driving through a Houston synagogue. Angelina Han Hicks, 18, a resident of North Carolina, was arrested Wednesday and charged, according to the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, with felony conspiracy to commit assault with a deadly weapon and felony conspiracy to commit murder for her plotted attack on Congregation Beth Israel, the oldest synagogue in Texas, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

Details: The FBI’s Charlotte Field Office received information on Tuesday that Hicks “was believed to be targeting members of the Jewish Community for a potential act of violence,” according to the sheriff’s office. Law enforcement found evidence in Hicks’ home that she and co-conspirators were planning a mass-casualty event, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Read the full story here.

School scrutiny: A new complaint filed with the Department of Education accuses a Florida Panhandle school district of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by ignoring years of antisemitic harassment against a Jewish student, including Nazi salutes performed in the classroom.

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NEW GIG

George Deek named Israeli envoy to Christian world

Israel’s first Christian ambassador, George Deek, has a new job after his return to Israel from his most recent posting as Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan: special envoy to the Christian world. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar named Deek to the role on Thursday, with the ministry saying that the move was “intended to deepen Israel’s ties with Christian communities around the world,” Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.

Background: Deek, who joined the Foreign Ministry in 2008 and has been posted to Norway and Nigeria, received the Foreign Ministry Director General’s Award for Excellence in 2021. He is part of the Arab Orthodox Christian community in Jaffa, and his father, Youssef Deek, was chairman of the community for many years.

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Calling the Shots in Tehran: The New York Times’ Farnaz Fassihi does a deep dive into Iran’s new power structure following the deaths of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of top regime officials, finding that key decisions are now being made by senior generals affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “It was the Guards who came up with the strategy for Iran’s attacks on Israel and the Persian Gulf states, along with the closing of the strait to maritime traffic. They were the ones who agreed to a temporary cease-fire with the United States and approved back-channel diplomacy and direct negotiations with the United States. They tapped [Iranian parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher] Ghalibaf from among their own ranks to lead the talks with Vice President JD Vance in Islamabad.” [NYTimes]

Chronicle of a Kidnapping: In The Atlantic, American journalist Shelly Kittleson recounts her kidnapping — believed to have been conducted by the Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah — and subsequent week in captivity. “I was well aware of the risks inherent in being a journalist with the ‘wrong’ passport in places where the default assumption is that anyone asking questions is a ‘spy.’ I was also keenly aware of the creativity employed by those who write ‘intelligence’ reports, having been the victim of fabricated reports of that sort in the past.” [TheAtlantic]

The Jew-ish Paradox: In The Wall Street Journal, Joseph Epstein considers the cultural and religious distinctions among Jews while noting that the differences are unimportant to those who are antisemites. “Jew, Jewish, Jewish, Jew: The two sometimes seem to have little in common. But now, with the re-emergence and spread of antisemitism, not only in the U.S., but globally, they have the hatred aimed against them in common. Will the two join together to fight this menace? They damned well better.” [WSJ]

Word on the Street

President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he had instructed the military to “shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be … putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” as Iran was reported this week to have been laying additional mines in the waterway…

The Wall Street Journal reports on concerns over the proliferation of Chinese satellite imagery that may be used to assist Iran and other American adversaries seeking to target U.S. installations and allies…

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that members of Iran’s national soccer team will be let into the U.S. to play in this summer’s World Cup, but that Iranians with ties to the country’s military would not be allowed entry…

Italian Sports Minister Andrea Abodi rejected the suggestion by Paolo Zampolli, the Trump administration’s special envoy for global partnerships, that Italy’s team replace Iran in the World Cup, saying that such a move was “firstly, not possible and secondly, not appropriate”…

The U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into the New York City Department of Education, alleging that teachers associated with the group N.Y.C. Educators for Palestine had instructed students to support Hamas and referred to Zionists as “genocidal white supremacists”…

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not give advance notice to senior Republican senators before announcing on Wednesday that he was firing Navy Secretary John Phelan and had already tapped his replacement, causing surprise and confusion on Capitol Hill, JI’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod report…

The Wall Street Journal does a deep dive into Phelan’s efforts to convince Trump, a friend and neighbor, to buck Hegseth’s demand that Phelan resign from the Navy’s top job…

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) added $1 million to his campaign coffers and said he would match any donation received ahead of his June primary against former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander; private polling for both camps indicates that Lander has a sizeable lead over Goldman, who first won his seat in 2022…

In a new ad, Goldman addresses the Iran war, saying, “Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu should have never started this war in Iran, and they must end it now,” adding, “I won’t vote for one more cent for this illegal and immoral war”… 

Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, in their draft 2027 funding bill for the State Department, are again aiming to leverage U.S. funding to the United Nations and other foreign programs to seek accountability for involvement by U.N. employees and others in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, JI’s Marc Rod reports…

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose book When We See You Again, about her life before and after the kidnapping and murder of her son, was released this week, was a featured speaker at the Time 100 Summit on Wednesday in New York…

Former Disney CEO Bob Iger is returning to Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital — where he briefly worked in 2022 before returning to Disney after his successor, Bob Chapek, was ousted by the board — in an advisory role…

The Wall Street Journal interviewed folk-pop singer Noah Kahan ahead of the release of his new album, “The Great Divide,” out today…

Saudi Arabia, facing financial challenges associated with the Iran war, pulled out of an arrangement to give up to $200 million over the next eight years to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, itself under financial strain after years of decreased sales from the COVID-19 pandemic; the Met now faces a $30 million shortfall it must make up before the end of its fiscal year this summer…

The department within the U.K.’s Foreign Office tasked with tracking Israel’s potential breaches of law was closed due to budget cuts…

U.K. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis met on Thursday with Prime Minister Keir Starmer at London’s Kenton United Synagogue, days after the synagogue was targeted in an arson attack…

An annual health report released today by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said that Benjamin Netanyahu was treated for early stage prostate cancer in late 2024…

Israir plans to launch daily flights this summer between Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport…

Police in the Israeli city of Modiin detained Hebrew University professor Alex Sinclair for wearing a yarmulke with the Israeli and Palestinian flags; when returned to Sinclair upon his release, the Palestinian flag had been cut from the yarmulke…

In response to rockets launched by Hezbollah toward Shtula in northern Israel on Thursday, the IDF said it struck Hezbollah military structures used to plan and carry out terror attacks in the areas of Kherbet Selem and Touline in southern Lebanon…

Retinal surgeon Kurt Gitter, an avid collector of art from Japan and the American South, died at 89…

Marquette University professor David Fantle, who helped bring the “Bronze Fonz” — a statue of the beloved “Happy Days” character Arthur Fonzarelli to Milwaukee’s downtown, died at 66…

Wine of the Week

JI wine columnist Yitz Applbaum reviews the 2025 Flam Blanc:

“I could not have orchestrated a more perfect evening if I had planned for a year. Last night, at Rendezvous, that impossibly charming jewel tucked away in the Neve Tzedek neighborhood of Tel Aviv, with a dear friend who happens to be a French-speaking cyber luminary, I was graced by a bottle of Flam Blanc, whose brilliantly beautiful semillon grape held the entire evening in its thrall.

“The 2025 Flam Blanc is an exquisite assemblage of sauvignon blanc, semillon, and the merest suggestion of chardonnay. The wine unveils itself with a disarming sweetness that lulls the uninitiated before delivering a magnificently brazen one-two punch of grapefruit peel zestiness across the mid-palate. The chardonnay finish, poised and unhurried, ushers one back to the noble terroir of the Judean Hills, lingering just long enough to leave you reaching for the bottle again. Pair this with handmade gnocchi and do acquire several cases. It is the kind of bottle that reminds even the most seasoned drinker why the Judean Hills deserve a permanent place in the conversation.”

Pic of the Day

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, signed a bill on Thursday adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism into law.

Rabbi Jeffrey Abraham, the board chair of the Missouri Alliance Network, which advocated for the bill, told JI, “Thanks to [this bill], our Jewish students will now be given the same protections of other minorities to combat the extreme rise in antisemitism we have seen the last few years. There is more work ahead to ensure school districts implement the IHRA definition and protect our Jewish students moving forward.”

Birthdays

Israeli designer, architect and artist, Ron Arad turns 75… 

FRIDAY: Rabbi emeritus at Washington’s Adas Israel Congregation, he is a former president of the Rabbinic Assembly, Rabbi Jeffrey A. Wohlberg turns 85… Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony and Peabody Award-winning singer and actress, Barbra Streisand turns 84… Delray Beach, Fla., resident, Phyllis Dupret… Distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, College Park, Jeffrey C. Herf turns 79… Former president and publisher of USA Today, then chairman of theStreet, Lawrence S. Kramer turns 76… Chairman and CEO of Cincinnati-based Standard Textile, Gary Heiman… Former president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards for 16 seasons, himself an NBA player for nine seasons, Ernest “Ernie” Grunfeld turns 71… Israeli singer descended from the Jewish diaspora in Kurdistan, Ilana Eliya turns 71… Columnist for Foreign Policy, Michael Hirsh turns 69…Author of books for children and teens, Deborah Heiligman turns 68… Founding partner and CEO of KSX Communications, Andrew Kirtzman turns 65… CEO and President of Wells Fargo since 2019, he was previously the CEO of Visa, Charles Scharf turns 61… Chief executive director of the Jewish Caring Network, Rabbi Carl S. “Chaim” Schwartz turns 56… Deputy chief of staff for Montgomery County, Md., Councilmember Sidney Katz, Laurie Mintzer Edberg… Emmy Award-winning television writer, producer and film screenwriter, known as the co-creator and showrunner of the television series “Lost,” Damon Lindelof turns 53… EVP of political operations at AIPAC, Mark H. Waldman… Israeli model, actress, entrepreneur, lecturer and activist, Maayan Keret turns 50… Film and television actor, Eric Salter Balfour turns 49… Brandon Hersh… Partner at Apollo Global Management, Reed Rayman… Special assistant to POTUS and senior speechwriter in the Biden administration, Aviva Feuerstein turns 39… Tech and innovation reporter at Automotive News, Molly Boigon…

SATURDAY: Retired attorney, he is a brother-in-law of former Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Myron “Mike” Sponder… Social worker and former health spokesman of the Green Party of the U.K., he is the older brother of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Larry Sanders turns 91… Co-founder of Lender Bagels Bakery, he was the national chair of UJA, Marvin K. Lender turns 85… Hedge fund manager and founder of Omega Advisors, Leon G. “Lee” Cooperman turns 83… Former CEO of baker supply manufacturing companies, Joseph “Joe” Weber turns 81… Hedge fund manager and founder of CAM Capital, Bruce Stanley Kovner turns 80… Rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University since 1973, rabbi of the Young Israel of Riverdale Synagogue since 1974, Rabbi Mordechai Willig turns 79… Former French finance minister and later managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn turns 77… David Handleman… Longtime chairman and CEO of Village Roadshow Pictures, now president of Through The Lens Entertainment, Bruce Berman turns 74… Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations from 2018 to 2021, he was previously president of Bed, Bath and Beyond, Arthur Stark turns 71… Administrative law judge at the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, Beth A. Fox… Commissioner of the National Basketball Association since 2014, Adam Silver turns 64… Senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, focused on security issues in the Middle East, Michael Scott Doran turns 64… Partner at Quinn Emanuel, he served as U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic in the Obama administration, Andrew H. Schapiro turns 63… Emmy Award-winning actor, voice actor, comedian and producer, he is descended from a Sephardic family rooted in Thessaloniki, Hank Azaria turns 62… Infomercial pitchman, better known as Vince Offer, Vince Shlomi or “The ShamWow Guy,” Offer Shlomi turns 62… Deputy director general at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Benjamin Krasna turns 61… CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, Meredith Dragon… New York Times-bestselling author and adjunct professor of neuroscience at Stanford University, David Eagleman turns 55… Deputy director of community health at the Utah Department of Human Services, David E. Litvack turns 54… Former professional baseball outfielder, Micah Franklin turns 54… Democratic Party strategist, she is a co-founder of Lift Our Voices, Julie Roginsky turns 53… President of the Alliance for Downtown New York, the nation’s largest business improvement district, Jessica S. Lappin turns 51… Opinion editor at the California Post, previously senior-editor-at-large for Breitbart News, Joel Barry Pollak turns 49… Attorney turned grocer and now professor, Danielle Brody Rosengarten Vogel… Co-founder of WeWork and now Flow, Adam Neumann turns 47… Executive director at Yaffed, Adina Mermelstein Konikoff… Managing director, head of social, content and influencer at Deloitte Digital, Kenneth R. Gold… Director of public affairs at FEMA during the Biden administration, now SVP at Avoq, Jaclyn Rothenberg… Film and television actress, model and singer, Sara Paxton turns 38… Staff writer at Daily Kos, Emily Cahn Singer… Former NHL ice hockey defenseman, now a color analyst for Westwood One and ESPN, Colby Shane Cohen turns 37… TikTok star, he runs the culinary website CookWithChefEitan, Eitan Bernath turns 24… 

SUNDAY: Owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers for 33 years until its forced sale in 2014, Donald Sterling (born Donald Tokowitz) turns 92… Retired Federation executive in Los Angeles, Oakland and Sacramento, Loren Basch… Investment banker best known as the chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers through its bankruptcy filing in 2008, Richard S. Fuld Jr. turns 80… Professor of computer science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hal Abelson turns 79… Immediate past chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, now a board member at Democratic Majority for Israel, Harriet P. Schleifer turns 73… President of Brandeis University from 2016-2024, Ronald D. Liebowitz turns 69… Moscow-born, conservative journalist and political activist in Israel, Avigdor Eskin turns 66… Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and contributing writer at The Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch turns 66… London-based interfaith social activist, she founded and chaired Mitzvah Day International, Laura Marks turns 66… Journalist, biographer and the author of six books, Jonathan Eig turns 62… Former member of the Maryland House of Delegates and state Senate, Roger Manno turns 60… Former member of the California state Assembly where he served as chairman of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, Marc Levine turns 52… Member of the NYC Council for six years and now a recently elected member of the NY State Assembly, Kalman Yeger turns 52… General partner of Coatue Management, Benjamin Schwerin… Senior global news editor at The New York Times, Russell Goldman turns 46… Senior director of federal government affairs at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Karas Pattison Gross… Media relations manager at NPR, Benjamin Fishel… London-based reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering finance, he is the co-author of a book on WeWork, Eliot Brown… Male fashion model and actor, Brett Novek turns 42… Head coach of the UC Irvine Anteaters baseball program, he played for Team Israel in the 2012 World Baseball Classic, Ben Orloff turns 39… Communications director at the University of Florida College of Health and Human Performance, Alisha Katz… AI product manager at Apple, Kenneth Zauderer… Washington correspondent for The Epoch Times, Jackson Richman… Board liaison at American Jewish World Service, he is also a part-time matchmaker at Tribe 12, Ross Beroff… Ahron Singer…

Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has taken donations from a deep-pocketed activist whose group spearheaded the pro-Hamas protests that targeted a Queens synagogue in January — while the far-left candidate has at the same time paid tens of thousands in campaign funds to her son, Jewish Insider has found.

The latest Federal Election Commission filings show El-Sayed has received a total of $7,000 from Amani Barakat, the chair of Al-Awda-Palestinian Right of Return Coalition and a promoter of antisemitic conspiracy theories linking Jewish people to the Illuminati. 

It’s part of $33,550 that El-Sayed has taken in total from the Barakat family, a Palestinian-American real estate dynasty based in Southern California.

But records show the money has flowed both ways, as El-Sayed’s committee has given $10,000 a month since December to a newly formed consulting firm belonging to Barakat’s son, a philanthropy advisor with no apparent background in campaign work.

As Jewish Insider previously reported, Amani Barakat chairs the group Al-Awda, which also uses the names Palestinian Right of Return Coalition and Palestinian Assembly for Liberation. 

The group greeted Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks with a statement sending “their highest salutations to the Palestinian Resistance, the Freedom Fighters and Defenders of the indigenous Palestinian people,” and it has collaborated with numerous radical groups, including the People’s Forum, CODEPINK and Samidoun — the latter of which the Treasury Department has identified as “a sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization.”

Amani Barakat’s social media history is consistent with her organization’s extremism. She shared her organization’s Oct. 7 statement on her personal Facebook account, and made multiple celebratory posts on the day of the atrocities, including one in English reading, “When people are occupied, Resistance is justified” accompanied by the hashtags “#longlivetheresistance” and “#feepalestine” [sic].

Another in Arabic translates to “Hail, my people! My people, hail!” A third English language post declares, “This is a fight for freedom.” 

Also on Oct. 7, Amani Barakat shared a video of since-killed Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh justifying the attack, and a drawing celebrating the assault as a battle between a Palestinian David and Israeli Goliath. 

Amani Barakat also has an extensive history of social media posts amplifying or applauding terrorist leaders and activities: she has repeatedly shared videos by a Beirut-based TikTok user named Muhammad Kawtharani, who has served as a Hezbollah spokesman (though is distinct from the group’s commander of the same name); posted PFLP-branded content and celebrated its founders; and shared memes and material supportive of Hamas officials and fighters.

She has also repeatedly defended and applauded Khaled Barakat, the Canadian-based co-founder of Samidoun who was identified by both the U.S. and Canada as part of the leadership of the PFLP, which pioneered skyjacking in the 1970s and participated in the Oct. 7 assault, among other massacres. Amani Barakat and Khaled Barakat have exchanged greetings on Facebook, with Amani Barakat even suggesting they might meet up in the West Bank.

Since the start of the U.S.-Israeli military conflict with Iran, Amani Barakat has openly cheerleaded the regime in Tehran, posting an “I Stand with Iran” image, an image eulogizing assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with a Quranic verse and news of a defiant statement from the Iranian foreign minister with emojis illustrating her support.

She has also lauded antisemitic podcaster Tucker Carlson for his “brave, principled journalism,” and signal-boosted antisemitic conspiracy theories claiming “Zionists” are responsible for wildfires in Argentina and naming “Illuminati and other secret Jewish and Zionist societies as the real powers running the world and fueling the ongoing war in Iran.”

The Al-Awda leader, who did not respond to requests for comment for this story, has also shared multiple posts from El-Sayed. Her $7,000 in contributions amounts to a small portion of the total funds the wealthy and sprawling Barakat family has mobilized for the Senate contender — a financial effort that also includes $4,300 from her son, Jamal. 

But records suggest that the younger Barakat has received far more from the El-Sayed campaign than he or his mother have given. The disclosures show that El-Sayed has paid at least $40,000 since December for “political consulting” to The Commonwealth Project, a firm formed in late November 2025 in Wyoming.

State incorporation documents show that Jamal Barakat created this firm in conjunction with education technology entrepreneur John R. Hall, with whom he serves as an executive at Bayan Islamic Graduate School, a theological institution with campuses in Los Angeles and Chicago.

There is no record of any other campaign ever hiring the newly formed Commonwealth Project, and Jamal Barakat’s LinkedIn profile shows extensive background in the education and philanthropy sectors — but no experience in politics.

Jamal Barakat and Hall did not respond to emailed questions from Jewish Insider about how they came to work for the El-Sayed campaign. Hall also did not respond to any queries, while Jamal Barakat hastily said “no comment” and hung up when a JI reporter introduced himself.

El-Sayed, who has labeled both the Israeli government and Hamas as equally “evil,” did not respond to questions about his relationship with the Barakat family, or he came to hire their scion’s firm.

This contrasts with how El-Sayed reacted when JI notified him that a donor and self-identified fundraiser for his campaign posted antisemitic sentiments and shared tweets on X including denial of the Holocaust.

User @Niavaran555 described themselves as a fundraiser for El-Sayed and invited Jenin Younes, the national legal director for the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, to join a fundraiser for El-Sayed in Washington in the coming weeks or months. Niavaran said separately that they gave the “max” to El-Sayed.

After JI inquired to El-Sayed’s campaign about the Niavaran account, the user made his posts private.

“Abdul’s campaign had no knowledge of this person’s anonymous online account. Abdul condemns any and all antisemitic or racist comments made, no matter who or where they come from,” spokesperson Sophie Pollock told JI, and said that the campaign refunded in full a donation from the apparent owner of the account.

They shared a post that appeared to question whether the Nazis used gas chambers to kill Jews during the Holocaust. “1944 Hitler introducing a ‘gas chamber’…. (Topic forbidden to question/debate)….” the post reads, in reference to Israel’s new death penalty law for Palestinian terrorists.

They reposted an X post saying that “Jewish n***** treating genocide like New Years Eve,” referencing a countdown on an Israeli television news channel for a deadline Trump provided to Iran.

Niavaran also reposted a meme urging now-deceased Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to “BUILD THE NUKE RETARD.”

Numerous biographical details shared by Niavaran online point to the account being owned by Sam Zia, a travel consultant based in Washington, D.C. Niavaran said they “ran a speaker series in oxford (OxSpeaks)” and Zia was a co-founder of the group in 2023. Zia is also based in Washington, D.C., based on his LinkedIn profile.

Niavaran also said he wrote his thesis on former Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh; Zia used a picture of Mossadegh as his Instagram profile picture. Zia had donated $2750, to El-Sayed’s campaign as of the most recent FEC filings.

Far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said in an interview with CNN that aired Sunday that he believes the Israeli government is just as evil as Hamas.

Responding to a question from CNN anchor Manu Raju on that issue, El-Sayed answered in the affirmative, adding, “Killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil. It’s not, ‘How evil is this one versus that one?’ Hamas — evil. Israeli government — evil. We can say both,” he said.

He also said that he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal and responsible for a genocide.

El-Sayed also defended his decision to campaign with far-left streamer Hasan Piker, brushing off criticisms of Piker as “cancel culture.”

“My understanding of America is, it’s a place where we have freedom of speech. My understanding of America is, it’s a place where we’re willing to have conversations with folks with whom we disagree,” El-Sayed said. “I went on ‘Fox and Friends’ this morning. Is it un-American to go and speak on ‘Fox and Friends’? Or are we drawing certain kinds of lines? And it’s that penchant for cancel culture that I think people hate about Democrats.”

He said that Piker is “having a conversation with a number of folks who feel locked out.”

El-Sayed also said that Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) should replace Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as the Democratic leader in the Senate, due to Schumer’s continued support for U.S. aid to Israel. Van Hollen is among the most vocal critics of Israel in the Senate.

Michigan has been a closely watched bellwether of the direction of the Democratic Party, and El-Sayed’s candidacy — defined by his virulent anti-Israel rhetoric — will test how hostile Democratic partisans have become toward Israel.

At the state’s Democratic nominating convention on Sunday, which all three Senate candidates attended, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) was booed by a contingent of left-wing activists hostile to her longstanding support for Israel. 

Also receiving heckles from a loud contingent of Democratic delegates: a speaker supporting Jordan Acker, who is seeking reelection to the University of Michigan Board of Regents. Acker has been targeted by the university’s anti-Israel activists, facing harassment and vandalism of his home that Michigan leaders have called plainly antisemitic.  

Former Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at a party event the day prior to the convention, where she said President Donald Trump “got pulled into” the war in Iran by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, adding that the war “has always been [Trump’s] feeble attempt to distract from the Epstein files.”

At a Tuesday night event with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker at the University of Michigan, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed doubled down on claims that the man who attacked Temple Israel in West Bloomfield last month did so as a result of the pain he felt from the war in the Middle East. 

“Nothing justifies the heinous attack that we saw on Temple Israel,” El-Sayed, a Democrat, said at a press conference alongside Piker, with whom he appeared at two campaign rallies in Michigan on Tuesday. “I also think it’s just critical for us to understand that hurt people do hurt people, and the circumstances happening 6,000 miles away can affect the lives that we live here, and if we stand against violence, we’ve got to stand against violence, all violence.” 

El-Sayed’s comments reiterated a sentiment he expressed the day after a Lebanese American man drove a car packed with explosives into the synagogue. No one lost their lives in the incident. The assailant, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after shooting at a security guard, had family members killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon — including his brother, a commander in Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia. 

Since El-Sayed’s initial statement, more details surrounding the attack have surfaced. The FBI said the attack was “a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community.” 

When a reporter from The Free Press pressed El-Sayed on his claim, asking whether a similar argument would have allowed sympathy for a Jewish person attacking a mosque after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel, he suggested the circumstances were not the same. 

“After Oct. 7, there was a whole genocide against Palestinians,” El-Sayed said.

Far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, leftist streamer Hasan Piker and Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Summer Lee (D-PA) dismissed criticism of Piker and his past antisemitic and anti-American comments at a rally at the University of Michigan on Tuesday — El-Sayed’s second event of the day with the controversial social media influencer.

The El-Sayed endorsers all brushed off the criticism of Piker’s record of antisemitic comments, support for terrorism and other controversial activity as a distraction from their message and other issues of the day, including the war in Iran.

“A lot of the people that are on the Republican side, the reactionary side, they, instead of talking about [the war in Gaza], decided to talk about me stumping for Abdul El-Sayed instead,” Piker said, dismissing criticism of him — which has come from Democrats as well — as a distraction.

Piker referred to the war in Iran as “Operation Epstein’s Fury” and the Trump administration as “a bunch of fascist monsters that got tuned up by Israel,” and closed out his remarks with “Free Palestine.”

“Every single dollar that is spent on a bomb is stolen from each and every one of you. That’s $1 that they spend blowing up a school overseas instead of building schools in your neighborhoods,” he continued, going on to blame support for Israel for the lack of universal healthcare in the United States, and to claim that U.S. taxpayers are paying for Israel’s healthcare system.

El Sayed said that he had heard that a pro-Israel group on campus planned to protest the rally — to boos from the crowd — but El-Sayed said that the group would be welcome in the room “because at the end of the day, we believe in the courage of our convictions and our ideals.”

During his remarks, El-Sayed took numerous swipes at AIPAC, accusing the pro-Israel advocacy group of “corrupting our entire politics.” He said he expects the pro-Israel organization will be the largest spender in the Senate primary — though it has not yet announced any plans to engage in the race and has never before spent money in a Senate campaign. 

He called the war in Iran “genocidal, illegal, unjustifiable” and accused fellow Democrats of hypocrisy for saying that they view the war as illegal but declining to rule out voting for supplemental funding to support the war effort.

He also insisted — in spite of his promotion of Piker — that he would be a strong voice against antisemitism, pointing to his own background as a Muslim and his “love and reverence” for all people.

Tlaib said she’d told Piker backstage that he would always be welcome in Michigan.

“The fact that, literally, they’re all like, ‘Defend our democracy. Oh, shut up, cancel him’ — make up your damn mind,” Tlaib said, addressing critics of Piker. “Make up your godd*** mind. We’re for everybody in the room or not. Give me a break.”

Tlaib praised El-Sayed as someone closely aligned with her anti-Israel views, including support for blocking aid to the Jewish state. 

“I’ve been there seven years, and I’m tired of having to beg my colleagues to do the right thing, to not take money from the people that hurt us, not to literally spend resources and funding like this for war and destruction and death,” Tlaib said. “If any member of Congress or Senate can support a genocide like that, what else are they supporting right here in our backyard at home.”

Lee, like Piker and El-Sayed, dismissed the controversy over the rally as an attempt by people “who don’t want us talking to people who might rock the boat” to silence and stop the rally.

Other speakers at the rally included UM regent candidate Amir Makled, an attorney who provided pro bono representation to anti-Israel protesters at the university who faced criminal charges for their role in the demonstration, Summit Louth, the newly elected president of UM’s student government and Yousef Rabhi, a county commissioner.

“It was right here on this campus that students were punished for speaking out at the Diag, and it was right here on this campus where that outrage, the irreprehensible conduct of our Board of Regents punished students for speaking out against the genocide that students were charged with felonies just for the words of ‘free Palestine,’” Makled claimed.

Among other issues, Louth praised El-Sayed for calling the war in Gaza a genocide and for condemning the war in Iran and the Israeli operations in Lebanon.

“As we all saw this morning, the deranged president of this country issued a genocidal ultimatum on an entire country. F*** him. F*** that. We need to take our country back,” Rabhi said. “Instead of putting forward money to pay for your tuition, they are bombing people halfway across the world. Instead of paying money to make sure that we have single payer universal health care in this country, they are murdering innocent people. “

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is running in a tight three-way Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, slammed one of her opponents, Abdul El-Sayed, for his decision to campaign with the far-left political streamer Hasan Piker. 

Piker, who has a history of antisemitic and pro-Hamas remarks, is slated to appear at two campaign rallies with El-Sayed and Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) in April. 

“It is somebody who says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks and views and followers, which is not entirely different from somebody like Nick Fuentes,” McMorrow told Jewish Insider in an interview Thursday, referring to the neo-Nazi podcaster. “[Piker] is a provocateur, to put it lightly, who says things that are misogynistic and antisemitic, and said that the United States deserved 9/11.” 

McMorrow’s comments come as El-Sayed has doubled down on his decision to campaign with Piker. The third major candidate in the Democratic primary, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), said on Wednesday that Piker is “the exact opposite of someone I’d be campaigning with,” a sentiment McMorrow echoed.

“That is not somebody that you should be campaigning with at a moment when there is clearly a lot of pain and trauma across our state,” said McMorrow. “How do you bring everybody together, especially when there are difficult conversations, where there aren’t easy answers? You don’t fan the flames and stoke division just to get attention.” 

Earlier this month, a heavily armed man drove a car into Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue with an early childcare center in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., before he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The assailant’s brother, a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon, was killed by Israeli forces not long before the Michigan attack.

“I had made a statement back in 2023 after the Oct. 7 attacks that my biggest fear was that events in the Middle East tear us apart at home, and this was an example of that coming to life in a really visceral and terrifying way,” McMorrow said. 

“However you feel about what is happening in the Middle East, the response is never to take it out on people at home. The 140 kids who were at preschool that day bear no responsibility at all for anything that’s happening in the Middle East. And the rhetoric [is] being ratcheted up.”

A nasty intraparty divide intensified this week as Democrats publicly debated whether to associate with Hasan Piker, the far-left streamer who has faced criticism for antisemitic commentary and pro-Hamas rhetoric, among other extreme remarks.

The dispute erupted Tuesday after Piker revealed that he would join Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, for two upcoming rallies in the state, marking the Twitch streamer’s first major campaign appearance of the midterms.

For mainstream Democrats increasingly troubled with Piker’s rising influence on the left, El-Sayed’s decision was particularly alarming. In a statement on Tuesday, Jonathan Cowan, president of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, said Democrats’ associations with Piker are “morally repugnant and strategically self-defeating,” and alleged that candidates “eager to campaign with” him are, “at best, comfortable overlooking his antisemitic and anti-American extremism and, at worst, endorsing it.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), a top moderate voice in the House, became one of the first prominent Democratic officials to speak out against Piker in comments on Tuesday, calling on the party to reject and distance itself from a figure he characterized as “an unapologetic antisemite.”

In a statement to social media, Schneider said Democrats “cannot allow those who preach hate and seek division to find safe harbor among us,” urging his colleagues to “call out hate and reject those who champion ideologies of exclusion and demonization.”

On Wednesday, El-Sayed faced further blowback from high-profile Michigan Democrats, including Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a top rival in the Senate race, who said “choosing to campaign with someone who has a history of antisemitic rhetoric” would not be a winning formula in the swing state. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) echoed that sentiment, saying Piker “sounds deeply antisemitic” and he is “not someone that should be helping anybody out in the Michigan political environment.”

A spokesperson for El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment asking if he had weighed Piker’s antisemitic rhetoric in choosing to appear with him. The Senate candidate has said he is unconcerned with backlash to his decision, while arguing that his “politics resonates with people who have been locked out.”

Piker, for his part, has appeared to relish the new controversy, calling Schneider an “AIPAC dog” in an X post. “Democrats that spend any amount of time chirping about me love israel [sic] more than defeating Republicans and preserving democracy,” he wrote in another.

Even as prominent progressives have come to Piker’s defense, none seem to have meaningfully reckoned with his record of extreme commentary, which features a range of offensive statements about Jews and Israel. He has labeled Orthodox Jews as “inbred,” compared Zionists to Nazis and dismissed reports of sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. More recently, he unequivocally sided with Hamas, saying the terror group “is a thousand times better” than Israel — which he condemned as a “fascist settler colonial apartheid state” in a social media post last January to his 1.6 million followers.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), for instance, a potential 2028 presidential contender who has appeared on Piker’s show, said in mid-March that he is “proud” to join the streamer’s feed. But when asked to share his views on Piker’s antisemitic comments, Khanna — in keeping with other progressive elected officials and activists who likewise have ties to the influencer — has demurred, stating broadly that he condemns antisemitism while reiterating he has called Hamas a terrorist organization.

The debate over Piker raises questions about the meaning of progressivism as left-leaning figures have continued to tolerate and in some cases even condone Piker’s extreme commentary, which has frequently shown a penchant for illiberalism that is sharply at odds with traditional progressive values.

In addition to espousing antisemitism and using eliminationist rhetoric with regard to Israel, Piker has said “America deserved 9/11,” downplayed the U.S.-designated Uyghur genocide in China, voiced approval of Hezbollah, called Russia’s annexation of Crimea “justifiable” and endorsed political violence, among other radical sentiments regularly expressed on his Twitch stream and on social media.

Jeremiah Johnson, co-founder of the Center for New Liberalism, who has written critically about Democrats embracing Piker, said the fundamental issue with the streamer “is that he does not believe in liberal democracy.”

“I am generally in favor of a big tent for the Democratic Party,” he told Jewish Insider. “If we want to win large majorities, we’re going to have to accept that some of the people who vote for us will have idiosyncratic, outdated or even outright wrong and bigoted views. But that doesn’t mean we should make those voices the face of the party, and I think it’s a dangerous game for Democrats to promote people like Piker.”

Piker’s status otherwise underscores how some progressive leaders are increasingly aligning with extreme figures in the Democratic Party based on broad policy agreements, without fully accounting for the implications of ignoring or validating baggage that voters would likely find off-putting.

Last week, for example, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) joined a growing cohort of Democratic senators in endorsing Graham Platner, a far-left candidate running for Senate in the battleground state of Maine, saying he’s “got the grit to fight for what’s right on behalf of Maine’s working families — not billionaires and giant corporations.”

Her statement made no allusion to the lingering concerns over Platner’s now-covered Nazi tattoo — whose symbolism he claims not to have known until recently — even as she raised alarms last year about one of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s tattoos that is reportedly linked to white supremacist ideology.

Warren’s team did not respond to a request for comment from JI asking if she had considered Platner’s tattoo while making her endorsement.

Some critics argue that progressives who overlook Piker’s disturbing record or dismiss Platner’s tattoo do so at their own peril. 

Shannon Watts, a prominent gun control activist who has vocally criticized both Piker and Platner, said it is “disheartening to watch some Democratic politicians and pundits align with the most morally vacant and dangerous people in our party, just as we watched happen on the right for over a decade.”

“Too many Democrats are deciding one compromise at a time that their political survival matters more than principle,” she told JI this week. “Anyone who embraces hatred cannot call themselves progressive; they are simply an emerging version of MAGA on the left. Aligning with and supporting antisemitic behavior is a moral stain on our party and a stark warning sign for our future.”

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing criticism from some prominent Michigan Democrats — including Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who is running against him in the Democratic primary — for his decision to host campaign rallies with Hasan Piker, the far-left political streamer with a history of antisemitic remarks. 

“That’s the exact opposite of someone I’d be campaigning with,” Stevens told Jewish Insider on Wednesday. “We have to be serious here about who’s going to be the best general election candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan to beat [Republican] Mike Rogers, and someone who’s campaigning with someone like that is not going to win in Michigan.” 

El-Sayed will host two rallies with Piker and Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University on April 7. 

Piker has millions of followers on the streaming platform Twitch. He has said that “Hamas is a thousand times better” than Israel, and has described Orthodox Jews as “inbred.” He has also praised terrorists and said America deserved 9/11. 

Stevens said that by associating with Piker, El-Sayed is “choosing to campaign with someone who has a history of antisemitic rhetoric.”

Slotkin told JI that she is not familiar with much of Piker’s language but that what she knows of his rhetoric raises concerns for her.

“Any equating of all Jews or American Jews with Israel and the Israeli government is a problem right off the bat, and then it sounds like, from there, a cascading set of antisemitic tropes and just the kind of rhetoric that is — I want to read for myself, but sounds deeply antisemitic, consistently, and therefore not someone that should be helping anybody out in the Michigan political environment,” said Slotkin. 

The announcement of Piker’s upcoming campaign visits to Michigan comes two weeks after an attempted terrorist attack at Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. 

A new poll conducted by the campaign of Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, the third major Democrat running alongside Stevens and Piker, shows McMorrow leading the race with 30%. El-Sayed is behind her at 25%, and Stevens follows at 23%, with 21% undecided. Other polling ahead of the August primary has shown Stevens with a small lead. 

Far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is taking flak over comments in an internal campaign call that issuing a statement on the attempted terrorist attack on Temple Israel in the Detroit suburbs that placed blame on Israel for the attack was a “risk” he felt he had to take, Punchbowl News reported Tuesday.

In both the original statement and the internal comments, El-Sayed condemned the attack while also suggesting that it ultimately could be blamed on Israel’s operations in Lebanon. The alleged attacker was the brother of a Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike, the IDF said.

The Punchbowl report linked to a minute-long unlisted YouTube video of El-Sayed, which appears to have been recorded on Zoom.

“I want us to understand that we have to work toward a world where none of this happens, no war, no bombing of apartment buildings, no antisemitism, no attacks on synagogues in schools, like we need to be opposed to all of it and and I think that that’s the kind of leadership that I’m hoping I can offer,” El-Sayed said in the video.

“We put out a much longer statement on this,” he continued. “I hope folks will check it out, and I hope it resonated. And, you know, it was a risk. All of our team was really worried about saying something, but leadership is being willing to say the thing, if you believe it to be true, that nobody else is going to say.”

El-Sayed clarified in an X post that the “risk” he was referring to “that these cowards will NEVER take is having the courage to call out an illegal and unjustified war that’s killing children, wasting our tax dollars, and spiking gas prices, too.”

While El-Sayed spoke, one person in the Zoom meeting, identified as “Mauricio” appeared to justify the attack, saying in a comment, “The synagogue raised funds for the IDF.”

In the initial statement, El-Sayed offered a condemnation of the attack, emphasizing that it would leave scars on the community and that it recalled “centuries of trauma,” while affirming his support for Jews’ right to practice their faith in safety.

But, while condemning the attacker and saying his actions could not be justified, El-Sayed also suggested that the perpetrator’s actions ultimately traced back to Israel and its reported killing of his family members.

“Hurt people hurt people. Violence is a cycle,” El-Sayed said. “Ayman Ghazali lost family, including two children in an airstrike in Lebanon last week. They were innocent people, and then, in an evil act of displaced rage, he tried to take it out on innocent children who had nothing to do with the loss of the innocent children he lost, except that they share a faith.”

“A week earlier, an airstrike killed his niece and nephew. Imagine if that had never happened. Imagine there was no war in Iran. Imagine if there were no air strikes in Lebanon. Imagine if his family had never died. Imagine there was never an attack on Temple Israel. That’s the world that we want to live in,” El-Sayed continued.

Spokespeople for El-Sayed’s Democratic opponents did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

But Republicans have pounced on the comments.

Mike Rogers, the likely GOP nominee for the Senate race, condemned El-Sayed over his remarks in the internal campaign call.

“If you’re having a moral crisis over whether to condemn terrorism, you’re unfit for office,” Rogers said in a statement. “There’s no justification for it, but here Abdul is sympathizing with the attacker. It’s an absolute slap in the face to the families of these kids, and to Michigan’s entire Jewish community — and only serves to inflame antisemitism.”

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called his comments “pathetic.

“The contrast couldn’t be more clear in Michigan: radical terrorist sympathizers like Abdul El-Sayed or America First heroes like Mike Rogers,” Scott said.

El-Sayed has shrugged off criticisms of his comments.

El-Sayed is also facing attacks from Republicans and the Democratic group Third Way over his participation in a pair of events with far-left influencer Hasan Piker, who has repeatedly made antisemitic comments and expressed support for terrorism.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) announced on Tuesday morning that she’s entering the Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat, setting up an intraparty showdown in one of the most consequential battleground states in the country. 

Stevens is a leading contender for the seat of retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI). She will be facing state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Abdul El-Sayed, who led the Wayne County Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services. Former Michigan House Speaker Joe Tate, a former NFL player, is also seriously considering a run.

Stevens represents a district in the Detroit suburbs and has made supporting local manufacturing a centerpiece of her time in Congress, as well as her work in the Obama administration in supporting the auto industry recovery. 

That work took center stage in Stevens’ campaign announcement video, where she also attacked President Donald Trump, accusing him of endangering Michigan jobs and driving up prices with tariffs and other policies.

“I remember being handed the keys to my first car. I’m Haley Stevens and I bet you do too,” Stevens said in her launch video, which prominently features footage of Michigan factories. “That used Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, it meant more to me than just freedom. It meant I had a piece of Michigan. You know, the Michigan that helped build this country. The Michigan that shaped me. It’s not just what I sound like, it’s who I am.”

In a statement, Stevens’ campaign also went after White House advisor Elon Musk, accusing him and Trump of undermining essential services and endangering citizens’ private data.

Stevens is a favorite within the state’s Jewish community for her outspoken support for Israel and condemnation of high-profile antisemitic incidents at a time when many Michigan Democrats have pandered to anti-Israel activists.

She represents a sizable Jewish community in the Detroit suburbs with which she forged a strong relationship in part during her successful primary campaign against then-Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI).

But pro-Israel groups also view McMorrow as a reliable ally, and are more concerned with blocking the candidacy of El-Sayed, a Bernie Sanders-endorsed progressive who supports cutting off aid to Israel. 

Because of that dynamic, outside pro-Israel groups may not formally endorse a favorite in the Democratic primary — even as Stevens will likely benefit from widespread support from Jewish voters in the early stage of the campaign.

AIPAC and the affiliated United Democracy Project super PAC have been rumored to be planning to spend in support of Stevens despite not usually intervening in statewide races.

“Although we have not yet made a decision in this race, Rep. Stevens has emerged as a pro-Israel stalwart during her tenure in the House of Representatives,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told Jewish Insider.

Stevens also boasts an electoral record that demonstrates she can win over swing voters — her district was a battleground when she was first elected in 2018 before redistricting made it more safely Democratic — along with ousting Levin, an anti-Israel Democratic incumbent, in a member-on-member primary. 

McMorrow has demonstrated a knack for earning glowing national media attention — at first through a state Senate speech in which she pushed back against accusations against her by a GOP colleague of grooming and sexualizing children and her outspoken support for abortion rights after Roe v. Wade was overturned — even though she’s only been serving as a state senator in Michigan.

In a sign of McMorrow’s attentiveness to the Jewish community, she’s returned policy papers to at least one Democratic pro-Israel group underscoring her support for Israel’s security, according to a source familiar with her outreach. She also has personal ties to the Jewish community — while she’s Catholic, her husband is Jewish and they are raising their children in a mixed-faith home.

One of McMorrow’s top advisors is Lis Smith, who engineered Pete Buttigieg’s out-of-nowhere 2020 presidential campaign and who has been a prominent critic of the party’s left-wing activist class. 

Adrian Hemond, a Michigan political strategist, told JI he views Stevens as holding significant institutional advantages in the hotly-contested primary.

Hemond noted that Stevens has been a strong fundraiser in her congressional seat and has proven her ability to win close elections, which Hemond said will be “paramount” to Democratic primary voters. Stevens also boasts a strong relationship with organized labor and Black voters in her district, Hemond added.

He acknowledged that McMorrow is “trying to position herself as somewhat more moderate” but argued that her base and brand remains strongest among progressives — and El-Sayed, with Sanders’ endorsement, is playing in the left-wing lane. 

Hemond said that El-Sayed did not prove to be a strong fundraiser in his 2018 gubernatorial race and failed to build support statewide, only winning 30% of the vote in the primary contest. But he’s well-positioned to do well with Arab-American voters in the state, and other single-issue, anti-Israel voters.

On the Republican side, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) has already declared his second run for the seat after losing by less than 20,000 votes to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in 2024. He won Trump’s endorsement, giving him a critical edge against any potential GOP challengers.