Last Thursday’s Michigan Senate debate, where Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed framed Israel as a threat to the United States comparable to Iran and said he would not vote to send defensive aid to Israel even if it were under fire, proved to be a breaking point for some Jewish Democrats who were holding out hope that the Democratic nominee would moderate his views in the general election.

Community leaders said that they’re hearing from some previously undecided Jewish Democrats that, after they debate, they now plan to back Republican Mike Rogers.

“I think for a lot of pro-Israel Jewish Democrats, Abdul has made it easy. He’s not really made any accommodations whatsoever, and the debate was just the latest example,” said David Kramer, a prominent Michigan Democratic fundraiser and vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus. 

He told Jewish Insider he’s heard from members of his community that they felt the debate demonstrated that El-Sayed is “not giving an inch and he’s absolutely showing who he is.”

Kramer had previously said he wasn’t willing to vote for El-Sayed without changes to his rhetoric and platform.

“I’ve talked to a couple of people who were wrestling with the same choice as I am, who have said that based on the debate, that was kind of a final straw, and they are going to vote for Rogers,” Kramer told JI.

Another Michigan Jewish Democrat told JI that they are hearing similar feedback in their network.

El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Kramer said, “I think there were well-intentioned voters and community leaders, and even elected officials, who were hoping we’d get him to a better place, and he’ll need us, and he’ll want to embrace us, and it’s quite evident, at this point, that he’s not doing anything.”

Joan Lowenstein, a member of the Michigan Democratic Party Central Committee and president of the Jewish Federation of Ann Arbor, said she’s also heard from people in her community that the debate was a turning point. “I think people who did watch the whole thing really didn’t get anything new about what El-Sayed thinks, or what he was willing to do for Jewish safety — not at all.”

Lowenstein said the debate had “confirmed what I think about El-Sayed,” describing him as evasive and lacking in substantive policy proposals. On Israel, she said that his responses show a “lack of understanding that you would expect a senator to have” about foreign policy issues.

Kramer and Lowenstein are members of the Nonnegotiable Michigan campaign that has sought to pressure El-Sayed to make commitments to supporting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and to Jewish safety in the United States.

Dennis Bernard, the national chair of government relations at the Jewish Federations of North America, who supported both Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Rogers in their respective primaries, said that El-Sayed’s response on whether Israel or Iran is more dangerous to the United States was “the defining moment for our community. … It’s an astounding comment.”

“At this point, if you still haven’t decided that there is enough out there as a Democrat not to vote for him, nothing’s going to convince you,” he said. “There were still a lot holding out. … After that debate, those who will go for Rogers have made their decision. El-Sayed did not help himself in our community. It was not a good performance. He had to have a better answer.”

Anecdotally, Bernard said that there’s intense discussion in the Jewish community about the race, with his social circle unanimously questioning how any Jewish voter at this point could support El-Sayed. Bernard said that he’d spoken to six lifelong Democrats on Saturday who were all planning to vote for Rogers. Bernard also said he’s never heard so much discussion in the Jewish community about ticket splitting.

Rabbi Aaron Starr, of Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Mich., speaking in his personal capacity, said the debate left him “frustrated and sad” with both candidates spending more time “criticizing each other with personal attacks than helping us understand how they will help us work toward a better tomorrow for our children.”

“Dr. El-Sayed’s inability to affirm my basic needs has led me, and many others in my community, to confidently decide we simply cannot vote for him,” Starr continued, referring to the Nonnegotiable campaign’s core principles. Starr is a leading organizer of the Nonnegotiable petition.

He said that El-Sayed’s comments during the debate “reinforced” Jewish community members’ “deep concern about his candidacy, and reminded us that if Dr. El-Sayed’s position takes hold in the Democratic Party, Israel’s enemies will be emboldened, American Jews will be even more vulnerable, and America will be pulled into even more war –– not less, as Dr. El-Sayed claims to want.”

Starr said that he was “horrified, though not surprised” at El-Sayed’s hostility toward Israel and “refusal to condemn the Iranian regime and its proxies.” He added that “Dr. El-Sayed gave voice to centuries-old libels against the Jewish people by suggesting Israelis somehow manipulated an otherwise innocent America into a war. In this way, he denies America’s agency in choosing to defend itself and its allies against nuclear threats and belligerency.” 

Zach Nessel, the secretary of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus, who spoke to JI in his personal capacity, said that he thought El-Sayed’s answer to the question about Israel and Iran showed he is “not really taking our national security seriously” and “doesn’t want to upset people who don’t have America’s national security interests top of mind.”

Nessel, the son of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is supporting El-Sayed, said he’s still undecided and doesn’t believe in sitting out elections, but feels “unenthusiastic” about both candidates.

He said he also found El-Sayed’s frequent attacks on AIPAC and its donors to be hypocritical when he has refused to address his own donors’ and associates’ support for groups including Hamas and Hezbollah, something that Rogers repeatedly hammered him on during the debate.

El-Sayed denied Sunday that any of his family have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and asserted that Rogers had only raised the issue to stoke Islamophobia.

“Now, I don’t think one man is perfectly represented by his donors, but it seems to be certainly very problematic,” Nessel said.

Lowenstein also said that she had received the anti-El-Sayed mailer that AIPAC’s United Democracy Project began circulating to Michigan Jews at the end of last week, describing it as an effective and targeted message, particularly coming in tandem with the debate.

But others take a different view, and said they haven’t heard much movement — in either direction — following the debate.

“From the people that I’ve spoken to, they all said that Rogers didn’t say anything new,” said Rabbi Asher Lopatin, who said previously that he’s voting for Rogers but is no longer discussing his personal views on the race, given his nonpartisan role as director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor. “On the other hand, the people that have reservations about Abdul El-Sayed, they also feel he avoided questions … he didn’t change his opinion at all. So there wasn’t any real movement on either side and it really hadn’t changed anything.”

He said that people who were struggling with their votes prior to the debate are still struggling, and some are still holding out hope for a change from El-Sayed.

Several Jewish Democrats also said that El-Sayed’s explanation that he didn’t issue a statement honoring the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel to avoid turning the event into “political theater” was unsatisfactory.

“It was a sorry excuse not to stand up for our community three years after the Oct. 7 attack,” Nessel said, adding that El-Sayed’s failure to speak up cast doubt on other comments asserting that he wants to protect and stand up for the Jewish community. “It’s a really simple ask, just to remember the tragedy of Oct.7 and condemn Hamas for killing 1,200 Jews and kidnapping 200 more.”

He said he thinks that El-Sayed stayed silent because “I don’t think anything he would say would have been true to his values and probably would have been inflammatory.”

Starr offered a somewhat different view.

“While at first I felt resentment at his lack of communication on Oct. 7, I actually appreciate Dr. El-Sayed’s explanation about why he chose not to address the Jewish community,” Starr said. “He recognized that because he couldn’t say anything that spoke to the anguish in Jewish hearts, he was better off not saying anything at all. That said, his inability to speak genuinely with sympathy to us on that heartbreaking day does reinforce why so many Jewish Michiganders are unable to vote for him.”

Lowenstein told reporters before the debate that she had been looking for Rogers to make commitments on civil rights and other issues she sees as tied to her Jewish values, and emerged somewhat encouraged by his responses, including his willingness to reform Immigration and Customs Enforcement and to separate from the Trump administration’s stance on tariffs.

Nessel said he was disappointed in the performance of both candidates, saying that neither had done a good job of arguing their points or explaining their policy positions. He said that the debate could have been a “productive conversation and it just simply didn’t happen,” though he credited Rogers as being more willing and able to discuss policy specifics than El-Sayed.

“I might not agree with his ultimate conclusions when it comes to certain policies, but the fact that he expresses working knowledge and being able to at least understand the issues and explain it to the public is helpful,” Nessel said.

Bernard said he felt that El-Sayed appeared off balance and unwilling to address specifics, though he said that he “also would have liked to see Mike a little more senatorial.”

Lopatin said that hearing Rogers make a clearer declaration that he will not be a “rubber stamp for Donald Trump,” particularly when it comes to defending democracy and the Supreme Court, could be helpful to Rogers in reassuring Jewish Democrats still hesitant to pull the lever for him.

Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday denied that he or any of his family members have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood — accusations his opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), raised last week during the first Michigan Senate debate.

Asked by Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” to respond to Rogers’ claims, El-Sayed first answered, “You know Kristen, the only reason he said those things is because he really wanted to repeat the word Muslim.”

Pressed to answer directly if he or his family have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, El-Sayed said, “No.” 

Rogers had claimed that El-Sayed received donations from groups in support of the Muslim Brotherhood and from individuals who “openly support Hamas, Hezbollah [and] al-Qaida.” El-Sayed’s mother also worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, which was designated as a terrorist organization for supporting al-Qaida, and his sister-in-law sued to be removed from a federal terrorism watchlist, according to recent reports.

“Let me ask you though, why this is even a subject of debate,” El-Sayed said to Welker. “Because his only strategy is to point to me and my name and my faith and to say that we’re different. And that you should suspect people simply because they are different than you in how they pray.” He went on to accuse Rogers of being beholden to President Donald Trump and seeking office in order to enrich himself.

El-Sayed also reiterated in the interview that his “commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to my own kids,” a common refrain of his on the campaign trail, and said of his relationship with the Jewish community that he has “had really important conversations.” 

Abdul El-Sayed denied on NBC’s “Meet the Press" that he or any of his family members has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood — accusations his opponent Mike Rogers made during the first Michigan Senate debate last week. Read @marcrod97’s full coverage: https://t.co/8I0EFZd5w9 https://t.co/Vi7gMuHy3x

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) October 11, 2026

“I’ve learned a lot from the conversations I’ve had, some conversations with folks who will be colleagues, somebody like Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). And, you know, I remember sitting down with her and her sharing how she felt when she heard that ‘hurt people hurt people’ comment. And it was really important to me to hear, to understand that I had been stepping on somebody’s pain. That’s not my goal here,” El-Sayeed said, referring to his comments in the aftermath of the terror attack on Temple Israel earlier this year that critics said attempted to justify the actions of the perpetrator, a Hezbollah sympathizer.

Asked if he regretted the comment, El-Sayed said, “I regret anytime, you know, if I step on somebody’s grief, of course I regret that. And I really wish I’d thought about how somebody would have felt hearing that, and thought twice about making those comments.”

AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, entered the Michigan Senate general election on Friday to oppose Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, after reported tensions with the GOP nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) over its role in the race.

Individuals affiliated with Rogers’ campaign had reportedly told AIPAC that it did not want the group to openly spend in favor of him in the general election, fearing that its controversial reputation might do harm to his campaign.

But UDP announced in a Friday filing that it had spent nearly $100,000 on direct-mail advertisements against El-Sayed.

A UDP spokesperson told Jewish Insider that the mailers were being sent to 130,000 Jewish voters in Michigan. They highlight El-Sayed’s response to the terrorist attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., saying of the shooter, “Hurt people hurt people.”

The mailer highlights that the attack was a Hezbollah-inspired terrorist attack intentionally targeting the Jewish community in Michigan. 

El-Sayed later apologized for the comments as he worked to appeal to Jewish voters after the primary, saying he was trying to “offer broader context” on the attack.

The group spent tens of millions in the primary election attacking El-Sayed and boosting Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who ultimately fell one point short of victory.

The UDP spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the group has plans for further advertising, including on television or digital in the general election race.

Asked at a Thursday night debate about whether he would accept support from AIPAC, in light of the reported tensions, Rogers did not answer directly.

Rogers said he would welcome anybody “that wants to help my campaign stop a guy who can’t condemn terrorism in our own country because he’s so close to the people who are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.”

A newly formed super PAC, Together for Michigan, ran an ad during the debate featuring comments from Taylor Weintraub, a mother of a student at the Temple Israel preschool that was attacked by a terrorist earlier this year, directing viewers to a website for Democrats supporting Rogers’ campaign.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) will campaign alongside Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed next week, joining him for a bus tour across the state’s Upper Peninsula before holding several rallies in the Detroit area on Friday.

Ocasio-Cortez and El-Sayed are scheduled to make stops on Thursday in Escanaba, Iron Mountain and Marquette as part of his campaign’s “Shouldn’t Be This Hard” tour. On Friday, the congresswoman will hold rallies at Oakland University in Rochester and Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, along with a “Latinos for Abdul” event in Detroit.

The trip will mark Ocasio-Cortez’s first campaign appearance for El-Sayed during the general election, following her endorsement and appearances on his behalf during the Democratic primary. El-Sayed faces former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), who narrowly lost Michigan’s 2024 Senate race, in a closely watched contest for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI).

At a New York City fundraiser for El-Sayed earlier this week, Ocasio-Cortez described his campaign as part of a broader “generational project” for the progressive movement, according to audio obtained by The New York Times. She argued that an El-Sayed victory would “break open the entire political calculus” of what progressives could accomplish.

“Because if you can win, if Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Ocasio-Cortez, who is thought to be considering a potential 2028 presidential bid, has become a prominent ally of El-Sayed as Republicans have sought to portray him as too liberal for the swing state of Michigan.

El-Sayed welcomed Ocasio-Cortez’s support, praising her leadership and calling her a “critical partner in the primary.” Former President Barack Obama is also scheduled to campaign with El-Sayed on Oct. 24.

In the first debate of the general election for Senate in Michigan, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) repeatedly hit Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed over his supporters’ ties to and support for terrorist groups and El-Sayed’s comments on the Temple Israel terrorist attack — accusations that El-Sayed largely did not respond to during the deeply acrimonious exchange.

El-Sayed, for his part, said he would not support defensive aid to Israel even if it was under attack, framed Israel as a threat to the United States comparable to Iran, defended his decision not to issue a statement honoring the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and continued to sidestep questions on Iran’s persecution of its own civilians.

“He has taken money from groups in support of the Muslim Brotherhood. He has taken money from individuals on his campaign who openly support Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaida,” Rogers said several times throughout the debate, and accused El-Sayed of failing to condemn terrorist groups and attacks. 

“The prattling and repetition of his argument does not solve the dismantling of terrorist networks that America demands,” Rogers added, framing himself — with a military and FBI background — as the clear choice for those concerned about national security, while El-Sayed repeatedly dinged Rogers as a war hawk who had been an avid cheerleader for the war in Iran and other conflicts.

At one point, Rogers suggested that El-Sayed opposed federal counterterrorism programs because people in El-Sayed’s family were tied to terrorism, leading El-Sayed to goad him, “Go ahead and say that I’m a — go ahead and say it. You’ve been tiptoeing around it the whole time. Just say it.”

Though he fired back at most of the attacks Rogers leveled throughout the debate, El-Sayed offered no direct response or rebuttal to Rogers’ barbs about his ties to terrorism. “He wants this to be about anything but his own record … going after my mom, my sister, got nothing to actually say about me. I’m a dad and a doctor,” the Democratic nominee said.

El-Sayed’s mother worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, which was designated as a terrorist organization for supporting al-Qaida, and his sister-in-law sued to be removed from a federal terrorism watchlist, according to recent reports.

He also insisted that he had condemned the Temple Israel attack. (El-Sayed apologized for his initial response to the attack, which many in the Jewish community saw as justifying or excusing it, as he tried to appeal to Jewish voters this summer.)

Asked whether he considered Israel or Iran a bigger threat to the United States — a question he dismissed earlier this week when asked by a reporter — El-Sayed again called the question a “ridiculous hypothetical.” 

“Our ostensible ally in Israel has lobbied us to go to war with Iran. We have watched as Iran has responded by bombing all kinds of countries in the Middle East, and then choking off the world’s energy supply,” he continued. “I think both of them have proven dangerous in their own way, one at risk of attacking us, one getting us into wars we have no business fighting.”

El-Sayed said he would not support providing defensive weapons to Israel if it were attacked by Iran or another state, and framed Israel as the aggressor against Iran, with the aim of drawing the U.S. into the Iran war and annexing southern Lebanon.

Abdul El-Sayed would not vote to provide defensive military weapons to Israel if it were under attack, the Michigan Democratic Senate nominee said during last night’s debate. Read more: https://t.co/HzcvnWB5Fg https://t.co/RbMKkzJwbf

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) October 9, 2026

When Rogers raised the fact that El-Sayed had not issued a statement to commemorate the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks — describing in detail some of Hamas’ atrocities — El-Sayed responded, “I’m not somebody who tries to make political theater out of other people’s pain.”

Later, in the post-debate spin room, El-Sayed reportedly said, “Let me make a clear point here: I learned that when people are grieving, don’t step on their grief, and I know that how much things were being watched that this was going to be — whatever I said — it was going to feel like politicizing that moment. So I decided not to say anything.”

Pressed during the debate on whether he would condemn the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, El-Sayed broadly said he “will condemn any use of force against a diplomatic population abroad,” but focused his response primarily on condemning the war in Iran.

El-Sayed said that he believes that the U.S. can end the war in Iran without reopening the Strait of Hormuz or ensuring Iran cannot produce nuclear weapon and address those issues diplomatically after the end of the fighting.

Rogers, who has recently urged an end to the Iran war, said the conflict cannot end if Iran maintains the capability to produce nuclear weapons, but argued that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back 20 years so that is not a relevant concern at this point.

He also said that the use of nuclear weapons would be the only red line that Israel could cross that would cause him to withdraw support for the Jewish state.

Asked whether he would welcome public support from AIPAC, given reporting that his allies had urged the group not to get openly involved in the general election, Rogers sidestepped the issue but said that he would welcome anybody “that wants to help my campaign stop a guy who can’t condemn terrorism in our own country because he’s so close to the people who are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.”

A newly formed super PAC, Together for Michigan, ran an ad during the debate featuring comments from Taylor Weintraub, a mother of a student at the Temple Israel preschool that was attacked by a terrorist earlier this year.

“Since I could vote, [I] have been a Democrat and have considered myself a Democrat. When Abdul El-Sayed said, ‘Hurt people hurt people,’ it allows people to believe that this is acceptable,” Weintraub said in the ad. “It was justification as to why a terrorist would want to hurt all of these children. … He put the words out there and he cannot take them back.”

“Mike Rogers is here to listen to us and here to help us feel safe,” Weintraub continued.

The ad directed viewers to a website for Democrats supporting Rogers.

Ahead of the debate, members of the Nonnegotiable Michigan campaign, which has been pressuring El-Sayed to make commitments to Jewish safety and Israel’s right to exist, held a call with reporters on Thursday to urge both candidates to address their concerns during the debate.

Organizers said that thousands of people have now signed onto the movement, but they still haven’t received sufficient responses from El-Sayed’s campaign.

“If anything, he’s only given a lot of Jewish Michiganders reasons not to vote for him,” Rabbi Aaron Starr, one of the organizers of the effort said. “It’s been very alarming to see that he hasn’t shown more support.”

But Starr emphasized that members of his community aren’t just choosing between Rogers and El-Sayed — some are also considering writing in a candidate or sitting out the Senate race altogether.

Two leaders of the group, Rabbi Josh Whinston and Joan Lowenstein, a member of the Michigan Democratic Party Central Committee and president of the Jewish Federation of Ann Arbor, said that — despite Rogers’ public appeals and private outreach to members of the Jewish community — they haven’t heard from Rogers or his camp directly about trying to secure their backing.

Lowenstein noted that she’s a longtime AIPAC club member, “so I’m definitely on a list if he was going to reach out — and I have not gotten anything.”

Some other leaders of the campaign have been in touch with Rogers’ team, however: another leader of the Nonnegotiable campaign told Jewish Insider Rogers had reached out to them, while El-Sayed had not. Starr did not say specifically which candidates he had met or spoken with, but told JI that he had “outreach from a variety of candidates, both Democrat and Republican.”

The Nonnegotiable organizers also emphasized that their message is not just one for the Michigan Senate race, but also for the Democratic Party as a whole and the 2028 presidential field. Starr said that, even if El-Sayed wins, the difference in the margin of victory between himself and other statewide Democratic candidates will also be a significant message to the party.

The Nonnegotiable members said they were disappointed by El-Sayed’s failure to issue a statement on Oct. 7, particularly given that he has been consistent in honoring other Jewish holidays in the past month.

“His lack of communication is noticeable, and it comes back to what we’ve been saying — I’ve been saying now for a while is — when he communicates, he often communicates out of both sides of his mouth, and when he doesn’t communicate, it also becomes noticeable,” Starr said.

Members of the Nonnegotiable group emphasized that they wanted to hear from Rogers at the debate not only about support for Israel and the Jewish community, but also about standing up for other priority issues including civil rights, democracy, abortion rights, the Supreme Court and other issues they consider to be Jewish values.

Several Jewish university students in Michigan also joined Thursday’s press call, having publicly signed onto the Nonnegotiable petition.

Jacob Reich, a sophomore at the University of Michigan, said that he is organizing for and supporting Democratic candidates in other states, but in Michigan feels “torn between both my Jewish identity and supporting the Democratic candidate in my state.”

“We don’t have a candidate who supports all of my beliefs,” Robert Kashan, a freshman at the University of Michigan, agreed.

Reich emphasized that he saw multiple people on his campus on the Oct. 7 anniversary wearing Hamas T-shirts, but “I expect a lot more from a leader, especially someone who would be representing me in the Senate … so I would expect at least a statement memorializing Oct. 7.”

Lansing, Mich., Mayor Andy Schor told CNN that he’s not currently supporting Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, and is not willing to consider backing him without a conversation with El-Sayed about the nominee’s rhetoric around Israel and antisemitism.

Schor, who is Jewish, told CNN he’s uncomfortable with some of the rhetoric used by El-Sayed, and that he has reached out to El-Sayed for a conversation, but hasn’t heard back. “If he doesn’t need me, he doesn’t need me,” Schor told CNN. “And that’s their strategic decision.”

Schor said he also will not support the Republican nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI).

He’s the latest in a growing list of prominent Jewish Democratic elected officials and other leaders in the state who say they’re uncomfortable with El-Sayed and his campaign and aren’t willing to support him without changes in his platform and rhetoric — if at all.

Capitalizing on that, the Republican Jewish Coalition on Wednesday announced a $2 million ad campaign targeting Jewish voters in Michigan, highlighting Jewish Democrats who refuse to support El-Sayed.

Ads from the group call out El-Sayed’s response to the terrorist attack earlier this year on Temple Israel, featuring several self-described lifelong Democrats saying they will not vote for El-Sayed, including a woman who says in the ad that her grandson attended preschool at Temple Israel.

One woman featured in the advertisements accuses El-Sayed of giving “permission” for further attacks on the Jewish community.

As he tries to appeal to Jewish voters, El-Sayed apologized for his initial comments on the attack, though some Jewish voters found his apology insufficient.

The RJC campaign is targeting Jewish Democrats and independents in Michigan through digital advertisements, mail and get-out-the-vote efforts, with a focus on Oakland County and other areas of the state with sizable Jewish populations.

“Three years ago, on October 7, 2023, Iran-backed terrorists began the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” RJC spokesperson Sam Markstein said in a statement on Wednesday. “It is on this solemn day that we are reminded precisely why antisemitic violence can never be excused; the RJC Victory Fund is launching a $2 million dollar GOTV campaign across Michigan’s Jewish community, after Abdul El-Sayed made excuses for the Hezbollah-inspired terrorist who attacked Temple Israel in West Bloomfield this past March.” 

Markstein continued, “We saw the smoke billowing from Temple Israel after the terrorist drove his car filled with explosives into a synagogue while Jewish schoolchildren played inside, and watched as Abdul El-Sayed said, ‘hurt people hurt people.’ A complete disgrace, and totally disqualifying to be Michigan’s next United States Senator. The RJC VF ads feature the voices of lifelong Jewish Democrats from Michigan, who are crystal clear: we will never vote for Abdul El-Sayed.” 

An attendee at a New York City fundraiser for Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Monday night told a fellow attendee that beating up a pro-Israel demonstrator outside the rally was “cathartic” and “the next best thing” to being able to punch an Israeli.

According to video of the incident posted on social media by both men involved, the two mutually agreed to fight and that they would not report the incident to the police.

The El-Sayed supporter, an anti-Israel Jewish actor and activist named Jacob Berger, then bragged about the incident to a fellow attendee at the El-Sayed event, in an audio recording obtained by Jewish Insider. Berger does not appear to have any formal affiliation with the El-Sayed campaign and was not a host or organizer of the fundraiser.

Berger posted clips from the fight with the caption, “had to rock a zionist face” with a smiling emoji. Asked about the fight, Berger claimed in the recording that he and the other man have a history of antagonism from past demonstrations and confrontations, and described the fight gleefully.

“It’s cathartic because I want to beat the s*** out of these guys every single day. He cheers on genocide, he cheers on babies being blown up,” Berger said in the recording. “F*** you — I was literally putting all my rage into my fists there. … I can’t punch an Israeli right now, but that’s the next best thing.”

Asked by JI whether the recording was authentic, Berger sent a vulgar response, dismissing the question.

“Abdul believes everyone has a right to express their opinion without fear of violence,” campaign spokesperson Roxie Richner said in a statement to JI.

Berger has recently posted a series of videos mocking the FlyDubai hijacking, and suggested in another video during the U.N. General Assembly that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials should go “back to Poland where they belong.”

Berger was also a member of the 2025 Gaza flotilla and was detained by Israel. He claims to have been banned from Israel. He moved to Egypt at some point in recent years, and has been accused of misconduct by other anti-Israel activists.

As El-Sayed works to rally members of the Jewish community who remain skeptical of him and his campaign, a recent letter from Michigan Jews in support of the candidate was also found to include a series of fringe figures holding various extremist views.

Former President Barack Obama is set to campaign on Oct. 24 in Detroit with Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson, around the beginning of early voting in the state.

Holding the Michigan Senate seat is among Democrats’ top priorities in the midterm elections. Polling has shown the race between El-Sayed and Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers is highly competitive, with Republicans making the seat one of their top targets. 

El-Sayed has struggled to consolidate support from Jewish Democratic voters and is also working to win over Black voters.

El-Sayed campaigned over the weekend with Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), their first joint appearance since El-Sayed became the nominee. 

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) argued during her first joint campaign appearance with Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed that the Jewish vote is not a monolith and that some Jewish voters are prioritizing other issues than Israel and antisemitism in the state’s upcoming competitive Senate race.

Many prominent Jewish Democrats in Michigan have offered strident criticism of El-Sayed, saying they will not vote for him without major commitments on Israel policy and antisemitism — or they plan to vote for his opponent. Slotkin is Jewish.

“There’s no such thing as the Jewish voters, just like there’s no such thing as the Muslim voters or the Black voters. People have their own views and the things that they prioritize are going to drive their vote,” she said during a joint appearance on MS NOW after participating in a joint town hall event.

“People want to see a Jewish woman and a Muslim man being able to get along, debate, push and pull each other, and move the state forward.”

"People want to see a Jewish woman and Muslim man … move the state forward." Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Abdul El-Sayed spoke to MS NOW about their first joint appearance on the campaign trail, as El-Sayed’s race against Mike Rogers appears neck and neck. https://t.co/y8aVj0CEkp

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) October 5, 2026

El-Sayed said that he and Slotkin agree that “you ought to be safe in your place of worship” regardless of religion. El-Sayed has faced criticism from many in the Jewish community for responding to the terrorist attack targeting Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., by saying “hurt people hurt people.” He has since apologized for those remarks.

During their joint appearance at the town hall in Macomb County, Mich., on Saturday, Slotkin downplayed disagreements between moderate and progressive Democrats, arguing that the “real debate among Democrats right now is fight versus flight,” she said. “I am on Team Fight and I need someone with me who is on Team Fight.”

El-Sayed also emphasized that the Iran war is driving up prices at home, and said that the U.S. has “no business fighting” the war.

Slotkin also called Trump “the most successful corrupt leader in the history of the world” and said that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein “would spit out his tea at the amount of money that Donald Trump has stolen from his own people.”

Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza as early as two weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, before Israel’s ground invasion began nearly a week later and well before any other mainstream political leaders used the term.

“At the heart of the genocide being perpetrated against innocent Palestinians today is the Islamophobic trope that *all* Palestinians must be aligned with Hamas,” El-Sayed said on X on Oct. 21, 2023. “It’s the most murderous form of the post-9/11 lie our country told to take civil liberties from Arabs & Muslims then.”

Israel began conducting airstrikes in Gaza within hours of the Oct. 7 attacks and launched a sustained air campaign the next day, but IDF did not begin its ground invasion until Oct. 27.

El-Sayed’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what he understood as of Oct. 21 that led him to believe a genocide was occurring.

Noah Arbit, a rising Jewish Democrat in Michigan’s state Legislature, has been a vocal critic of Abdul El-Sayed, a fellow Democrat whose Senate campaign in the key battleground state has exposed deep divisions within the Jewish community.

But until now, Arbit had not yet publicly clarified if he is willing to set aside his differences and endorse El-Sayed, like some prominent Jewish Democrats in the state who have recently announced their support despite reservations with his hostile stances on Israel and approach to countering antisemitism.

In an interview with Jewish Insider on Monday, Arbit, 31, confirmed that he would not be endorsing El-Sayed, pointing to what he called the nominee’s promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories and affiliations with extremist figures on the far left, among other issues he cast as deal-breakers in the closely contested race.

“At the very least,” El-Sayed “aligns himself with people who want to purge the Democratic Party and American life of Zionists and, therefore, most Jews,” Arbit said. “That is unacceptable.”

Asked if he believed El-Sayed himself is antisemitic, Arbit referenced a fiery speech he had delivered last week on the floor of the state House in which he had argued there was no longer a meaningful distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish prejudice at a moment when “the logical leap to justifying violence against Israelis and all Jews becomes so tiny as to be invisible.”

“The definition of antisemitism as just a shorthand for hating Jews is useless because you don’t have to hate Jews to be a vector for conspiracy theories,” he told JI. “I think it’s very, very clear that the fulcrum of Abdul’s campaign was an antisemitic conspiracy about AIPAC being the No. 1 obstacle toward universal healthcare, better schools and better roads in Michigan and in America.”

“It’s just a dog whistle,” Arbit said of El-Sayed’s demonization of AIPAC, the pro-Israel group that spent more than $30 million opposing his primary campaign and is now backing his rival, former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers. “It is a neat, clever argument. You take an unpopular policy and you say this is the reason why you don’t have nice things. It is the demagogue’s oldest trick in the book.”

While Arbit declined to share how he will vote in the November election, which could help decide control of the Senate, he strongly suggested he would not be casting a ballot either for El-Sayed or Rogers, calling both candidates “unacceptable options for Michigan” who “threaten” his constituents. “That,” he said, “is a tragic place to be.”

“I feel that it is a moral question for each voter to answer as to who is frankly less threatening to them,” said Arbit, who on Monday joined the Nonnegotiable Michigan campaign laying out a series of demands to El-Sayed related to Jewish safety and Israel’s right to exist. “For me personally,” Arbit noted, “I don’t know how to choose between” El-Sayed and Rogers, whom he condemned as a “bootlicker” for President Donald Trump.

His struggle to reckon with a polarizing election reflects the difficult choices and sense of alienation now facing many Jewish Democrats in the state who have begun to question their place in a party to which they have long been loyal.

“We have a group text with a number of Jewish Democratic elected officials where it’s basically one long commiseration session about everything going on,” Arbit said. “How we feel under siege and under assault by people we consider friends and ideological allies and basically watching the radicalization of our party.”

“It’s a very difficult position to be in as a liberal Jewish Democrat,” he explained.

With just over a month until the general election, Arbit stands out as one of the most prominent Jewish Democrats withholding support for El-Sayed, even as the Democratic nominee has ramped up his efforts to mend fences with skeptical Jewish voters who remain uncomfortable with his views and feel he has not fully addressed their concerns. 

Even though El-Sayed has condemned antisemitism while pledging his commitment to Jewish safety, his uncompromising stances on Israel have continued to raise questions among critics. He has also faced some scrutiny from Jewish Democrats who have cast doubt on the sincerity of his recent apology for equivocating over the attack in March against a synagogue in West Bloomfield, a heavily Jewish Detroit suburb in Arbit’s legislative district.

Despite his criticism of El-Sayed, Arbit, who is running for reelection this cycle, said he believed the Democratic nominee will claim victory in the Senate contest. But while Arbit predicted he himself would “probably win West Bloomfield by double digits,” he envisioned El-Sayed prevailing in the community by just a couple of points, “if he wins” the area at all.

“I think that there is going to be a massive underperformance by him in communities he hasn’t entirely successfully worked to feel comfortable with his candidacy,” Arbit elaborated, pointing to what he characterized as “an unwillingness to be accountable for your statements and actions.”

“Abdul consistently judges pro-Israel Jews in Michigan, and the entire Zionist movement, by Israel’s most extremist elements, such as [Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich,” Arbit said, referring to far-right ministers in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition, “yet gets very indignant when people judge him by the most extreme statements of Hasan Piker,” a Twitch streamer who has espoused antisemitic rhetoric and with whom El-Sayed campaigned during the primary.  

“I have a huge problem with that hypocrisy,” Arbit added. “Should you judge a movement by its fringes or shouldn’t you? Which is it?”

Arbit, who has long warned of antisemitism in his party, said he did not judge Jewish Democrats who have recently backed El-Sayed — such as Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, who had voiced strong reservations with his candidacy before endorsing him last week. 

“I empathize tremendously with people in the Jewish community,” he said, while acknowledging that there are many voters in the state who “simply do not want to risk a Republican Senate” and have been weighing the contest accordingly. “Every vote is like comparing apples and oranges,” he noted. “Everyone is weighing different factors.”

Arbit said he sat down with El-Sayed after he had won the Aug. 4 primary and “explained to him very earnestly” about his upbringing and “understanding of Zionism.” 

He said it had been “framed by the understanding that minority groups are only safe under conditions of democracy, freedom and the rule of law, and also how that understanding really led to my empathy for Palestinians and their dispossession in 1948,” which had led him to believe that “the best way to right that is a two-state solution.”

It was challenging to find common ground, he said. “I think it’s very difficult because he won’t even commit to a two-state solution, where one of those two states is Jewish,” Arbit explained. “We have fundamentally different positions on that.”

Still, he credited El-Sayed for speaking with him in spite of their profound disagreements. “I’ve obviously criticized him publicly,” he told JI. “I think that it is a sign of a mature leader for someone who is willing to have a conversation with people who don’t agree with them.”

“If Abdul wins,” he told JI, “my constituents will be his constituents, and it’ll be up to him to demonstrate he is also representing all people in West Bloomfield — including the Jewish community — with faith and fidelity. That is a challenge that I would put to him.”

For his part, Arbit said his own mission is “to put sand in the gears of both the far right and the far left.” His floor speech last week was born out of rising frustration with what he characterized as a growing radicalization on the far left after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel. “This conflict has colored my entire tenure,” he told JI, “because I took office in January 2023.”

“I think that most criticism of Israel these days is not just about Israel’s policies, but is calling into question the very foundation of the state,” he said. The far left, he argued, has “no agenda to improve the rights and lives of Palestinians. It is all about hating Israel, and that is what makes this movement so vacuous and so dangerous.”

With regard to El-Sayed’s potential elevation to the Senate, Arbit clarified that he was “not really worried about” Israel’s future. “I’m worried about the climate for Jews in in Michigan and in the Democratic Party.” 

“This is an incredibly obviously uncomfortable time to be a liberal Zionist Democrat,” Arbit told JI. “We are about to find out whether there is enough space in the party for those of us who are good Democrats but also are unwilling to relinquish our connections and commitments to our homeland — to Israel.”

Democratic Michigan state Rep. Noah Arbit and 15 other Democratic leaders on Tuesday joined the Nonnegotiable Michigan campaign that is laying out a series of demands for the state’s Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, related to Jewish safety and Israel’s right to exist.

Arbit, one of the most vocal and visible Jewish elected officials in the state, has been outspoken in his concerns about El-Sayed, condemning as “tokenism” the Senate candidate’s Rosh Hashanah video with two Jewish women affiliated with the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace, and condemning El-Sayed ally Hasan Piker as a “fascist” and “dumb and brain-rotted.”

The campaign has called on El-Sayed and other Democratic leaders to affirm commitments to Jewish safety, including that of Zionist Jews; to the right of Jews to define their own identities; to the Jewish right to sovereignty in Israel; to the right of all Jews, including Zionists, to full participation in the American political process; and to “an affirmative vision for a better future for the Middle East.”

In addition to Arbit, who also founded the Michigan Democratic Jewish caucus, several current former public officials joined the effort, including former state Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton; University of Michigan Regent Mark Bernstein, who also previously chaired the state civil rights commission and led Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s transition office; West Bloomfield Township Clerk Debbie Binder, township Supervisor Jonathan Warshay and township Treasurer Teri Weingarden; Clawson City Council Member Adam Duberstein; Madison Heights Council Member Sean Fleming; and former Keego Harbor Mayor Rob Kalman.

Several other Jewish and Democratic leaders also joined the effort including Joan Lowenstein, a member of the Michigan Democratic Party Central Committee and president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor; Ron Lippitt, an officer-at-large for the Oakland County Democrats; and David Lauer, Cindy Bank, Michelle Serlin, Michelle Miletic and Yehudis Brea, all board members of the Michigan Jewish Democratic Caucus.

David Kramer, the vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus and prominent Democratic fundraiser in the state, announced that he was joining the Nonnegotiable campaign last week and that he is not, at this point, prepared to support El-Sayed without his commitment to the demands laid out by the Nonnegotiable campaign.

A recent open letter from Jewish Michiganders expressing support for Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed includes a series of figures with fringe or extremist views and backgrounds alongside several prominent members of the Jewish community.

El-Sayed’s campaign promoted the letter, which includes more than 800 total signatories, as a show of force for the candidate as he works to court Jewish voters as the general election nears. Meanwhile, other prominent leaders in the Jewish community have said they are not ready to vote for El-Sayed without changes in his stances on Israel or they plan to support his Republican opponent, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI).

The fringe figures on the letter also highlight the campaign’s ongoing struggles in appealing to mainstream Jews in Michigan — further highlighted by a recent video released by El-Sayed for Rosh Hashanah that featured two women connected to the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace. State Rep. Noah Arbit, who founded the Michigan Jewish Democratic Caucus, condemned the video as “tokenism.”

At the same time, the letter’s signatories include prominent members of the Jewish community such as former Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI), former Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI), attorney general nominee Eli Savit and Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus Chair Decky Alexander. The letter states that the signatories are not all in lockstep — that some are enthusiastic supporters of El-Sayed while others are more reluctant and harbor concerns about his policy on Israel and language employed by his allies.

Perhaps the most widely discussed signatory on the list has been Liano Sharon, a progressive activist and Michigan Democratic Party officer facing disciplinary action from the state party for suggesting that Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) — whom he previously described as a “neo-Nazi” — should face a Nuremberg-style trial and potentially “the gallows” for her support for Israel, though he also said he does not support the death penalty.

In an email to Jewish Insider, he affirmed that he does consider her a neo-Nazi “based purely on her conduct supporting Nazi-like atrocities like apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide” but emphasized that he does not “support the death penalty even for neo-Nazis” and that he would “advocate commutation” for Stevens and others who could be “convicted and sentenced to death.”

“Reichstag legislators were sentenced to the gallows at Nuremberg for similar legislative support for Nazi atrocities as Stevens gave to Zionist atrocities,” Sharon said in a separate email exchange he released publicly. “Why should our legislators be treated differently if the investigation concludes they committed neo-Nazi atrocities?”

Sharon told JI that he is being wrongly punished by the Michigan Democratic Party and called on it to take down a post accusing him of harassing Stevens.

Sharon suggested that Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Gary Peters (D-MI), former Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) should face similar investigation and potential punishment. He has said that former Vice President Kamala Harris, Slotkin and Peters are also neo-Nazis. 

Sharon has also previously declared that Zionism and Judaism are separate and incompatible  and declared that Attorney General Dana Nessel was not Jewish because of her support for Israel, was a neo-Nazi sympathizer and is “complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

And he denied that the attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., and its attached preschool was antisemitic. He affirmed that view in his email to JI, arguing that “suggesting [the attacker’s] motives were anything other than ***revenge against Israel*** for the ***Israeli airstrike that murdered his family in Lebanon*** days before is absurd mental gymnastics,” while also calling it a “horrific act of terrorism against civilians, which I condemn without qualification.”

In his email to JI, Sharon said, “That’s what Zionism has always been: antisemitic Jew hate so deep, they want to replace us all. Just like Hitler wanted to replace us all with Aryans, Zionists want to replace all Jews with Zionists.”

El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Others who signed the letter have also expressed fringe views. Numerous signatories have accused Israel of genocide and have histories of anti-Israel advocacy, some of them being affiliated with JVP.

Several signatories have also been involved with Students for Justice in Palestine and campus anti-Israel advocacy, including serving as members or organizers of anti-Israel encampments on campuses. One was arrested for destruction of property when police cleared the encampment at the University of Michigan, though charges were later dropped.

At least 18 signatories on the letter signed onto a separate national statement demanding that institutions of higher education cut ties with mainstream Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League working to combat antisemitism on college campuses.

One signatory, a university professor, appeared to advocate for violence against “racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker[s]” on campuses, for which he was suspended without pay and referred to law enforcement.

Another signatory asserted that U.S. officials “had reasons to expect a terrorist attack would occur” on 9/11 “and were far more interested in exploiting than in preventing” such an attack. He separately described Israel as “overtly Jewish-supremacist.”

Yet another, a former public official, made racist comments at a public city council meeting, for which she later apologized and resigned.

One signatory, an encampment organizer at the University of Michigan, argued in support of calls for intifada and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” rejecting the notion that such slogans — which Jews say invoke campaigns of terrorism against Israel and the wholesale elimination of the Jewish state — are violent or antisemitic.

One was an organizer in the anti-Israel Uncommitted Movement in Michigan.

And one self-publishes a website where he has discussed his ties to a 1990s school shooting case, in which he was charged and detained as a co-conspirator for more than a month, though charges were later dropped. He denies any involvement or wrongdoing. He also discusses, on the website, his conviction and jailing for purchasing machine gun parts online in the early 2000s and constructing an illegal machine gun.

Pressed during an event on Wednesday to condemn the Iranian regime’s massacre of tens of thousands of protesters earlier this year, Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed sidestepped the question, focusing his answer on criticizing the U.S. war in Iran.

A Persian American student — who said that his cousin had been “hunted in the streets” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for wearing her hijab improperly and that his uncle was “sentenced to die [and] received 50 lashings” — pressed El-Sayed to “renounce” those who supported assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The student, speaking at a town hall held at the University of Michigan, additionally called on El-Sayed to “stand unequivocally against the IRGC, against the Islamic Republic of Iran” and make some statement in support of the protesters.

El-Sayed responded by criticizing the U.S. for taking the role of the “world’s policeman.”

Asked by a Persian American student at a town hall held at the University of Michigan to "stand unequivocally against the IRGC," Abdul El-Sayed sidestepped the question and criticized the U.S. for trying to be the "world’s policeman."

Read more: https://t.co/N2r8xS6tyt pic.twitter.com/pPTL86EtDc

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) September 24, 2026

“Here’s my point: one can disagree with the governance of a foreign country. One can stand in solidarity with freedom and democracy movements, but my worry is when one decides that we are going to go in and take out the leadership of a foreign government,” El-Sayed said. “Because here’s what happens: a lot of times that frustration gets used to justify corporate interests that have a real stake in the natural resources in a particular country.”

El-Sayed went on to say that he “will always stand for and with democratic movements, always” but added, “I also don’t believe that we were in the right to go to war to topple the government of Iran,” and said that it is the “responsibility of the people of Iran to decide what their leadership should look like.”

Pressed again by the student to express solidarity with the protesters who were murdered, El-Sayed repeated that he will “always stand with movements for freedom and democracy.”

The Michigan Senate candidate previously faced criticism over leaked comments in which he said he did not want to speak out publicly on Khamenei’s killing by the U.S. and Israel at the start of the Iran war because he did not want to alienate voters in Dearborn, Mich., who were upset about the ayatollah’s death.

“Abdul El-Sayed is looking a young man in the eyes and can’t even condemn a terrorist dictator murdering thousands of his own people. Pathetic,” former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, said on X in response to the exchange.

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, refused to tone down his hostile rhetoric toward Israel, including his repeated accusations of genocide, during a newly released podcast interview, even as his stances risk alienating Jewish Democrats who are otherwise eager to support his campaign in a key battleground state.  

In an appearance on the “Raging Moderates” podcast hosted by Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov, who are both Jewish and disagree with his stances on Middle East policy, El-Sayed doubled down in defense of his repeated use of the term genocide to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza, invoking the Holocaust to justify his position.

“The word genocide was created to explain what that was,” El-Sayed said of the “murder of 6 million Jews” in the Holocaust, which he called the world’s “worst genocide.”

“But the whole point of creating that word isn’t that you have to wait until the crime is that big again to be able to use it, otherwise it loses its power,” he added. “Its power is in naming a thing before it gets that big, so we could do something about it.”

El-Sayed’s new comments demonstrate how he has largely been reluctant to offer major concessions on Israel even as he seeks to make inroads with Jewish Democrats in the final stretch of a closely contested election that could help decide control of the Senate.

Throughout the exchange, Galloway and Tarlov warned El-Sayed that his views are “disqualifying” for some Jewish voters who remain skeptical of his uncompromising approach to Israel and equivocal remarks on rising antisemitism. 

Tarlov, for instance, told El-Sayed that “there are people who are not going to be able to” vote for him unless he demonstrates a meaningful understanding of their concerns, with little time left until November.

“This is about morals and values and ethics, and it is also about winning elections,” she said. “And there is a group of people that are asking you, I think, for very bare minimum acknowledgement of their concerns — they’re not even saying stop saying genocide.”

Still, El-Sayed held firm, insisting he is committed to building “uncomfortable coalitions” even if it results in losing some support from a pivotal constituency.

“When I’ve had conversations with my Jewish sisters and brothers here in Michigan, I’ve told them where we agree, I’m going to be honest, direct and specific, and where we disagree, I’m going to be honest, direct and specific,” El-Sayed said in the lengthy interview. 

“You might disagree with me, and that might mean you might not vote for me,” he went on. “That’s OK.”

Despite recent efforts to mend fences with Jewish and pro-Israel Democrats in Michigan who want to back his campaign, El-Sayed has continued to draw criticism for the extent to which he has been unwilling to evolve on key issues.

While he apologized for his insensitive comments downplaying the violent attack on Temple Israel, a synagogue in suburban Detroit, some Jewish voters cast doubt on the sincerity of his explanation, saying that it did not amount to a wholesale disavowal of his initial remarks claiming “hurt people hurt people.”

Meanwhile, after El-Sayed met privately with rabbis at Temple Israel this month, most of their  congregants who had long called the Democratic Party home say they oppose his campaign and intend to vote for his GOP rival, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), according to The Free Press.

El-Sayed won a key endorsement on Tuesday from Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, a prominent Jewish Democrat who had voiced deep reservations about his views on Israel and countering the rise of antisemitism. But her decision to support El-Sayed, which she announced in a joint interview, was hardly a vote of confidence for the nominee.

“For me, I don’t want to say the choice is easy, but I am going to say that there is no choice,” Nessel said, “and that’s why I’m supporting Abdul for the United States Senate.”

Other Jewish leaders have indicated that they will withhold their support until El-Sayed confirms his commitment to “nonnegotiable” demands, such as “Jewish sovereignty in Israel,” which he has yet to recognize. 

El-Sayed did little to assuage doubts among Jewish voters when he released a Rosh Hashanah video over the weekend featuring members of Jewish Voice for Peace, a far-left anti-Israel group that advocates for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

In the podcast interview with Galloway and Tarlov, El-Sayed summed up his approach to Israel and other issues that remain a key source of tension among Jewish Democrats in Michigan searching for reassurances that some believe he has not provided.

“I’m unwilling to bend my principle around what I believe, and I think we believe in the same principles. The question is ultimately how we apply them, and if we apply them evenly,” he said.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that she is endorsing Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee in Michigan’s high-profile Senate contest, after having previously voiced reservations over his views on Israel and antisemitism.

Nessel, a Jewish Democrat whose eight years in office will conclude at the end of December, made the announcement while appearing with El-Sayed in an episode of the “For the Sake of the Argument with Lori Goldman” podcast released on Tuesday.

“For me, I don’t want to say the choice is easy, but I am going to say that there is no choice, and that’s why I’m supporting Abdul for the United States Senate,” Nessel said. 

Asked if she would personally be voting for El-Sayed, Nessel replied: “I can’t be true to my values if I even consider voting for [GOP nominee] Mike Rogers. Yes, I’ll be voting for Abdul.”

Michigan AG Dana Nessel said she will vote for Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, after she previously withheld her support amid concerns over his positions on Israel and his response to the attack on Temple Israel. pic.twitter.com/GQ6m4LXuqh

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) September 22, 2026

Nessel predicted that she would “get attacked” by “right-wing media” for failing to “hold whatever is, I guess, the party line of the day when it comes to the Jewish community,” though she defended her decision to support El-Sayed by arguing that, “it is a tremendous disservice not to look at all of the issues” that he and Rogers are respectively campaigning on. 

“I care deeply about [the Jewish] community. I’ve been a member of it, obviously, my entire life, and we’re talking about my family. … I know that just by sitting together today, people are going to call me a traitor to my people. People are going to call me a kapo. People are going to call me much worse things than that,” Nessel said. “But at the end of the day, when we talk about protecting our children, protecting generations to come, when we talk about protecting the people that we serve, I think it is a tremendous disservice not to look at all of the issues.”

Asked about their differences on the issue of support for Israel and whether pro-Israel Jews were welcome the Democratic “big tent,” Nessel said that while she did not “want to minimize my interest in the state of Israel” or her belief that “we need to have those conversations” about achieving peace for Israelis and Palestinians, she suggested there are more pressing policy questions to address first. 

“How can we expect that Israel or its people will have any future at all whatsoever if we are not tackling AI? If we’re not looking at real solutions to climate change? If we’re not forward-facing in terms of fighting against whatever the next global pandemic is going to be?” Nessel asked. “These issues absolutely need to be addressed. Mike Rogers doesn’t care about any of them.”

Nessel then pressed El-Sayed on if Jewish Democrats were welcome in the party, to which he responded affirmatively and said that he believed in the idea of the party having a “big tent … where we march in lockstep on the 95% of things we agree on and where we continue to have the conversation in that tent about the spaces where we disagree, so yes.”

El-Sayed said that if elected, he would support the Jewish American Security Act, a bipartisan and bicameral proposal to address antisemitism across multiple sectors of American society being championed by the mainstream Jewish community. He noted, however, that he would work to expand the legislation to provide similar protections for people of other faiths.

“I look forward to working alongside [Sen.] Jacky Rosen (D-NV), who is the principal sponsor and drafter of this legislation, to support it and expand it so it includes the critical infrastructure to protect Jewish spaces, to also include spaces for other religious minorities and, frankly, for Christian folk and for places of reflection for folks who might not ascribe to an organized religion,” El-Sayed said.

“I know this piece of legislation would support things like security cameras and security for these institutions, and it also would protect against online harassment,” he continued. “I think it’s important for us as we think about that, that folks are not being harassed simply because of how they pray. And I want to make sure that I’m working with Sen. Rosen to expand that so that all communities can feel safe.”

El-Sayed noted that, “We’ve had an uptick in antisemitism and it is critical to protect Jewish Americans. We’ve also seen harassment of Sikh communities and other communities as well. And so being able to protect the rights of people to pray as they choose to pray without having to fear that they are going to be targets for violence and hate speech is absolutely critical.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the most significant sign of his efforts to make inroads with skeptical Jewish voters in Michigan’s Senate race, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee, recently met with rabbis at Temple Israel for a closely guarded conversation, according to two people familiar with the meeting.

Two rabbis who were said to have participated in the conversation, details of which were unclear, declined to comment when reached on Wednesday. El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The meeting came after El-Sayed apologized last month to Jewish Democrats for his equivocal response to the March terrorist attack against Temple Israel, a prominent Reform synagogue outside Detroit, which he had downplayed with the explanation that “hurt people hurt people.”

The covert nature of the meeting, which neither party has publicized, underscores the sensitivities felt among some Jewish leaders who have remained wary of publicly associating with El-Sayed because of their continued discomfort with his positions on Israel and remarks about antisemitism.

One rabbi at Temple Israel joined a rally last month at which Vice President JD Vance laid into El-Sayed while touting his Republican rival, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) — who has successfully courted some Jewish Democratic voters. Vance mentioned the rabbi in his speech, but not by name. A Jewish leader confirmed that a Temple Israel rabbi participated in the event.

Despite the unusual show of resistance, El-Sayed has, following his apology as well as a vow to hire a Jewish campaign liaison, made some inroads as he seeks to ease tensions with Jewish voters in the final stretch of a closely contested election.

He has since won endorsements from several progressive Jewish leaders including former Sen. Al Franken (D-MN). Former longtime Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI), in a statement on Tuesday, backed El-Sayed in spite of what he called “significant disagreement” over the nominee’s hostile approach to Israel — concerns about which some Jewish voters in Michigan have dismissed in recent opinion articles. While Levin held a pro-Israel record during his time in the House, his son Andy was highly critical of Israel while in Congress and ended up losing to Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in a hotly contested 2022 primary. 

Meanwhile, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who is one of the most prominent Jewish leaders in Michigan, is now urging fellow caucus members to rally behind El-Sayed after remaining neutral in a heated primary where Stevens, a vocal supporter of Israel, was narrowly defeated. 

Still, it remains to be seen if such inroads will result in meaningful support for El-Sayed on Election Day, as he faces opposition from some Jewish voters who say he has fallen short of addressing major differences in a race that continues to stir up raw feelings. 

Some Jewish holdouts in the state, for instance, have expressed their dissatisfaction with his apology over his comments on the synagogue attack. El-Sayed said he had “made a mistake” and asked “for forgiveness,” even as he also clarified that there was “opportunity for context later on,” a caveat some Jewish leaders interpreted as a sign he only regretted the timing of his sentiments rather than the message.

Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, suggested in a statement on Wednesday that her group would not be endorsing El-Sayed, who has refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state while failing to explicitly disavow Hasan Piker, an antisemitic steamer featuring in GOP attack ads and with whom El-Sayed campaigned ahead of the August primary..

“We have not endorsed El-Sayed” and “do not endorse all Democrats,” Soifer told Jewish Insider, even as she rejected crossing party lines to support Rogers — which she called “a vote to enable Donald Trump’s agenda.”

The Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus, for its part, has yet to confirm whether it will back El-Sayed after he appeared at its summer fundraising event to offer his apology. Jessica Alexander, the caucus chair, told JI on Wednesday that members would be releasing a statement soon explaining their approach to the race that could help decide control of the Senate next year.

For now, “people are looking to learn more” about El-Sayed’s views and “are still struggling” with how they will vote, Alexander said, noting those “making decisions in the affirmative are just being quiet about it.”

“It’s this really strange space of liminality,” she said of the calculus facing Jewish Democrats. “Everyone wants different assurances — and I’m not sure if you get those in political races, ever.”

While El-Sayed has yet to name a Jewish liaison, Alexander said she was asked to participate in the interview process and had spoken with about five candidates, whom she declined to name. She told JI that she had not yet been informed of a final decision.

David Hecker, a Jewish union leader in Michigan, also took part in the interviews, he confirmed to JI Wednesday. “The key is having conversations with Jews who haven’t decided how they’re going to vote,” he explained of the liaison role. “With many there are going to be disagreements,” he added, while counting himself among them.

“His domestic policies I’m pretty much on board with,” Hecker said of El-Sayed. But, he added, “I’m a Zionist” and “I disagree with his perspective on what needs to happen in the Middle East.” 

Still, “I appreciate how much he’s thought about it,” Hecker clarified.

Earlier this month, a coalition of rabbis and other Jewish leaders across the state launched a petition campaign to pressure El-Sayed to affirm a series of “nonnegotiable” commitments on a range of Jewish issues, arguing that failing to do so would jeopardize Jewish support for Democrats. The petition did not mention El-Sayed by name but was clearly aimed at him.

Among the demands were support for “Jewish sovereignty in Israel”; Jewish safety, including for Zionist Jews; and “full participation in American political life” for Jews.

But two Jewish leaders who signed the petition told JI Wednesday they had not had the chance to speak with El-Sayed and did not feel he had demonstrated his commitment to their requests.

Rabbi Aaron Starr of Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Mich., who serves as the president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis, said he appreciated how in the past couple of weeks El-Sayed “has moderated his previously offensive and inflammatory rhetoric.”

“His callous words and violent tone, though, remain hard to forget — and probably foolish to forget,” he added. Now, “El-Sayed has become adept at talking around our concerns,” he continued. “Nevertheless, he is silent with regard to our right to define our own identities as American Zionists” and “Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state,” among other key issues.

Joan Lowenstein, the Jewish caucus endorsement chair who also signed the petition, said she was unconvinced El-Sayed had meaningfully evolved in his stances on Israel since the primary. “He still will not say ‘Israel,’” she observed. “He says ‘Holy Land.’”

Even though El Sayed has condemned antisemitism and affirmed his commitment to Jewish safety, some critics have raised concerns that his rhetoric and alliances with extreme figures such as Piker have helped contribute to rising antisemitism on the far left, which has made a growing number of Jewish Democrats feel alienated in a party they have long called home.

A co-founder of “Jews for Abdul,” a loose coalition of Jewish activists, voiced reservations last month over El-Sayed’s approach to Israel, saying in a private call he could “do a better job” toning down his rhetoric on accusations of genocide in Gaza and his opposition to U.S. funding for the Jewish state, including defensive aid.

El-Sayed has said privately that he “is not going to change his position on Israel at all,” according to a source informed of such remarks. “He is who he is,” the source told JI.

Despite the hesitation among some Jewish voters with weeks remaining until the November election, one Jewish leader in Michigan who does not support El-Sayed predicted that the Democratic nominee “is on track to be elected narrowly but solidly,” citing unfavorable polling for Republicans nationally. 

“I think the Jewish vote being split is not enough to cost him the election,” the Jewish leader said about El-Sayed on the condition of anonymity. (Michigan is home to some 130,000 Jews.) “Trump’s continued chaos is really causing a lot of people to swallow hard and just hold their nose and vote the entire Democratic ticket.”

A co-founder of “Jews for Abdul,” a loose coalition of Jewish activists backing Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for Senate, voiced reservations over the nominee’s approach to Israel in a recent organizing call, arguing he could “do a better job” toning down harsh rhetoric that has alienated many Jewish voters in the key battleground state.

Steve Gold, a “Jews for Abdul” member in a heavily Jewish Detroit suburb, said during the mid-August call that there were “three issues” about which El-Sayed has been “less than effective in communicating” his views, citing his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, his “insistence on using the word genocide” to describe Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and his opposition to all U.S. funding for Israel, including defensive aid.

Gold confirmed to Jewish Insider on Thursday that his comments made on the private organizing call, a video of which was first reported by The Midwesterner, were authentic.

His remarks underscore how even some Jewish supporters of El-Sayed recognize that his hostile statements against Israel could cost him votes in the broader Jewish community, which he will likely need to prevail in the closely contested election. Michigan is home to around 100,000 Jewish voters, many of whom have raised concerns about rising antisemitism within the Democratic Party.

Even as El-Sayed has recently apologized for his comments equivocating over a violent terror attack against a synagogue outside Detroit in March, some Jewish Democrats remain skeptical of his campaign and feel his outreach has been politically calculated.

Meanwhile, a growing number of Jewish Democrats have gravitated to El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), a vocal supporter of Israel.

Even “without changing his policies and feelings,” Gold said during the video call that El-Sayed “could do a better job” of articulating his views in a manner that is less alienating to Jewish community members who do not share his views. 

The question over whether Israel has a right to exist “needs to be answered ‘yes,’ full stop, and then go on to explaining the nuances,” Gold said, while warning that El-Sayed’s frequent accusations of genocide have also been unhelpful. “It’s something that makes some Jews stop as though he is denigrating the significance and importance of the Holocaust, which of course he is not,” he explained.

Gold noted that he was “just talking about problems” and was not casting judgement on “whether they’re right or wrong.”

With regard to El-Sayed’s “statement that all aid to Israel,” including for its Iron Dome missile-defense system, “should be cut off,” Gold told the organizers, “people stop listening when they” hear “Israel doesn’t have a right to defend itself,” using air quotes around the oft-repeated line. 

“I think that those are three things that turn off a lot of Jews,” he concluded, “and if Abdul did a better job talking about them, it would help.”

In a brief phone interview on Thursday, however, Gold downplayed his feedback, saying “it was just a random moment” caught on video. He noted that he has “no access or policy input” with El-Sayed’s team, even as he told the organizers he would be “trying to take up” the issues he raised on the call last month.

“Everybody I talk to has a different take on all of these questions,” he told JI, emphasizing that Don Greenspon, a fellow co-founder of “Jews for Abdul,” did not agree with his criticism. “The old joke,” Gold quipped, “is three Jews, five opinions.”

Gold, who has called Israel “genocidal” in a social media post, declined to share if he believes Israel should receive defensive aid, in contrast to El-Sayed. “I think Abdul’s positions that he’s expressed about Israel are right on the money,” he stated. “I have no difference of opinion with Abdul on withholding tax dollars.”

Still, he said he had “no expertise” on the topic and was not authorized to speak on behalf of El-Sayed’s campaign, noting he was just a “volunteer” and one of some 150 members of the “Jews for Abdul” group. 

“There’s no reason to solicit my opinion,” he told JI. “I’m not going to make any more of it than it was.”

Vice President JD Vance laid into Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed on Monday during a campaign rally held in the state, calling him “very, very evil” and an apologist “for the worst people in the world and America’s enemies all over the globe.”

Speaking at the event in Sterling Heights organized by a pro-Trump super PAC, Vance accused El-Sayed of sympathizing with the assailant who carried out a terrorist attack against a synagogue outside of Detroit in March and associating with the antisemitic Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who had claimed that America deserved 9/11.

“I realize that there’s something about Abdul El-Sayed that is very, very evil and on the rise in the United States of America today,” Vance said at the rally, where he touted the campaign of former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), El-Sayed’s opponent.

“It’s people who see themselves not as citizens of a common nation fighting for every single person — whether they’re Jewish or Christian, whether they’re white or Black or brown — but see themselves as fighting for one group at the expense of others — and that is how, ladies and gentlemen, you destroy the United States of America,” he added in his speech.

Vance devoted significant attention to the violent terrorist attack targeting Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield, which El-Sayed had initially dismissed as representing a broader cycle of violence where “hurt people hurt people,” prompting widespread backlash from Jewish voters in Michigan.

The vice president’s focus on the synagogue attack indicates that El-Sayed’s remarks have reverberated well beyond the sizable Jewish community in the key battleground state.

Vance also said in his remarks he was “honored to be joined by the rabbi and some of the security guards of Temple Israel,” though Jewish Insider was unable to immediately confirm their individual involvement. (A Jewish community leader told JI that he knew of one rabbi who was attending the rally, but did not share a name.)

While El-Sayed voiced regret for his comments in meetings with Jewish Democrats over the weekend, Vance said that his response raised questions about what he is “going to do when he goes to Washington D.C.. when the cameras aren’t on.”

Vance called El-Sayed, who is Muslim, “a man who has sympathy and compassion for people who share his religion, but have nothing for people who don’t.”

“My message to Abdul El-Sayed is: You can pal around with terrorist sympathizers, and you can say that America deserved 9/11, or you could empathize not with the children who were targeted at Temple Israel, but with the attacker,” Vance said, before his comments took a personal turn.

He alluded to a recent social media post in which El-Sayed questioned if Vance would take his wife, Usha, who is Indian American, “back in time” to meet his late grandfather.

“Whatever you want to talk about, Abdul,” he shot back at the event, “keep my wife’s name the hell out of your mouth.”

“Today, you have an opportunity to speak loudly,” he said to the crowd, “and in November you have an opportunity to speak much more loudly against the hatred that is on the rise in the United States of America. Reject Abdul El-Sayed.”

In a statement after the rally, El-Sayed said in response: “Evil is ripping healthcare away from working people in exchange for tax breaks for billionaires. Evil is making people pay more for groceries and gas while pushing for trade wars and actual war. Evil is dividing people for your own gain. Evil is selling out your morals for a little bit of power.  

“Michigan is better than being lectured to by sock puppets from Ohio and Florida,” El-Sayed added. “We understand what’s at stake, and Michiganders will show you at the ballot box this November when we send Mike Rogers packing.”

Vance, who has faced skepticism from Jewish conservatives over his refusal to disavow far-right commentator Tucker Carlson as he mulls a 2028 presidential campaign, is slated to address members of the Jewish Republican Coalition in closed-door remarks tonight at its annual summit in Las Vegas.

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, expressed regret over the weekend for equivocating in response to a terrorist attack against a synagogue outside Detroit in March, a key source of tension among skeptical Jewish voters ahead of the fall election.

Speaking at the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus’ annual “Summer Simcha” event on Sunday, El-Sayed reiterated his recent comments in which he said he had “made a mistake” in his initial statement on the violent attack targeting Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield.

The armed assailant, who had rammed his car into the synagogue, was a Lebanese American man whose family members — including his brother, a Hezbollah commander — were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, leading El-Sayed to comment in a video statement that “hurt people hurt people” and “violence is a cycle.”

His comments on Sunday, according to attendees, echoed his remarks to members of the Jewish caucus a day before at a party convention in Lansing, where he said he had been seeking to “offer broader context” on the attack but “should have issued a statement, of course condemning it, and it just should have been the full stop.”

“I’m asking for forgiveness and a moment of grace,” El-Sayed told the caucus on Sunday, adding that “there’s opportunity for context later on.”

Jessica Alexander, the Jewish caucus chair, said in a statement to Jewish Insider after the event on Sunday that “Abdul’s remarks were sincere and reflected his dedication to serving all those he seeks to represent.”

In contrast with the party convention, the Jewish caucus event “was more intimate,” according to Alexander, “and thus the comments felt more personal and intimate.”

David Kramer, the caucus’ vice chair and the former Senate campaign chair of Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who narrowly lost the primary, said attendees “were certainly polite” when El-Sayed gave his remarks on Sunday. 

“There was absolutely nobody jeering him” and “nobody who interrupted him,” Kramer told JI in an interview after the event. “There were several people in the room who were pretty vocally applauding him and many in the room who were just being courteous and maybe lightly applauding him.”

Broadly speaking, El-Sayed’s comments were “well-received” on Sunday “in the sense that people appreciated he was willing to come into that space and talk and that he’s been willing to at least turn down some of the negative rhetoric,” Kramer added. 

While El-Sayed acknowledged his initial comments were received as insensitive, Kramer echoed Jewish leaders in Michigan who remain skeptical about the sincerity of his new statements and have questioned their timing as politically calculated.

“For me personally, and I know for a lot of Michigan Democratic Jews, there are still some incredibly core, fundamental differences we have with him that are going to be nearly impossible to bridge,” Kramer told JI, citing El-Sayed’s refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, his criticism of Zionism and opposition to continuing America’s close relationship with Israel, among other major points of tension.

“It will make the decision for quite a lot of us either very difficult to vote for him or impossible to vote for him,” Kramer explained.

He suggested that El-Sayed’s apology left room for improvement. “If you parse his words, he definitely talked about apologizing if people were offended and saying there’s a time for context but still leaving open the ability to add context,” he observed to JI. “I don’t think that there’s ever context for targeting 100-plus preschoolers.”

Joan Lowenstein, a caucus member, said that Jewish Democrats remain divided after the event. “No one I spoke to had changed their mind as a result of his speech yesterday or today,” she told JI. “I think we are evenly divided.”

“Everyone agrees we’re in a bad position that we haven’t had to face before,” she added.

Michael Horowitz, a Jewish Democratic leader who recently decided to vote for former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), El-Sayed’s opponent in the November election, said he felt El-Sayed’s weekend apology was “insufficient.”

“I think he’s doing exactly what a skilled politician would do, which is saying exactly what he needs to say to get other people on board,” Horowitz, who did not attend the caucus event, told JI. “There is plenty he could have said and should have said to sincerely apologize.”

One politically connected Jewish leader in Michigan, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive issue, said many Jewish leaders are hesitant about El-Sayed’s apology. “People want him to say, ‘I was wrong for not coming forward to explain this six months ago,’” he told JI on Sunday. “There is a ton of skepticism.”

A spokesperson for El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The caucus event on Sunday also honored Dana Nessel, Michigan’s first Jewish attorney general, who is stepping down after eight years at the end of her current term.

Last week, Nessel — whose son, Zach, is secretary of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus — expressed concern that El-Sayed had at that point not publicly shown contrition for his response to the synagogue attack, saying she felt he was “making excuses” for domestic terrorism.

Speaking at a rally for Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Wednesday, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) brushed aside criticisms of El-Sayed’s relationship with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker and said she wants to stop talking about Piker altogether.

The streamer has faced a torrent of criticism, including from top Democratic leaders, in recent days after making comments suggesting that Jews supportive of Israel have invited antisemitic violence on themselves. El-Sayed repeatedly campaigned with Piker and some Democratic lawmakers say he hasn’t done enough to distance himself from or condemn Piker’s comments.

“I’m done. This election is about what’s going to happen when we elect Abdul to the United States Senate. I am done,” Dingell said, kicking off the rally at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “So don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker. It’s not what November is about.”

Dingell said she doesn’t “agree with Hasan Piker on a lot of stuff, and I really don’t agree with him on some of the [things he said about] women” and said she doesn’t understand why he has become popular, but suggested questions about Piker are a Republican tactic to divide Democrats.

“Republicans are trying to divide us, and we’ve got to stop letting them divide us,” she said. “You need to go out there and define what this election is about. Don’t let others do it. They’re trying to divide us. They’re trying to take us off of so many other issues.”

Dingell chairs the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, serving as a member of House Democratic leadership.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Jewish Democrat who has been outspoken against the rise of antisemitism in her party, raised concerns that Abdul El-Sayed, the state’s Democratic nominee for Senate, had not publicly withdrawn his equivocal comments responding to a violent attack in March on a synagogue in suburban Detroit.

El-Sayed faced backlash for comments that critics interpreted as excusing the attack perpetrated by a Lebanese American man whose relatives — including his brother, a Hezbollah commander — were killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon, controversially arguing that “hurt people hurt people.”

While many Jewish Democrats in Michigan have raised alarms over El-Sayed’s hostile rhetoric toward Israel and vilification of AIPAC, Nessel indicated in a a new podcast interview released on Wednesday that his remarks about the synagogue attack remain a key source of tension with skeptical Jewish voters whose support he will likely need to win in the battleground state.

“A lot of us perceived that as sort of making excuses for somebody who sought to murder over 100 pre-K school children, and that’s the kind of mentality that bothers me a lot,” Nessel explained to David Frum of The Atlantic. “You can’t make excuses for that kind of domestic terrorism,” she added.

Nessel, who recently said that she would not attend her party’s state nominating convention due to fears of antisemitic harassment, told Frum that El-Sayed, “to his credit,” had since clinching the nomination in early August held meetings with Jewish leaders in the state to address their reservations with his candidacy.

“I think privately he will say that he regrets having made those remarks,” she said on the podcast. “But here we are. It’s almost the end of of August, and he still has not withdrawn those statements and said, ‘I misspoke’ or ‘I now recognize the harm that I caused by making those statements.’”

His reticence “has me concerned that he really stands by them, and if so, what does that mean for American Jews moving forward?” Nessel said, while suggesting his response carried troubling implications about his ability to roundly denounce future potential terrorist incidents.

“I think by the same logic,” she argued, “if Iran were to attack, whether it would be a government building or a church or a mall or what have you, that we would just deserve those attacks, because, of course, we are engaged in this war in Iran, and really the list goes on and on as to how you could make excuses for acts of domestic terrorism.”

“It’s a dangerous, dangerous world to live in, where you have somebody who supports that kind of logic,” Nessel added. “When you are providing some sort of rational explanation for why it occurs,” she went on, “it possibly encourages other people to do the same.”

Even as she voiced hesitation about El-Sayed and acknowledged many Jewish Democrats are backing his opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), she said she would never vote for the GOP nominee. “To make this abundantly clear,” she emphasized, “I will amputate my right arm before I fill in the oval next to Mike Rogers’ name.”

Nessel said she would “leave hope” for El-Sayed to “withdraw” his earlier remarks about the synagogue attack “because he now has a greater understanding of it” after his meetings with the Jewish community. “That’s my hope, and I’ve had that conversation with him personally. He still hasn’t done it, but I hope that we’ll hear more from him about this soon.”

Nessel is among the most prominent Democratic holdouts on El-Sayed, who on Tuesday declined to confirm if he hoped to receive an endorsement from Jeremy Moss, a Jewish state senator and Democratic congressional nominee in Michigan. El-Sayed stirred controversy this week over a statement that his critics said failed to adequately distance himself from his campaign surrogate Hasan Piker, the antisemitic streamer who recently targeted Moss while claiming Jews who support Israel are inviting violence against themselves. 

Moss has likewise remained noncommittal about whether he will back El-Sayed, even as he said they are in “continual dialogue” about such shared goals as fighting “MAGA extremism” and “Jewish and Arab safety and security.”

Speaking more broadly, Nessel, who said she has been “bombarded” with antisemitic death threats since she became Michigan’s first Jewish attorney general, claimed that El-Sayed has displayed “a lack of knowledge about” the “religious values and beliefs” of Judaism.

The “real dearth” of understanding on such issues is contributing, she said, to a growing sense of political homelessness among Jewish Democrats who are now questioning their place in a party they had long called home.

At the moment, El-Sayed’s rhetoric on Israel and antisemitism is “creating this dynamic where you have a lot of Democrats thinking there’s good Jews and bad Jews,” Nessel argued in the interview. “The good Jews are the ones that don’t believe in Zionism, and the bad Jews are the ones that believe that Israel is our biblical religious historical homeland.”

“We absolutely want a Democratic majority in the Senate. But is Abdul going to spend six years railing against Israel, irrespective of who the government is there?” she asked. “That is a real concern.”

“And an even greater concern is how that’s affecting American Jews,” Nessel continued. “Because it really is turning up the antisemitism.”

Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, doubled down on his anti-Israel rhetoric on Tuesday — a day after he drew renewed scrutiny over his ongoing association with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker.

Speaking at a Dearborn church, El-Sayed declined to confirm if he hopes to win an endorsement from state Sen. Jeremy Moss, a Jewish Democratic nominee for a congressional seat in the Detroit area, whom Piker had recently targeted on his show while arguing that Jews who support Israel are inviting violence against themselves.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat that we have our disagreements, especially when it comes to foreign policy and the best use of our tax dollars,” El-Sayed said of Moss at the event on Tuesday, billed as “Hate Has No Home in Michigan.”

“And the plurality of Michigan Democratic primary voters nominated me to be the Democratic nominee,” he added. 

While reiterating his opposition to antisemitism and appreciation for Judaism, he said that his support for ending aid to Israel is “about making sure that in our foreign policy, we substantiate equal rights to peace, dignity and self-determination for Palestinian folk.”

“I’d rather my tax dollars not get spent to take away some people’s self-determination that could be used to empower other folks here,” El-Sayed argued in his remarks.

The comments suggest El-Sayed is continuing to play to his far-left voting base, even as his hostile views on Israel have alienated Jewish Democrats whom he will likely need to win the competitive battleground state.

Moss, for his part, is among the most prominent Democratic holdouts on El-Sayed, whose modest effort to distance himself from Piker on Monday drove a wedge between the two nominees.

In a statement posted to X on Monday, El-Sayed made no mention of either Piker or Moss, omissions that drew backlash from critics. Instead, he said that “nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople,” while downplaying Piker as a “Twitch steamer” who would not define the contest. He did not say if his relationship with Piker, who has been a top surrogate for his campaign, would change moving forward.

“My commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own daughters,” he went on in his statement. “Antisemitism is a scourge and we need to address it in all its forms. And I stand against any rhetoric that puts the community at risk.”

The statement reportedly disrupted a conversation between the two nominees regarding an endorsement from Moss that is now in question — even as the state senator has vowed not to back El-Sayed’s Republican rival, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), who has been courting Jewish Democrats.

Moss, in a statement released Monday, said that he and El-Sayed have been in “continual dialogue” about shared goals such as fighting “MAGA extremism” and “Jewish and Arab safety and security.”

“There is still work ahead to unite our ticket despite our differences,” Moss added, without confirming if he would back El-Sayed. “It won’t happen overnight, nor should it. It will require continuing outreach that is credible and authentic.”

Jessica “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus chair, said that several campaigns and Jewish voices had urged El-Sayed’s team to release a statement on Monday countering Piker’s comments. “Whether they would have or not” without such prompting, “I do not know, but there is a comment,” she told Jewish Insider, calling his response a sign of “definite forward movement.”

“Many caucus members have shared that they would like him to disavow Piker,” she clarified on Tuesday.

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed distanced himself, to a degree, from antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker, who has been a prominent surrogate of his campaign, after Piker attacked Democratic state Sen. Jeremy Moss and argued that Jews are inciting antisemitic violence against themselves by supporting Israel.

But, in the statement — posted on X under the heading, “My statement on Hasan Piker’s comments regarding Jeremy Moss” — El-Sayed didn’t name Piker or Moss, and didn’t directly address Piker’s comments.

“I believe all Americans deserve the right to advocate what they believe without fear of violence,” El-Sayed said. “This is particularly true for communities that have been intimidated for their beliefs in the past.”

Amid ongoing attacks on him for his association with Piker, El-Sayed also insisted that “nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople.”

He went on to downplay Piker as “a Twitch streamer” who will not define the race or his own campaign. He did not say whether his or his campaign’s relationship with Piker will change going forward.

“My commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own daughters,” El-Sayed added. “Antisemitism is a scourge and we need to address it in all its forms. And I stand against any rhetoric that puts the community at risk.”

Despite the title of the statement addressing Moss, the statement itself did not directly address El-Sayed’s fellow Michigan Democrat or Moss’ allegations that opponents are spreading fabricated audio of him promoting antisemitic tropes.

Republican nominee former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) blasted El-Sayed’s comments as insufficient.

“Hasan Piker’s call for violence against the Jewish Community, specifically against Jeremy Moss, must be condemned by every single Michigan Democrat. But Conman Abdul El-Sayed doesn’t have the guts to disavow his running mate,” Rogers said. “Abdul’s attempt at distancing himself from this violent and hateful rhetoric now that he and Hasan won the primary is the epitome of what a conman does — says one thing when it serves him and another when it doesn’t.”

Rogers added, “His rhetoric is causing fear in Michigan communities, is unAmerican, and makes him unfit to represent our state.”

Moss said in a statement later on Monday that he and El-Sayed, whom Moss has not yet endorsed, are in ongoing conversations about their shared goals, safety for Jews and Arabs and co-existence among Michigan communities.

“These important conversations do not fit neatly in the confines of a tweet or a reel, like so many want them to. I’m grateful that Abdul and I are having them,” Moss said. “There is still work ahead to unite our ticket despite our differences. It won’t happen overnight, nor should it. It will require continuing outreach that is credible and authentic.”

But Moss made clear that despite his disagreements with El-Sayed, he will not support Rogers, as some other leaders in the Jewish community plan to.

Moss also lambasted Piker, without naming him individually.

“Provocatuers are exploiting this moment to create further divisions. I will not be lectured by a California podcaster about what Oakland County, Michigan’s Jewish community should and shouldn’t believe,” Moss continued. “And we certainly won’t be gaslit that we’re responsible for the antisemitic harm upon us. The attempted murder of Jewish children in West Bloomfield has no justification,” he said, referencing the violent attack on Temple Israel earlier this year.

Piker has so far shrugged off criticisms of his comments, including those from another Michigan Democrat, Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI). In a response, Piker called Scholten “an israel 1st congresswoman,” and said she’s “vying for the spotlight by actively defaming a prominent antizionist voice to harm the dem senate majority chances over a 90/10 issue,” while referencing unverified rumors about Scholten’s personal life.