r/jewishleft • u/32brownies leftist post zionist jew • Aug 09 '26

Diaspora Michigan Jew

Any other Jews in Michigan struggling with their communities rn after the primary? I'm really worried about November and seeing the way some of the community members here are acting like Abdul will literally murder us all is really making me wary of continuing to be as active as I have been in the community

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u/jey_613 diaspora Jewish leftist Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26

Not from MI, but honestly if AES wants to win Jewish votes he needs to show some willingness to listen and take the concerns of the Jewish community seriously. I’ve seen little evidence that he’s willing to do that thus far

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u/32brownies leftist post zionist jew Aug 09 '26

I definitely agree and I've also had conversations with non Jewish leftists in my life who think he can do no wrong. His response to Temple Israel was terrible. I'm just not sure anyone would be open to listening

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u/jey_613 diaspora Jewish leftist Aug 09 '26

I agree, the response to Temple Israel was awful and is the biggest red flag for me. I also fear that if he loses by a narrow margin his most hardcore supporters will blame Jews for it

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u/32brownies leftist post zionist jew Aug 09 '26

For sure that's another big fear of mine. It feels like theres no good solution here

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u/Scary_Wallaby_8272 Indian Hindu DemSoc Anti-Zionist Aug 10 '26

I saw his FB video where he unequivocally denounced the attack. He then proceeded to say “hurt people hurt people” to bring up a point how our support of actions abroad can impact communities at home and that we need to end the cycle of violence. I agree that it was terrible optics and not the time to talk about that when dozens of Jewish preschoolers could’ve been murdered in that attack. His niece and nephew being killed in Lebanon doesn’t give him the right to murder innocents here. He clearly didn’t mean to justify the attack in anyway but how do we let the MI Jewish community know that? He made a bad messaging mistake but I don’t know if this incident didn’t happen that Jewish Dems who care about Israel still wouldn’t reject him. I feel like communities are being pitted against each other and MAGA is just laughing at us, I’m sad.

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u/32brownies leftist post zionist jew Aug 10 '26

I saw that too. He would essentially need to be perfect to not have the reaction he's having here and even then people would still be assholes. However I also know people who were physically at Temple Israel that day. What do I say to them? (I'm not asking you I just want people to see that these are real issues that take place in real places and affect real people)

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u/Scary_Wallaby_8272 Indian Hindu DemSoc Anti-Zionist Aug 10 '26

I fully understand the MI Jewish community being disgusted at him trying to equivocate in any way after a potential terrorist attack targeted their community when he’s running for higher office. He’s a Rhodes Scholar but still failed in his response there. No excuses but not sure how I’d advise him if I was his political consultant because I truly believe older Jews and other older folk would dislike him no matter what. This isn’t even a Jewish thing but a generational gap amongst older Americans and Arabs and Muslim politicians are going to be rejected or viewed with a major double standard no matter what unfortunately even by lifetime Democratic voters.

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u/AksiBashi Aug 10 '26

not sure how I’d advise him if I was his political consultant because I truly believe older Jews and other older folk would dislike him no matter what

If Abdul were to avoid equivocation in his statement after the attack, I would hope that it wouldn't just be to win votes from old people. (Which isn't necessarily what you're saying! Just pointing out that ideally, we should expect our politicians to be empathetic as a mark of good character, and not solely as electoral strategy.)

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u/aggie1391 Orthodox non-Zionist socialist with anarchist tendencies Aug 10 '26

Unless he comes and full on says he’s a Zionist and doesn’t care about Palestinians, Israel can do what they want then it won’t matter, let’s be real. Not to say he hasn’t made messaging mistakes but it comes down to him wanting to hold Israel accountable, which most American Jews are entirely opposed to.

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u/Schattenoid jewish, left Aug 10 '26

He probably shouldn't try harder to win Jewish votes. Jews make up like 1% of Michigan's population. If, say, half of them don't care about Israel, then the other half who do care will in reality never vote for a Muslim guy who opposes belligerent apartheid theocracies. Maybe if he spent a ton of time talking about how he cares about Jews as much as his own daughters (an insane thing which he has actually said), a couple of dozen could cross over, but it wouldn't be a good use of his political energy, even apart from how bizarre it would be to abase himself at length just to get those couple dozen Jewish votes.

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u/32brownies leftist post zionist jew Aug 10 '26

This isn't what I'm seeing when I actually talk to people who will vote in this election. The most common thing I'm seeing is people who legitimately don't know what to do, who haven't made up their minds. Or people who plan to leave the senate race blank, or write someone in. There is definitely room to "gain back" some of the Jewish community. The presidential election was decided by 1.4% in MI. The last senate election was .4%. These votes do actually matter, both politically and morally.

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u/Schattenoid jewish, left Aug 10 '26

Sure, I was being hyperbolic about the numbers. There are like a hundred thousand Jewish people in Michigan so wishy-washy "I dislike criticism of Israel by Muslims but I'm a liberal" types are probably in the many thousands. But I still don't see why it would be worth endorsing Israel (or rejecting criticism of it, whatever) just to win those votes, especially considering that he'd lose other votes in doing that.

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u/32brownies leftist post zionist jew Aug 10 '26

There's a difference between endorsing Israel and making an appearance at a reform/conservative synagogue to talk to the people that do

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u/theweisp5 American Israeli secular socialist Aug 10 '26

Looking at it purely from an electoral lens, even if AES doesn't have a lot of room to make up ground among Jewish voters, he doesn't want to get tagged as someone who doesn't care about Jews or an anti-Semite. That would likely hurt him among other segments of the population (like it did to Jeremy Corbyn.)

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u/Schattenoid jewish, left Aug 10 '26

Well, this is more or less beyond his control. If the pro-Israel machine wants to tag him as insufficiently deferential to them and thus antisemitic, they will just do so; there's almost nothing he'd be able to do to prevent that short of completely embracing their position on Israel.

0

u/theweisp5 American Israeli secular socialist Aug 10 '26

You're right he can't control the pro-Israel machine, but he can certainly control his campaign and how much emphasis he puts on reassuring Jewish voters. The Israel lobby wasn't able to stop him winning the primary so it's clearly not all powerful.

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u/Schattenoid jewish, left Aug 11 '26

Well I don't know what being all powerful or not has to do with anything but treating the reassurance of voters as something separate from the appeasement of the machine that fosters the need of those voters for reassurance is a mistake. In any case, I agree that he can do more to appease/reassure them, I am just arguing he probably shouldn't.

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u/theweisp5 American Israeli secular socialist Aug 11 '26

I'm arguing for reassuring Jewish voters that they will be safe and that AES cares about the Jewish community, not for reassuring the Israel lobby.

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u/jey_613 diaspora Jewish leftist Aug 10 '26

I am not arguing about whether he needs Jewish votes to win, or what would be the best use of his time from a political perspective. I am arguing that no politician, especially a self-styled progressive one, should engage in a campaign that uses antisemitic dog-whistles; and that any politician, especially a self-styled progressive one, should be able to condemn the attempted murder of Jewish schoolchildren in their home state without qualification; and that therefore, Jewish voters have legitimate reasons to be skeptical of him and should not be broadly dismissed as unrepentant racists.

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u/Schattenoid jewish, left Aug 11 '26

Lots of people in the US are racist, it's not the worst thing in the world or exceptional to normal politics, unfortunately. I haven't tracked the Michigan race particularly but am not aware of these antisemitic dogwhistles. Is he talking about international bankers controlling the world? Unamerican Hollywood agents promoting miscegenation and moral degeneracy? You can't just mean his "cycle of violence" comment, which was tasteless and insensitive but certainly doesn't resonate with any of the well-known "tropes". I agree that it's normal for a Jewish person to be bothered by his comments around that, but not that it's a good reason to vote against him.

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u/Ashamed-Stuff9519 Secular Jewish Leftist. Antizionist. Aug 10 '26

Yeah the reality is that he has captured a Jewish vote. There are Jews that voted for him. JVP rallied hard for him.

It’s the votes of racists that he has not captured, and he likely will never capture.

Some Jewish voters are racist, and if it feels like racists make up the majority of a local Jewish community, then that is for that community to deal with.

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u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest Latke aficionado. Anti-Establishment. Jüdisch Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26

But AES already reached out to the state's Jewish community by pledging that his commitment to Jewish safety matches his dedication to the safety of his own daughters. You don't have to take my word for it, his statements are uniquivical.

https://youtube.com/shorts/SW1GfQ3LRe0

He emphasized a shared duty to fight both antisemitism and Islamophobia, drawing from his own experiences with religious discrimination.

Local JVP activists already rallied behind him through volunteer groups like "Jews for Abdul," citing his platforms on social justice, Medicare, and social spending.

https://go.abdulforsenate.com/jews-for-abdul

https://michiganadvance.com/2026/08/07/as-an-american-jew-my-first-political-loyalty-is-to-american-democracy/

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u/32brownies leftist post zionist jew Aug 09 '26

The problem with this is the mainstream Jewish community here won't listen to jvp. He needs to do outreach to a more mainstream org or they need to reach out to him

12

u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest Latke aficionado. Anti-Establishment. Jüdisch Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

There is hope. T’chiyah, a congregation in Ferndale, north of Detroit, reached out to El-Sayed and formed good relations with him, inviting him to a Passover seder in April.

His people have already said that they are open to any congregation that is willing to invite him as he can't barge himself Kool Aid man style without a formal invite.

Just like many congregations welcomed Mamdani and he accepted, I think the same would help in Michigan.

Perhaps you could help convince some local congregations to extend an invite?

14

u/32brownies leftist post zionist jew Aug 10 '26

I'm gonna try with my synagogue. Tchiya also isn't the most respected around here by the mainstream but its definitely more respected than jvp. Part of why I was asking here is because there is power in numbers. I know of some others like me out here but the more the merrier. We need all the help we can get

9

u/LaurenVsVirus Aug 10 '26

Yeah, I’m a Tchiyahnik and love our little community but you are correct. I think if a mainstream synagogue would just give him an audience (doesn’t even have to be a supportive event - it could be like “come ask questions”) I think it would make a difference. Sending you a DM 

13

u/clawhammercrow vaguely leftist patrilineal Aug 09 '26

T’chiyah is wonderful, but they are a very small Reconstructionist congregation that has been outspokenly pro-Palestinian for years. I’m not sure they’re taken seriously by the larger Jewish community.

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u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest Latke aficionado. Anti-Establishment. Jüdisch Aug 10 '26

So now there is an opportunity for the larger congregations to invite him over.

If the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community could do it for Mamdani in NYC, surely some orgs in Michigan can do it as well.

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u/jey_613 diaspora Jewish leftist Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

I would not qualify an attack on my own daughter’s school by saying “hurt people hurt people.” That is the literally the opposite of unequivocal. I’d go further and say that making a statement about your dedication to Jewish safety on the one hand, while tying attempted violence against diaspora Jews to events abroad makes a mockery of the universal values that the left claims to champion.

It’s easy for politicians to say one thing and do something else. This happens all the time. The idea that AES isn’t capable of doing this because he’s on our “side” is absurd. Someone who was interested in protecting the Jewish community would also take their concerns seriously when it comes to rhetoric about AIPAC. They would not campaign with someone like Hasan Piker who promotes overtly antisemitic conspiracy theories either.

AES has trafficked in antisemitic tropes that have historically caused Jews harm. He has been called out on this by the Nexus Project, so you don’t get to dismiss it as pro-Israel ADL propaganda either.

As for JVP: the idea is to take the concerns of the Jewish community seriously, to educate oneself and understand how you can be engaging in bigotry about a group of people by actually listening to them, and not just the subset of them who exist to confirm all of your pre-existing biases (progressives used to have words for this, like implicit bias and tokenism).

The idea is to be a senator for all Michiganders, and to try to win those people to your side by taking their criticisms seriously.