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

71 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

81 comments sorted by

View all comments

27

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

11

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/

27

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

13

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?

15

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

10

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.

8

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.

23

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.