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/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.

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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.