Abdul El-Sayed is trying to win over undecided Jewish voters in Michigan — without compromising his substantive positions on Israel or disavowing his most radical allies.
During both his primary and general election campaigns, El-Sayed’s opponents have portrayed him as insensitive to Jewish concerns, if not outright antisemitic. These charges have often rested on falsely equating El-Sayed’s opposition to Zionism (he is not committed to Israel’s existence as a majority Jewish state) with a hostility for Jewish people.
But in recent weeks, two other concerns came to the forefront. One was El-Sayed’s response to an antisemitic attack on a Michigan synagogue. In March, a 41-year-old named Ayman Mohamed Ghazali drove a truck into Temple Israel’s Jewish preschool. Days later, El-Sayed condemned the attack, while also noting that Ghazali had recently lost family members to an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon. El-Sayed suggested that these events illustrated how “hurt people hurt people” and that “violence is a cycle,” one that had led Ghazali to perpetrate “an evil act of displaced rage.”
Separately, El-Sayed had campaigned with the far-left streamer Hasan Piker during his primary campaign. This had always sat poorly with many Jewish and centrist Democrats in Michigan. But Piker made his association with the Democratic Senate candidate more conspicuous in late August. During a broadcast, Piker lambasted Jeremy Moss, a pro-Israel Jewish Democrat running for Congress in Michigan who had not endorsed El-Sayed but was in active conversations with the candidate about how to bridge lingering divides with Jewish voters. More explosively, Piker said, among other things, that “if Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually somebody is going to come around and take action, not against the State of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.” He subsequently insisted he was merely spotlighting the hazards of portraying all Jews as ardent Israel supporters, not making some kind of veiled threat, as his detractors alleged.
Nonetheless, this triggered a new round of calls for El-Sayed to both disavow Piker, and to take other measures to reassure Michigan Jews that he cares about their safety.
These disagreements between El-Sayed and moderate Jewish voters reflect broader tensions within the Democratic Party nationally.
El-Sayed declined to disown the streamer. But he did defend the right of all Americans “to advocate for what they believe without fear of violence,” saying this was “particularly true for communities that have been intimidated for their beliefs in the past.”
Some Jewish Democrats found this insufficient. In an open letter Wednesday, 400 Democratic Jewish Michiganders — including donor Rob Orley — announced that they would be supporting Republican Mike Rogers in their state’s Senate race.
Days earlier, El-Sayed had sought to mend fences with such voters at a summit held by the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus. During his appearance there, he apologized for his remarks following the Temple Israel attack, saying “I should have issued a statement, of course condemning it, and it just should have been the full stop.”
Among those in attendance was Charles Gaba, a healthcare analyst and major Democratic fundraiser; Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow has called him “the biggest powerhouse democratic donor wrangler that nobody has ever heard of.”
Gaba was a strong supporter of Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. And he has expressed serious reservations about El-Sayed, even while committing to voting for him and raising money for his candidacy.
These disagreements between El-Sayed and moderate Jewish voters reflect broader tensions within the Democratic Party nationally: over how far Democrats can and should go in criticizing Israel, whether the left takes antisemitism seriously, and if centrists are using allegations of anti-Jewish bigotry to stigmatize legitimate dissent.
To explore these debates — and clarify the concerns of “Sayed-skeptical” Jews in Michigan — I spoke with Gaba this week.
Our conversation has been edited for clarity and concision.
From your vantage point, what are undecided Jewish Michiganders’ biggest reservations about El-Sayed — and how many are actually addressable by his campaign?
I’d say that there’s probably four main ones. Two are connected to his comments about the Temple Israel attack. And he definitely addressed one of those complaints with his statement: that it was awfully timed. In other words, that days after the attack was not a good moment to raise other issues instead of simply condemning the violence full stop.
But the larger issue to me — and to a lot of other folks I’ve spoken with — is he seemed to be under the impression that timing was the only problem. That it was just too soon and if he’d waited a month and then made the exact same comments about “context,” that would have been fine. He doesn’t seem to get that trying to put it in context at all is the larger problem. Because a bunch of preschoolers at a synagogue in Michigan have absolutely nothing to do with a military conflict overseas, just nothing. If a family member of someone who died in the September 11th attacks had gone and attempted to kill Muslim children, their loss wouldn’t be relevant context. You couldn’t say, “Oh well, but he was upset about that attack.”
I think an El-Sayed supporter might say: There’s a difference between explaining an abominable act and excusing it. In his original statement, El-Sayed did say explicitly that “there is never a justification for attacking innocent people or houses of worship” and described the violence as “heinous” and “evil.” Taken literally, he was arguing that the strike that had killed Ghazali’s family members led to his act of antisemitic terrorism, even as nothing could possibly justify it.
There was just no reason to try to put it in context at all. Pretty much everyone understands that the Israel-Hamas war has brought emotions to a fever pitch for a lot of people.
I don’t think we needed someone to say, “Hey, that whole mess in the Mideast might have inspired this!” Yeah, no shit. Who was the audience for this? Who was he trying to give context to? Certainly the Jewish community understands the situation. I think the Muslim community understands the situation. And so does everyone else. I don’t think it served any purpose other than to upset and offend a bunch of people. So he was lecturing to no one essentially, in my view. Which I get; I have a tendency to do that myself sometimes in other ways. But it isn’t helpful. And shifting the timing wouldn’t have made it helpful.
So, what are the other two big sticking points for Jewish Democrats not sold on El-Sayed?
The third is this Hasan Piker guy. The media certainly seems to be pretty focused on that. If memory serves, El-Sayed seemed to be trailing Mallory McMorrow and Haley Stevens in the primaries up until around March. And then it was announced that he was going to be rallying with Piker at Michigan State and the University of Michigan.
A combination of that and the reaction to it — namely the McMorrow campaign heavily criticizing him for the rally — generated a bunch of attention and certainly raised Abdul’s profile tremendously. I don’t know how much credit to give Piker, but it made some difference. And next thing you know, he’s kind of running in the lead.
So, it’s pretty clear that Piker was brought in specifically to help him win the primary with a very young, progressive crowd. To that effect, it worked. But that doesn’t mean he’s helpful for winning a general election.
So, why do you think El-Sayed refuses to distance himself more explicitly from Piker, if the influencer’s support is not helpful in the general election?
I don’t know. Maybe he thinks that he’s being noble or something by not throwing him under the bus. But the guy just seems to be kind of an asshole, and I would not want to be associated with him in either the primary or the general. And so associating himself with Hasan Piker makes me think less of Abdul.
And I have a lot of respect for Abdul. I’ve met him about a half-dozen times or so, back when he ran for governor and then several times during this campaign. And we’ve also been in contact a few times in between to discuss healthcare policy. And I know he’s a very intelligent guy, very thoughtful guy, and very passionate about universal healthcare. I respect him for all of that. But I think less of him for associating with Piker. And I think a lot of Jewish Michiganders feel that way.
So, what’s the fourth issue?
Well, this is not so much about Abdul specifically as it is about the left. A lot of progressives get that you should condemn antisemitism, or bigotry against the Jewish religion. But many don’t seem to grasp that Judaism is not just a religion; it is also a people. And we do have a several thousand-year connection with the land of Israel — not the leadership, not the current government — but with the land itself. And so that makes the distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism complicated. You know, to try to say, “Well, as long as you give up Israel, then Judaism is fine” — many of us can’t do that because it’s an intrinsic part of who we are.
Is there not a distinction between recognizing Jews’ historical and religious connection to Israel — and being committed to the maintenance of a majority Jewish state in the Middle East?
In other words, there are anti-Zionists who deny Jews’ roots in Israel — or the right of Jewish Israelis to live in the region. But I think most progressive anti-Zionists would dispute neither of those things. Rather, they’d argue that Israeli Jews have a right to live in their land — but that maintaining a majority Jewish Israel should not take precedence over allowing Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to their ancestral territories.
It’s definitely true that there’s more than one type of anti-Zionism. I think there’s several groupings and different shades between them. And that also holds true on the Zionist side. There are right-wing extremists like [Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar] Ben-Gvir who say, “We should annex both the West Bank and Gaza.” And then there’s others that go even more extreme and say that Israel should dominate the entire region, including Lebanon and Egypt.
And then, at the other end, there’s Hamas and other extremists who literally want to either kick out or slaughter every Jew in the region.
And those extremes have led people to think that Zionism means “Jews get to take over the region” and that anti-Zionism means “Jews have to be kicked out.”
I think for most people, it’s somewhere in between. I’ve started calling myself a “small-z Zionist,” which is basically a more mainstream, two-state solution type. I don’t know how feasible that solution is. There’s only a slim chance these days. But the odds of a two-state solution are still better than those of creating a single “kumbaya, let’s all live together in peace” nation, in my view.
How were El-Sayed’s remarks to Michigan’s Jewish Caucus received, from your vantage point?
They were better received than I expected, to be honest. Although, I suspect that those most opposed to him probably didn’t show up at the event at all, since they’ve made up their minds.
Having said that, I did have discussions with several people afterwards, and there was definitely still concern about the whole “context” thing. People were polite and it was a reasonably warm reception. And to his credit, he did stick around afterwards and had one-on-one personal conversations. He was there for quite a while, so I give him credit for that.
From a purely electoral perspective, how much does El-Sayed actually have to lose, if he fails to consolidate the Jewish vote? In demographic terms, the bloc of Jewish voters who are open to voting for El-Sayed — but still need to be persuaded — would seem to be tiny. After all, we’re talking about a small minority of small minority; Jews account for only about 1.4 percent of Michigan’s electorate. So, what’s at stake here politically?
In terms of activism, organizing, and donations, the Jewish community punches far above our weight.
But yeah, we’re a fraction of a fraction. I think the biggest thing is just reassuring moderate Democratic voters in general. Basically, if the headlines start to read, “Jewish leaders seem reassured by Abdul apology,” then some non-Jewish folks — who aren’t sure about El-Sayed — might say, “Oh, well, if the Jews signed off on this guy, I guess he’s okay.”
Update, September 3, 3:30 pm ET: This piece was originally published on September 3 and has been updated with new developments and later clarified Charles Gaba’s title.
