A group of Michigan rabbis and Jewish leaders is circulating a petition with five “nonnegotiable” demands for any Michigan Democratic candidate who wants their support.
The letter appeared to be aimed at Abdul el Sayed, the Democratic nominee running for the state’s open Senate seat.
The petition makes it clear that candidates’ refusal to agree to the petition’s terms will result in a lack of support from Michigan’s Jewish voters who identify with the Democratic Party.
The terms include agreeing to support “Jewish sovereignty in Israel,” backing a two-state solution for Israel and Palestinians, and welcoming “full participation in American political life” for Jews, according to the New York Times.
El Sayed has been very critical of Israel throughout his Senate campaign, opposing the Jewish state’s right to exist. His rationale for that stance is that he doesn’t “believe in ethno-states,” the Democratic candidate told the New York Times in July before he won his primary.
The petition rejects “cleverly worded arguments advanced to return the Jewish people to statelessness and powerlessness — a position that a supermajority of Jews everywhere recognize as genocidal,” the document states.
The letter does not directly name el Sayed, but it is targeted toward Michigan candidates.
Since defeating the pro-Israel centrist Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in the Aug. 4 primary election, el Sayed has been trying to make amends with the Jewish community.
At a Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus event late last month, he apologized for saying that “hurt people hurt people” after a gunman targeted a Michigan synagogue in a Hezbollah-inspired terrorist attack on March 12. At the time, el Sayed was accused of antisemitism by members of his own party.
Soon after el Sayed made the apology, Vice President JD Vance denounced the Democrat’s initial statement on the synagogue attack as “very evil” while stumping for Michigan Republicans at a campaign event near Detroit. In an additional knock against el Sayed, Vance revealed he hosted members of the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield at the rally. The two have been feuding for weeks.
The primary purpose of Vance’s appearance at the campaign event was to lend his support to former Michigan Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, who’s running against el Sayed for the seat held by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI).
Rogers is actively courting the state’s some 130,000 Jewish voters as he makes his case against el Sayed, a practicing Muslim, in the lead-up to the Nov. 3 general election. It appears the Republican is seeing some success on that front. Rabbi Asher Lopatin, a prominent Jewish leader from Ann Arbor and lifelong Democrat, pledged to support Rogers at one of his recent campaign events.
“There are many things that he’ll probably vote for that I would disagree with,” Lopatin said of Rogers, “but I think for the long term of the Democratic Party and for the country, we need to defeat el Sayed.”