Abdul el Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, will get some help with his outreach to the Jewish community, including private events attended by Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) and two other Jewish Democrats.
The events, organized by Michigan Jews for Democracy, represent the latest attempt to ease voter concerns over el Sayed, whose views on Israel and association with pro-Palestinian commentator Hasan Piker have drawn intense scrutiny.
The first will take place Sunday at a home in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and feature Balint, the granddaughter of a Holocaust victim. West Bloomfield is the city where a Lebanese-born man rammed a synagogue with his truck in March.
On Monday, undecided Jewish voters will be invited to a home in Ann Arbor where former Rep. Andy Levin and congressional candidate Brad Lander are slated to speak.
All three fall on the left end of the spectrum — Balint was the first Jewish member of Congress to accuse Israel of a “genocide” in Gaza — but their visit lends el Sayed Jewish support from prominent voices in the party.
Levin, who served two terms in the House, is from a political dynasty in Michigan, while Lander is traveling from New York, where he primaried a pro-Israel House incumbent in June.
The events, reported by the New York Times and confirmed by the Washington Examiner, are a sign of the inroads el Sayed still needs to make with the roughly 100,000 Jewish residents of Michigan.
El Sayed has apologized for comments that were perceived as justifying the West Bloomfield terrorist attack, but he has declined to disavow Piker, the Twitch streamer who recently suggested that American Jews who support Israel were to blame for the acts of violence against them.
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On policy, el Sayed opposes continued U.S. military aid to Israel, a position that Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate nominee, has attempted to capitalize on during his own outreach to the Jewish community.
The two are locked in a tight race for the seat of retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) in a top Senate battleground.