Lawn signs for Abdul, canvassing for Haley: Michigan Jews split in Senate Democratic primary

OAK PARK, Michigan (JTA) — Karen Bick has spent the days leading up to Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary fielding calls from Jewish friends urging her to vote for US Rep. Haley Stevens.

Despite the pressure, Bick, 69, said she plans to sit out Tuesday’s vote altogether. As much as she is compelled by the campaign of Stevens’s progressive opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, his accusations that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza have kept her from voting for him. Stevens’s campaign, she said, hasn’t given her enough reason to vote for her instead.

“I am very pro-Israel. I’m not pro-Netanyahu, which is part of the whole thing. A lot of my friends who are Jewish have been calling me, trying to get Haley, but it’s like they’re looking at one issue,” said Bick, a Jewish resident of Oak Park, a suburb of Detroit. “I don’t think that Israel should take precedence over all the other issues just because somebody’s pro-Israel.”

Bick’s ambivalence reflects a divide among Michigan Jews in a primary where Israel has emerged as one of the sharpest contrasts between the candidates. Stevens has served in the House since 2019 as a reliable supporter of Israel, while El-Sayed, a former county health official, has made opposition to US support for Israel and AIPAC’s spending in the race a hallmark of his campaign.

That doesn’t mean El-Sayed is without Jewish supporters.

Barbara Weinberg Barefield, a longtime Detroit resident who helped found the city’s Jewish Voice for Peace chapter, has been campaigning for El-Sayed since the beginning of the race, including organizing fundraisers, phone banking and canvassing. She also helped organize “Jews for Abdul,” a group of Jewish supporters working to elect him.

Weinberg Barefield, 76, said that El-Sayed’s use of the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza was an essential component of her support for him.

“We are trying to let people know that there are many Jewish people that support Abdul and support his objectives and support his voice,” Weinberg Barefield said. “Justice, equality, and freedom are part of the fabric of me being a Jew and the message that we put forth for ‘Jews for Abdul:’ that he is a candidate that represents our morality, our ethics, and frankly, I think these are the things that most people in this country want.”

Suzanne Levin, an 83-year-old Jewish Michigander, initially supported Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow, whose withdrawal from the race left progressive Jews in the state facing a political dilemma.

For Levin, the choice quickly became clear. She got an El-Sayed lawn sign and “Jews for Abdul” T-shirt and threw her support behind his campaign.

In doing so, Levin has rejected accusations from Stevens and some Jewish Democratic leaders in the state that El-Sayed’s rhetoric and associations have crossed the line into antisemitism.

“They believe all this crap about El-Sayed, that he’s antisemitic, and I have listened to so many of his talks, and when they ask him ‘should there be an Israel,’ he says there should be a place where people could all be safe and people should be okay,” Levin said.

Other Jewish Democrats have reached a starkly different conclusion about El-Sayed, who has said the Israeli government is as “evil” as Hamas and often accuses Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza while advocating that US aid to Israel be diverted to domestic priorities.

Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, which has endorsed Stevens, said that she had been “concerned” by El-Sayed’s response following the March attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

At the time, El-Sayed sparked outcry by putting out a statement that discussed Israel’s war in Lebanon, where the attacker’s brother was killed. Soifer said she believed El-Sayed “equivocated and provided a justification for a situation, which there was no justification.”

“If he wants to be senator of a state that has such a large Jewish population, he must demonstrate an ability to stand with that community as we face the rise of antisemitism,” Soifer said. “On that issue in particular, Haley has been a leader in Congress.” The state has close to 130,000 Jews.

Soifer said her group’s volunteers had put out close to 10,000 calls to Michigan voters urging them to back Stevens.

Zach Nessel, a 23-year-old Michigan State University graduate and the secretary of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus, shared many of Soifer’s concerns as he knocked on doors for Stevens in Oak Park Monday.

“I’m absolutely concerned about his rhetoric,” said Nessel, whose mother is Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. “I think he’s spending more of his time trying to ostracize pro-Israel Democrats than he is looking to fight Trump, and that’s what I see amongst a lot of his allies.”

Nessel said he had been especially concerned by El-Sayed’s campaign event at his alma mater in April alongside Hasan Piker, an anti-Israel streamer whose rhetoric has been called antisemitic by many Jewish groups and leaders.

“The fact that my former Dem Club is hosting an antisemite that has positive things to say about Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist organization that has killed Americans, that’s horrifying,” Nessel said. “And the fact that you know Abdul is campaigning with someone like that is insane.”

Nessel said that he had visited over 500 homes across the Detroit area to champion Stevens. During his visits, he said voters rarely brought up Israel or AIPAC on their own.

But Nessel said he worried that a potential El-Sayed victory Tuesday could encourage other candidates to adopt similar tactics, with consequences for Jewish participation in the Democratic Party.

“Most people, they want to fight Trump and they want to make things more affordable,” Nessel said. “And if this sort of commotion is successful, then they’ll keep on doing it, and that’ll make it hard for members of the Jewish community to continue to participate in our party.”

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