Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, recently spent two days trying to mend fences with Jewish Democrats after an acrimonious primary against a pro-Israel opponent.
For some of them, it wasn’t enough.
Specifically, Dr. El-Sayed sought to address remarks he had made shortly after an attack on a synagogue in the Detroit area in March that some interpreted as too sympathetic to the assailant. But his apologies last weekend fell short with some Jewish Democrats in part because he seemed to be seeking forgiveness for the timing of his remark rather than its substance.
Dr. El-Sayed’s criticism of Israel has concerned many Jewish Democrats. And some are angered by his association with Hasan Piker, a provocative streamer whose comments about Israel have drawn blowback from Democrats and Republicans.
The frictions revealed the still-fresh wounds from a bitter primary struggle between Dr. El-Sayed and his pro-Israel opponent, Representative Haley Stevens. Their race became a proxy war over the Democratic Party’s divisions on Israel, which propelled numerous progressive candidates, including Dr. El-Sayed, to victory.
The lingering tension is a hurdle for Dr. El-Sayed as he seeks to turn to his general-election opponent, former Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican. Uniting Democrats is proving difficult for Dr. El-Sayed, who won his primary by fewer than 18,000 votes. And he is battling on two fronts, as Mr. Rogers and other Republicans, including Vice President JD Vance, have begun to assail him over his position on Israel in an effort to peel off Jewish support.
With just over two months left before the general election, the dissonance could threaten Dr. El-Sayed’s efforts to assemble a winning coalition in a key Senate battleground race that will help determine control of the upper chamber.
Dr. El-Sayed is “under a microscope in the Jewish community,” said Yifat Clein, 41, an Israeli-American from Detroit who is supporting him. She said she was concerned about the number of Jewish Democrats in her community who have said they would vote for Mr. Rogers, because of his support for Israel.
Zach Nessel, the secretary of the Michigan Jewish Democratic Caucus, the organization that Dr. El-Sayed addressed twice over the weekend, said that Dr. El-Sayed’s “apology didn’t go far enough.” Mr. Nessel, who is the son of state Attorney General Dana Nessel, added, “I don’t think Abdul has done enough at this point in time to gain our full support with an endorsement.”
Dr. El-Sayed has been meeting with Jewish leaders in Michigan and expanding his outreach, including hiring a Jewish liaison, his campaign said. He will “continue to be actively engaged with those communities to build the coalition that will defeat Rogers,” Cole Wozniak, a spokesman for Dr. El-Sayed’s campaign, said in a statement.
Back in March, Dr. El-Sayed angered many Jewish Michiganders when he described how the assailant at a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, a U.S. citizen of Lebanese descent, had lost his family in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon a week earlier.
“Hurt people hurt people,” Dr. El-Sayed said then, while also denouncing antisemitism and condemning the actions of the perpetrator, who drove a vehicle into a building full of preschoolers, injuring a guard before he was killed in a firefight.
On Saturday, Dr. El-Sayed apologized for those remarks during an appearance before the Jewish Democratic Caucus at a party convention in Lansing. He did so again at the caucus’s private fund-raising gathering on Sunday.
“There’s opportunity for context later on, but when you give the wrong — the right medicine at the wrong time, it’s the wrong medicine,” Dr. El-Sayed said at the fund-raiser on Sunday, according to audio provided by his campaign. “And I gave it at the wrong time, and folks didn’t need to hear it, didn’t want to hear it. It was not the right thing to say.”
As Mr. Nessel saw it, Dr. El-Sayed had “apologized for when he said what he said, but not what he said.”
Decky Alexander, the chair of the Michigan Jewish Democratic Caucus, a subgroup of the state party, said the meetings had helped ease tensions for some, and gave voice to “the differing perspectives of those who are Jews and Democrats in Michigan.” She did not say whether the group would endorse Dr. El-Sayed.
Jewish voters have overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates in recent elections. But some Jewish leaders said that Dr. El-Sayed’s views could mean that he might underperform. He has been a vocal critic of Israel, calling the country’s government “evil” and its actions in Gaza a “genocide.” He also sharply criticized a major pro-Israel super PAC that spent millions in the primary trying to boost Ms. Stevens.
Some say they are breaking ranks with their party to back Mr. Rogers, who has wasted no time courting some of the state’s roughly 130,000 Jewish residents. He campaigned with a prominent rabbi from Ann Arbor last week and has circulated a list of 344 Jewish residents in Michigan, some of them Democrats, who have pledged to support his campaign.
Stacey Gittleman, 57, a Democrat who is voting for Mr. Rogers and signed a public letter urging others to do so, said Dr. El-Sayed’s apology was insufficient and voiced concerns about growing criticism of Israel in the Democratic Party.
“Now we don’t see ourselves as valued partners in the direction that the Democratic Party is going unless we check our Zionism and support for Israel at the door,” she said.
Dr. El-Sayed’s posture toward Mr. Piker, who campaigned with him in the primary and has faced criticism for recent comments suggesting Jewish Americans could face threats over their positions on Israel, has also drawn scrutiny. Mr. Rogers has sought to make his opponent’s ties to Mr. Piker a liability, calling him Dr. El-Sayed’s “running mate.”
Dr. El-Sayed distanced himself from Mr. Piker’s remarks, saying “Americans deserve the right to advocate for what they believe without fear of violence,” and that he does not have any intention to campaign with Mr. Piker in the general election. But he has stopped short of denouncing Mr. Piker directly, as some Jewish Democrats have demanded.
“This is not a campaign that is about a Twitch streamer in California. This is about affordability in Michigan,” Dr. El-Sayed told reporters on Saturday.
In an interview last week, Mr. Piker called the G.O.P. efforts a “smear campaign” and said it was Dr. El-Sayed’s opposition to U.S. aid for Israel, not his association with Mr. Piker, that had put a target on his back.
Andy Ross, a Jewish Democratic Caucus member and volunteer who helps run the “Jews for Abdul” Facebook page, predicted that the majority of Jewish voters would support Dr. El-Sayed regardless of his views on Israel.
“He’s not Jewish, and he’s not going to say everything that some of those folks want to hear,” said Mr. Ross. “But what I think that he did is addressed those who are open-minded and fair-minded, and willing to consider him.”
Stacie Chaiken of Detroit, a Jewish voter who supports Dr. El-Sayed, said Dr. El-Sayed may face bias because of his Arab heritage and Muslim faith. His comments after the synagogue attack were “misinterpreted” by some as justification for the incident, she argued, and “maligned” by those already “inclined to distrust him.”
“There are some people, when your name is Abdulrahman El-Sayed, it will never help,” she said, adding, “It’s a shame that the Jewish community is so torn apart by things that are happening abroad, and that there is so much deep fear.”
Michigan has been at the center of tensions over the Israel-Gaza war. Muslim voters and progressive Democrats led a campaign to vote “uncommitted” in protest of then-President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s support for Israel in the 2024 Democratic primary.
At a rally in the Detroit suburbs on Monday, Vice President JD Vance met with the rabbi of Temple Israel, the synagogue that was attacked, as well as the guard who was injured there.
Calling Dr. El-Sayed “very, very evil,” Mr. Vance said voters had a chance to “reject” the “hatred” he said is on the rise in the U.S. by electing Mr. Rogers.
Rabbi Asher Lopatin, who campaigned for Mr. Rogers last week, says he has voted for Democrats his entire life. While Mr. Rogers still “has a lot of work to do also to reach out to the Jewish community and to address concerns,” he said, he feels he is the best option.
“There are many things that he’ll probably vote for that I would disagree with, but I think for the long term of the Democratic Party and for the country, we need to defeat El-Sayed,” Rabbi Lopatin said.
Ms. Clein said she felt Dr. El-Sayed’s “questioning” of the Israeli government was warranted and “necessary.” She is concerned that pro-Israel Democrats backing Mr. Rogers would help elevate a candidate who does not reflect their values on other issues.
“You’re not necessarily in love with the person that you’re voting for, right?” said Ms. Clein. “You have to be more strategic.”
The post El-Sayed Wants to Mend Ties With Jewish Democrats, but Some Are Not Impressed appeared first on New York Times.
