17 Jewish Democrats in Michigan join campaign targeting El-Sayed — Jerusalem Post
In the United States, 17 Jewish Democrats from Michigan — elected officials, party leaders and activists — have joined the Nonnegotiable Michigan campaign. They called on Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Senate Abdul El-Sayed to publicly affirm positions on Jewish safety, Jewish identity and Israeli statehood, the Jerusalem Post reports.
Support for the campaign
Those who signed the initiative include University of Michigan Board of Regents member Mark Bernstein, state House member and founder of the Michigan Jewish Democratic Caucus Noah Arbit, former state House member Ellen Cogen Lipton, and former Keego Harbor mayor Rob Kalman. They were also joined by members of local councils, township officials, and representatives of the executive board of the Michigan Jewish Democratic Caucus.
The campaign was previously launched by rabbis, cantors and laypeople from Michigan synagogues. Its participants said that in the three weeks since its launch, they had not received a public response from El-Sayed’s campaign to the appeals of Jewish Democratic voters.
Five commitments
The initiative outlined five core commitments: recognizing the safety of Jews, including Zionist Jews, as unconditional; the right of Jews to define their own identity; support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel; the full participation of Jews in U.S. political life; and a positive vision for the future of the Middle East.
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The organizers stressed that they view the campaign as an invitation for candidates to engage in dialogue with Jewish voters, rather than as an ultimatum or an endorsement of any participant in the Senate race. At the same time, they called on El-Sayed to clearly answer whether he considers the safety of Zionist Jews unconditional and whether he seeks to dismantle Jewish sovereignty and self-governance in Israel.
Organizers’ claims
In a letter sent last week ahead of former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s visit to Michigan, the religious leaders of Nonnegotiable Michigan said that El-Sayed had not responded to their requests. They also claim that his rhetoric stigmatizes Michigan Jews, uses anti-Jewish stereotypes, and portrays Jewish political participation as something corrupt.
Last week, El-Sayed, according to the publication, avoided answering a meeting participant’s request to condemn Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and declined to comment on Iran. He told those present that the United States should not take part in regime change abroad. His campaign did not respond to the Jerusalem Post’s request for comment by the time of publication.
