{"id":269669,"date":"2026-08-30T03:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T03:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/269669\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T03:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T03:35:09","slug":"michigan-dem-senate-nominee-el-sayed-regrets-synagogue-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/269669\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Dem Senate nominee El-Sayed regrets synagogue comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michigan US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed<\/a> apologized for his past comments regarding the March attack on Temple Israel in suburban Detroit during a meeting with the state Democratic Party\u2019s Jewish caucus at the party convention on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Democratic nominee told the room that his remarks following the attempted targeting of the West Bloomfield synagogue preschool, in which he had said, in part, \u201cHurt people hurt people,\u201d were intended to provide \u201ccontext.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on them, he said on Saturday, \u201cI made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf my statement caused pain, I\u2019m sorry. It was not what I intended to do,\u201d El-Sayed continued. Referencing the first of two statements he had made about the attack, he added, \u201cWe issued a statement, of course, condemning it, and that just should have been it, full stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

El-Sayed\u2019s initial Temple Israel comments<\/a>, which many Jews interpreted as justifying the attack, have alienated Jewish voters in the state. After an initial statement condemning the attack, El-Sayed then followed up with one referencing Israel\u2019s war in Lebanon, where the attacker had lost family in an Israeli airstrike.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"USUS Senate Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed waves on stage, with vote counting continuing for Michigan’s Democratic US Senate primary, in Detroit, Michigan, US, August 5, 2026 (credit: REUTERS\/REBECCA COOK)New round of outreach efforts in vie for votes<\/p>\n

On Saturday, El-Sayed, a former county health director, insisted that his push for \u201ccontext\u201d to the attack was broadly appropriate, but not at that moment, explaining that such \u201cconversations\u201d could happen \u201cin the fullness of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes you can\u2019t really see context in the moment of acuity or pain,\u201d he said. \u201cThe intention for me was not to trample that pain. It was not to discount it. It was not at all to justify any sort of domestic terrorism. That\u2019s wrong, full stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

El-Sayed\u2019s apology, which was in response to a question posed to him by a Jewish Democrat in attendance, came amid a new round of outreach efforts he has been making with Jewish voters since he won Michigan\u2019s Democratic Senate primary earlier this month.<\/p>\n

He also plans to attend a Sunday Jewish caucus gathering honoring state Attorney General Dana Nessel with congressional nominee Jeremy Moss in attendance, both of whom the candidate has publicly been at ideological odds with over Jewish issues.<\/p>\n

In recent days, El-Sayed has also minimized some of his harsh critiques of Israel in his stump speeches and issued a statement distancing himself from onetime campaign ally Hasan Piker, the left-wing anti-Israel streamer.<\/p>\n

His nomination acceptance speech later that day made only one, oblique, reference to American support for Israel: \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that that money\u2019s going to be spent on you, and your kids, and your schools, instead of being dropped in the form of a bomb on somebody else, and their kids, and their school.\u201d<\/p>\n

But skepticism was still palpable among the 30 or so Jewish Democrats in the room, a crowd that included one delegate who said his daughter and grandson had been inside Temple Israel when it was attacked.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur safety as Jews in America relies on, I think, what\u2019s said by public figures, and how they present themselves in public, and how they advocate for Jews in public,\u201d he said just prior to El-Sayed\u2019s apology.<\/p>\n

Not all of El-Sayed\u2019s answers pleased the room. Fielding another question about whether he would support the longstanding Democratic platform of a two-state solution in the Middle East if elected senator, the candidate pivoted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incoherent to start with a solution and say, \u2018Figure out how to work here,\u2019\u201d El-Sayed said. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s about starting with a process and saying, \u2018How do we dignify equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination for Palestinian people and Jewish Israelis alike?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, as he has in other interviews, that he was open to the possibility of a two-state solution \u201cif that\u2019s what a free Palestinian and free Jewish Israeli people decide.\u201d But he qualified, \u201cOur country, under the guise of a two-state solution, has been aiding, arming, and abetting a government that wants to foreclose on the possibility of a second state.\u201d<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t sit well with some in attendance, even as El-Sayed\u2019s<\/a> apology for his other comments was broadly appreciated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI really liked him apologizing for mispeaking. We\u2019ve all made comments that we regret later on,\u201d Rebecca Kasen, a Lansing-area Michigan Jewish Democrat in attendance, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. \u201cI was less comfortable with what he said about not supporting a two-state solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, Kasen said, her opinion of El-Sayed had improved after the Jewish caucus meeting as a result of his apology.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was probably a more reluctant voter for him\u201d beforehand, she said. That had changed: \u201cInstead of just going to vote now, I am going to be enthusiastically voting for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate race a tipping point in midterm congressional makeup<\/p>\n

As the Senate race is shaping up to be the potential tipping point to decide control of the chamber in a crucial midterm year seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump, the views of the state\u2019s Jewish Democrats regarding their party have been placed under a microscope for more reasons than just El-Sayed. That has led some longtime Jewish Democratic voters to defect to the Republican opponent, former US Rep. Mike Rogers, and also led to some awkward moments at the convention.<\/p>\n

In one example, Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, the party\u2019s progressive Jewish nominee for state attorney general, addressed the Jewish caucus by declaring, \u201cWe\u2019re going to win and keep the attorney general\u2019s office in the hands of a Michigan Jewish Democrat.\u201d Conspicuously absent from the day\u2019s events was Nessel, the Jewish Democrat currently holding the seat.<\/p>\n

Prior to the Saturday convention, Nessel, the state\u2019s highest-ranking Jewish official, had announced she would not be attending for fear she would be targeted by antisemitic harassment. Earlier this week, in a podcast interview with The Atlantic, Nessel had reiterated her issues with El-Sayed\u2019s comments about Temple Israel and expressed hope he would walk them back soon.<\/p>\n

Nessel\u2019s son Zach Nessel, secretary of the state Jewish Democratic caucus, told the caucus that his mother\u2019s absence stemmed from \u201cagitators\u201d who had targeted her at the party endorsement convention in the spring. Attendance at Saturday\u2019s event was less than one-third of what the Jewish caucus had drawn at the spring convention, organizers said.<\/p>\n

Zach Nessel criticized the state Democratic Party<\/a> for failing to take prompt action to remove the agitators from the earlier convention. He told JTA that Jews in the party \u201chave a right to be concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the Democratic Party needs to put more work into addressing their concerns,\u201d Zach Nessel said. \u201cBut I think that can\u2019t happen without showing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moss, the Michigan state senator who has recently been at the center of another El-Sayed-related controversy, was spotted at the convention on Saturday but did not attend the Jewish caucus events.<\/p>\n

One ally of El-Sayed\u2019s who also addressed the caucus is University of Michigan Board of Regents nominee Amir Makled. He is an attorney for members of the school\u2019s pro-Palestinian encampment movement who had pushed out a Jewish pro-Israel incumbent at the previous convention. During his own address to Jewish delegates, Makled did not mention his history of social media posts, including retweeting far-right antisemitic conspiracy theorist Candace Owens and sharing praise for Hezbollah leaders.<\/p>\n

Makled\u2019s speech later that day at the nominating convention alluded to his work with the encampments as he declared that Michigan \u201cwill never have a university where students are punished simply because their speech makes the powerful uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

In between candidate meet-and-greets, Jewish caucus members shared their anxieties about their closely scrutinized role in the midterm elections. They were gravely concerned about protecting democracy and election security from Republican threats, and felt that flipping the Senate was crucial.<\/p>\n

Yet it was hard, they said, to get much of the Jewish community on board this time, given the positions of El-Sayed and some other members of the Democratic slate. Michigan is home to an estimated 100,000 Jews, and the Senate race is currently polling in a dead heat, making their votes potentially pivotal.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we unify our community to put the country first?\u201d one attendee asked the group. \u201cI have a hard time doing that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michigan US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed apologized for his past comments regarding the March attack on Temple Israel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[22474,2492,1275,5143,1303,37,13827,1289,1992],"class_list":["post-269669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-abdul-el-sayed","tag-antisemitism","tag-democrats","tag-diaspora","tag-elections","tag-israel","tag-jewish","tag-senate","tag-us-senate"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117182367500333649","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}