Dana Nessel, the Michigan attorney general, misunderstood the biblical story of Queen Esther when she told fellow Jewish Democrats in the state on Sunday that the lesson of the Purim holiday text was that they have a “moral imperative” to prioritize the “needs of the world” over “even our own survival.”
Jewish Democrats have to follow the lead of the biblical queen, who endangered herself to save Persia’s Jews, and “sacrifice the comfort, safety and security and even the very future of our own people in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity,” Nessel said at the event.
Rabbi Steven Burg, CEO of Aish and an Orthodox rabbi, told JNS that the Michigan attorney general’s comments were likely well-intentioned but “were not accurate to the story.”
“The story was one of saving the Jewish people and standing up to one of the world’s largest antisemites, who was trying to use political machinations to destroy us,” he said. “That’s what we need to learn from this. We need to keep the Jewish people and Israel safe, and then we can go out and build the world into an incredible place, as Jews traditionally have always done.”
Nessel skipped the Michigan Democratic convention and cited Jew-hatred. She was honored at the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus annual “Summer Simcha” event, where Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Democratic nominee for Senate in the state, was also a speaker. (JNS sought comment from Nessel’s office.)
El-Sayed, whom the Republican Jewish Coalition called “the most antisemitic U.S. Senate candidate in America,” recently apologized for saying, shortly after an attack on a Michigan synagogue, that “hurt people hurt people.”
Burg told JNS that he appreciates Nessel’s “sacrifice, in terms of how she’s been treated because of her Judaism.”
But the Jewish attorney general delivered “the wrong lesson about the story of Esther,” according to the rabbi.
“Esther was a woman who sacrificed her life to save the Jewish people,” he told JNS. “The Jewish people have a very big role in the world. Our role is to be a ‘light unto the nations.’ But that can only happen if we’re safe and secure.”
“If we have the ability to live our lives,” he said. “The bottom line is, people do great things in the world, but everyone knows that first and foremost, you take care of your family, and then your family can go out and do great things.”
Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin, director of education at NCSY, the Orthodox Union’s youth wing, and a clinical assistant professor of Jewish values at Yeshiva University’s business school, told JNS that “she got the interpretation completely wrong.”
“The verse that most people talk about is this verse that comes up in the fourth chapter of Esther, the 14th verse,” he said. “Esther is told, ‘If you are silent in this moment, there’s going to be help that comes from elsewhere, and they’ll be lost. And who knows if it was not for this moment that you ascended to be the queen.’”
“Esther is being told the opposite of what she said,” Bashevkin told JNS, of Nessel’s interpretation.
“The Jewish people are eternal. This is a promise we are given way before the story of Esther. The eternity of the Jewish people is guaranteed,” the rabbi said. “We are going to get through this. We are going to get through whatever struggle is in front of the Jewish people. They will get through it.”
The question that Esther’s relative Mordecai poses to her, via intermediary, is “are you going to bind yourself with the eternal story of the Jewish people, or are you just going to look out for you as an individual?” Bashevkin said.
Nessel said, meanwhile, “to set aside your Jewish concerns and focus on the things we need to get across in Congress,” he told JNS. “Esther is being told the exact opposite: ‘We will survive. Are you going to be a part of that story?’”
When Jews are “under siege throughout the world since Oct. 7, and it has only gotten worse politically, this is a question every Jew is asked,” Bashevkin said. “There are a lot of people speaking up for a whole lot of other issues in this broken country, but I think for the Jewish people, now is the moment.”
Nessel’s remarks follow similar statements from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who endorsed El-Sayed and who has referred to himself often as the Jewish people’s shomer, or “guardian,” and Christine Quinn, chair of the New York Democratic Party. Quinn previously told JNS that the party should unite with anti-Israel Democratic Socialists of America nominees running as Democrats to “take out Republicans.”
Burg, the Aish CEO, told JNS that “the Jewish people are not just a nation, not just a religion and certainly not just a race.”
“We come in all different colors, but we are family and you need to protect your family,” the rabbi said. The lesson of the Book of Esther, he said, is that Jews must protect one another “against people that are evildoers.”
“Haman wasn’t just a bad guy,” Burg told JNS. “Haman was a political operative. He was the number two person to the king. Achashverosh was OK killing Jews. He was OK saving the Jews, whatever was politically good for him.”
But Haman, who escalated a personal feud with Mordecai, “specifically wanted to create death and destruction, so he acted politically like he was on board with people, and then behind the scenes he would work to get them killed.”
Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, is an example of someone who “will say he’s there for everyone,” but “we see him doing terrible things, and antisemitic things against the Jewish people,” according to Burg.
“There are other politicians who feel the same way. Since Oct. 7, we really see who our friends are, and who our friends aren’t,” the rabbi told JNS. “Sen. John Fetterman has risen as the greatest friend of the Jewish people and Israel, and then you see other people stand to the side and stay silent.”
El-Sayed, the former Detroit medical director, is “literally born into the model of Haman,” according to Burg.
“He’s against America selling defensive weapons to the Jewish people, which means that if Iran, the worldwide global sponsor of terror, wakes up one day and decides to bomb Israelis and to kill women and children, he is against Israel being able to defend itself,” the rabbi told JNS.
“That is exactly who Haman is—someone who is on the one hand trying to act like they’re your friend and on the other hand trying to kill you behind the scenes,” he said.
Ultimately, Burg is optimistic about Jews weathering current storms, as they did in the time of Mordecai and Esther.
“We know in the end they don’t succeed,” he told JNS.
