In the days after the Michigan Democratic primary for Senate, Rabbi Asher Lopatin, director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, hadn’t made up his mind if he would vote for former congressman Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee, or for the Democrat, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, former Detroit health director.
“I’m going to vote for Mike Rogers,” the Orthodox rabbi, who typically votes Democrat, told JNS on Tuesday.
Lopatin, who made clear that he was speaking personally, and not issuing a Federation endorsement, said that he has “concerns, but I have to do whatever I can to make sure this candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, does not win.”
A Fox News poll conducted Aug. 6-10 had Rogers leading El-Sayed by four percentage points.
“The bulk of the Jewish community is struggling,” Lopatin told JNS. “People are really speaking very honestly about things, and they’re consulting with people. This is a reasonable struggle. People are having serious conversations.”
Lopatin noted that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish and who has said that his family name refers to being the Jewish “guardian,” endorsed El-Sayed. The latter has said that Israel is as evil as Hamas, among other antisemitic statements. The Republican Jewish Coalition called him “the most antisemitic U.S. Senate candidate in America.”
“Schumer calls himself the ‘Shomer Yisrael,’ the ‘Guardian of Israel,’ so it is doubly disappointing,” Lopatin told JNS. “The most powerful Jew in the Senate, who sees himself as a defender of Jews.”
“It’s sad,” Lopatin said.
The rabbi wanted Schumer to “at the very least” say that he had concerns with El-Sayed.
Lopatin told JNS that he’s “sympathetic” to Democrats, who prioritize winning the Senate and fighting the Trump administration, but “someone like Abdul El-Sayed is unacceptable.”
“Abdul winning would be a disaster for the Democratic party,” he said. “If you care about a strong Democratic party for the next 10, 20, 30 years, vote against Abdul.”
Democrats should ask El-Sayed to “recognize the State of Israel as a legitimate sovereign nation and not cavort with Hasan Piker, a known antisemite,” Lopatin told JNS. “There should be a long list of things that concern them about him. They could still say, ‘but we endorse him.’”
JNS asked Lopatin what, if anything, El-Sayed could do to gain his vote.
The nominee could recognize Israel’s legitimacy and apologize for his use of “language that some could see as antisemitic,” Lopatin said.
Black voters in Michigan overwhelmingly voted for Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) instead of El-Sayed, the rabbi told JNS. He hopes that the black-Jewish coalition will “hold together” in the general election.
“We’ll work on things,” he said.
He noted that the two communities voted together in the primary. “I’m more hopeful now than I was in the past,” he told JNS. “Hopefully this is not a bitter thing that will split every community from each other.”
