With one day to go before the U.S. midterm elections, Democrats opposing President Donald Trump are hoping to win back the House of Representatives—a result that has almost always occurred in midterms—and possibly the Senate. The race is particularly contested in Michigan, where Democrat Abdul El Sayed, an epidemiologist running for office for the first time, hopes to become the first Muslim senator in U.S. history. The state’s large Jewish community, however, is divided over his candidacy.
On the final weekend before the vote, Barbara Weinburg Barefield was canvassing for the Democratic Senate candidate in a multicultural, largely working-class neighborhood of Detroit. She introduced herself as distributing information about “Dr. Abdul El Sayed,” and recorded a supportive resident’s response on a party app before moving to the next house. A longtime activist with Jewish Voice for Peace, she wore a “Women with Abdul” shirt and pins including one reading “Jews with Abdul.”
Barefield said she did not hesitate to back El Sayed. She cited his support for basic health insurance for all, his opposition to continued U.S. support for Israel and the war in the Middle East, and his focus on democracy, health care, housing and education. She argued that he would refuse to send billions of dollars that she said are used to kill people in illegal wars.
Michigan’s Jewish community numbers about 130,000 people and has generally leaned Democratic, but this year it is split over El Sayed. At Kehillat Etz Chayim, a modern Orthodox synagogue in Oak Park, Rabbi Asher Lopatin said he usually votes Democratic but announced in a recent op-ed that he would vote for Republican Mike Rogers.
Lopatin said he does not believe El Sayed is himself antisemitic, but argued that the candidate has not sufficiently denounced or distanced himself from antisemites who campaigned with him. The rabbi referred in particular to an influencer who had downplayed the October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel and with whom El Sayed no longer appears. Lopatin also criticized El Sayed for not condemning firmly enough an attack on a Detroit synagogue in March that injured one person, saying the community had been traumatized.
The report said the main pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States spent $30 million against El Sayed starting in the Democratic primary. After months of tension, his unsuccessful rival Haley Stevens announced on Sunday that she would ultimately support the Republican candidate for the Senate.
Sources: RFI.