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Addressing deep intra-party divides over Israel ahead of the general election, Michigan’s Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel urged a private gathering of Jewish Democrats to place the needs of “the rest of humanity” above their own “safety and security.”
Nessel, Michigan’s top law enforcement officer who is also Jewish, made the remarks during an Aug. 30 event in Birmingham hosted by the Michigan Democratic Party’s Jewish Caucus, where members of the press were barred. According to a video recording reviewed by The Detroit News, Nessel invoked the story of Queen Esther to argue that Jewish Democrats have a “moral imperative to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest,” urging attendees to “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.”
The comments highlight a boiling point for Democrats in crucial battleground Michigan, where many Jewish voters report feeling forced to choose between their faith and their party amid rising anti-Israel rhetoric from progressive, far-left candidates.
The private gathering was attended by Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed—a vocal critic of Israel and U.S. military aid to the Jewish state—who used the event to publicly apologize to the Jewish Caucus for past controversial comments. Notably, Nessel has publicly stated she will not vote for Republican Mike Rogers in the tight Senate race, but has thus far withheld her endorsement from El-Sayed over concerns regarding his stance on Israel.
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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel addresses the Michigan Democratic Party People’s Town Hall in Warren, Mich., on March 29, 2025. (REUTERS)
During the speech, Nessel explicitly weighed the survival of Israel against global crises, including questioning the value of protecting the Jewish state if climate change goes unaddressed.
“What good is defending the historic homeland of our ancestors and demanding that candidates acknowledge its right to exist if the planet upon which it rests is no longer inhabitable?” Nessel asked, according to the recording reviewed by The Detroit News. She went on to characterize supporting former President Donald Trump as an “abdication of our responsibilities as Jews,” arguing that Jewish tradition demands “compassionate action toward others” over what she called “blind obedience to the world’s biggest and most dangerous fool.”
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While Nessel acknowledged the frustration in the room—noting that arguments equating Zionism to racism are often made “by people whose entire understanding of Jewish-Israeli history fits neatly into a 47-second TikTok produced by Qatar or Iran”—she also argued that the GOP and its loyalty to Trump poses a great threat and blasted Republicans for focusing on cultural issues like “transgender girls playing JV volleyball” instead of issues like wealth inequality and artificial intelligence.
Fox News Digital reached out to Nessel’s office to ask for more details about the intended effect of her remarks, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
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U.S. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel speaks at rally on October 16, 2022 in East Lansing, Michigan. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
“Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel reportedly told Michigan Jewish Democrats to channel Queen Esther and prioritize the survival of ‘the world’ over their own self-interest,” Hen Mazzig, author and senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute, which describes itself as “an emerging media innovation lab” aimed at countering antisemitism and “changing” how people think about Jews and Israel, said.
“I am a gay man and lifelong liberal,” Mazzig continued. “I understand why many American Jews care so deeply about the Democratic Party. But Esther risked her own safety for the Jewish people’s survival, she didn’t risk them to save others. Using her story this way is not accurate or helpful.”
Meanwhile, George Mason University constitutional law professor, David Bernstein, offered a more pointed criticism of the reported remarks.
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“You may have thought I was exaggerating when I tweeted last week about how a segment of the American Jewish community is suicidal. The real news here is not that Nessel said this, but that she thinks it’s a viable pitch to at least a large segment of an audience of Jewish Democrats,” Bernstein said, adding that Nessel’s comments reminded him of “Jewish Stalinists who stayed with Stalin through the pact with Hitler, and then through the antisemitic purges of the late 1940s, because they believed that absorbing this stuff was the price Jews needed to pay for a better world.”
Nessel, who skipped the recent Michigan Democratic Party convention due to safety concerns, has become a prominent voice amid Michigan’s crucial Senate race.
Fox News Digital reported last week that during an appearance on The Atlantic’s “David Frum Show,” Nessel accused the Democratic Party of not valuing its Jewish constituents and making them feel less welcome than members of other minority groups. She also argued that Jewish Democrats have felt ostracized by their own party since the attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and accused leadership of cherry-picking issues that are relevant to supporters.
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Nessel added that if faced with the choice, she would choose her Jewish heritage over her party affiliation. She also criticized some of El-Sayed’s past rhetoric about Israel and his refusal to retract certain comments prior to his apology to Jewish Dems in Michigan at the Aug. 30 private confab.
Fox News Digital’s Julia Bonavita contributed to this report