For many Jewish Michigan voters, El-Sayed’s ‘justification’ for synagogue attack ‘unforgivable’

SOUTHFIELD, Michigan — Jordan Acker is an elected official with the Democratic Party in Michigan, but as of last week he was undecided on who he would vote for in today’s Senate election between fellow party member Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers.

The Jewish member of the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents did end up reaching a decision, but he declines to share how he cast his ballot, citing the election’s extreme divisiveness.

“This election has been enormously painful for Michigan’s Jewish community. We’ve been divided in lots of different pieces by lots of different candidates,” says Acker in an interview from his law office outside of Detroit, noting that a majority of the state’s Jews are Democrats and that those voters largely did not back El-Sayed in the primary.

The most decisive factor in their decision-making was El-Sayed’s response to a terror attack on a nearby synagogue earlier this year.

El-Sayed issued a statement in which he said that there could be no justification for the targeting of Temple Israel, but went on to explain that “hurt people hurt people.”

The progressive Democrat eventually apologized for the remark, but largely for its timing, as opposed to its substance.

So while the Jewish community in Michigan overwhelmingly came out in support of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris two years ago, Acker expected a much more even split in today’s Senate race.

“For a lot of Jewish Michiganders, ‘Hurt people hurt people’ was an unforgivable way to talk about us,” he says.