Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed has attempted to address mounting concerns from Jewish voters by rolling out ads and social media videos touting "Jews for Abdul." Featured in the spots are three left-wing "social justice" activists with ties to an anti-Israel group that excused Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack, arguing it was a result of "Israeli apartheid and occupation."
A September 8 El-Sayed ad features former Detroit Jews for Justice "Culture and Technology Fellow" Daniel Klein, who sports a yarmulke and poses with his family as El-Sayed says he'll "be thinking about the people here" in Michigan, a Washington Free Beacon review found.
Klein is a former New York-based reporter for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency who covered the role of "left-wing Jewish activists" in the Occupy Wall Street protests. He left journalism in 2012 to become a "community organizer," and after a stint at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he joined Detroit Jews for Justice—a self-described "social justice organization" that advocates "for housing justice, water rights, [and] reproductive justice"—in November 2018. Months earlier, Klein was arrested at the Michigan Poor People's Campaign, a series of rallies against "violence, racism, environmental devastation and poverty" that "leverag[ed] the age-old tactic of creative performative arrest" to "shed light on these injustices."
"Dan Klein is a former national reporter, and has worked as a field organizer for congressional and city of Chicago elections—yet, he's proudest of the work he’s done in support of Detroit Jews for Justice," Klein's online bio stated at the time. "He currently awaits trial for misdemeanor charges incurred during the Poor People's Campaign. He has a kitten named Kovner."
Less than two weeks later, on September 19, El-Sayed released a Rosh Hashanah video filmed at the home of mother-daughter duo Missy and Elaine Shifman, who read prayers from a card and praised El-Sayed's single-payer Medicare for All health care platform. The Shifmans are a "family of liberal Jewish activists," according to a 2021 Jewish Telegraphic Agency profile of Missy's sister Pamela Shifman, who serves as president of the shadowy liberal megadonor group Democracy Alliance. "Melding Jewish expression with social justice was embedded in her upbringing in suburban Detroit," the piece notes.
That activism includes opposition to the state of Israel. Missy and Elaine Shifman appear to be members of the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace, having filmed a July 29 video for JVP expressing their support for El-Sayed. "For me, being Jewish has always been closely tied to fighting for human rights and social justice for all people," Elaine says in the video. "Abdul … is someone who believes in the rights and freedoms of every person, no exceptions, including Palestinians," adds Missy.
JVP, the self-described "largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world," has long demonized the Jewish state, most notably in the wake of October 7, when it released a statement hours after the attack that referred to Hamas terrorists as "Palestinian fighters from Gaza," accused Israel of "threatening to commit war crimes against besieged Palestinians," and said the "source of all this violence" was "Israeli apartheid and occupation—and United States complicity in that oppression." JVP also hosted an event featuring Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted for bombing a Jerusalem supermarket. The terrorist who assassinated two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., in 2025, Elias Rodriguez, shared social media posts boosting a JVP-led anti-Israel protest in Chicago.
While it's unclear whether Klein is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, the group has close connections to Detroit Jews for Justice. JVP encouraged its members to attend the 2025 High Holidays at the Reconstructionist synagogue that founded Detroit Jews for Justice, Congregation T'chiyah, which JVP described as "very intergenerational and queer; predominantly white Ashkenazi space with anti-racist values." At least two of the group's "Political Evaluation Team," which "helps DJJ to navigate political decisions in our work," are members of JVP. Congregation T'chiyah hosted El-Sayed at its passover seder during his primary campaign against pro-Israel congresswoman Haley Stevens.
The liberal activist backgrounds of El-Sayed's on-camera Jewish supporters suggests the Democrat's push to win over Jewish voters—one that has generated national headlines like the New York Times's "Jewish Leaders in Michigan Urge Support for El-Sayed's Senate Bid"—is limited to the sort of anti-Israel partisans to whom El-Sayed already appeals.
"Jews for Abdul" was launched ahead of El-Sayed's August primary against Stevens by Barbara Weinberg Barefield, a founding member of Detroit's JVP chapter, which hosted a rally accusing Israel of "genocide" and "apartheid" and demanding a ceasefire in Gaza nine days after October 7. Barefield herself has said Israel and the United States are guilty of "horrific war crimes" and "genocide." Weinberg Barefield, like El-Sayed, also backed the "Uncommitted" movement that called for a protest vote against former president Joe Biden for being insufficiently anti-Israel. JVP's political arm endorsed El-Sayed in June.
Detroit Jews for Justice, by contrast, says "Israel/Palestine is not a core focus of our organizing" and advocates for "co-liberation," which it says consists of "a shared stake in dismantling all systems of oppression." The group nonetheless issued a statement opposing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's antisemitism definition, which it argued "does not adequately address the most dangerous form of antisemitism experienced by Jewish communities in America: white supremacist terror" and fails to provide "an analysis of solidarity and intersecting oppressions." Last year, Detroit Jews for Justice's annual gala featured El-Sayed and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) on its host committee and the pro-Hamas group CAIR Michigan as one of its sponsors.
Michigan's more mainstream Jewish Democrats have balked at El-Sayed's outreach. At issue is El-Sayed's relationship with the antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker as well as his response to the terrorist who attacked Michigan's Temple Israel synagogue after his brother, a Hezbollah commander, died in an Israeli strike.
"I also think it's just critical for us to understand that hurt people do hurt people, and the circumstances happening 6,000 miles away can affect the lives that we live here, and if we stand against violence, we've got to stand against violence, all violence," El-Sayed said of the attack.
He recently called the comment "a mistake" and issued a tepid apology, saying, "If my statement caused pain, I'm sorry. That was not what I intended." The apology "fell short with some Jewish Democrats in part because he seemed to be seeking forgiveness for the timing of his remark rather than its substance," the Times reported.
El-Sayed, Klein, and Missy and Elaine Shifman did not respond to requests for comment.
