Michigan attorney general raises eyebrows for telling Jews to ‘sacrifice’ safety
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel faced criticism after suggesting that Jews have a moral obligation to sacrifice thier safety for the greater good,citing the biblical story of Queen Esther to encourage them to accept risk for the benefit of others. Her comments, made during a private speech to the Michigan Democratic Party’s Jewish Caucus, sparked outrage among Jewish critics and fellow Democrats, who emphasized that Jewish safety and survival should never be negotiable. critics argued that her remarks appeared to cave to antisemitic pressures within her party and accused her of appeasing “the mob.” nessel’s stance drew strong responses from Jewish leaders like menachem Rosensaft and influencer Hen mazzig, who condemned plans to use Jewish safety as a political bargaining chip and clarified the story of Esther was misrepresented.Nessel, a Jewish Democrat, previously avoided attending party events citing safety concerns amidst rising antisemitism. The controversy highlighted intra-party tensions over issues related to Israel and antisemitism, with many feeling forced to choose between their faith and political allegiance.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel suggested over the weekend Jews should sacrifice their safety for the greater good, triggering backlash from critics who said she caved to the “mob” of antisemites in her party.
On Sunday, Nessel told the Michigan Democratic Party’s Jewish Caucus that Jews have a “moral imperative to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest,” according to a video recording obtained by the Detroit News. She cited the Biblical narrative of Queen Esther as she urged them 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.”
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Her comments stoked outrage from fellow Jewish Democrats, including Menachem Rosensaft, the child of Holocaust survivors, who became a prominent New York attorney and teaches at Columbia Law School. Rosensaft said that “no group’s safety and no people’s survival should ever be turned into a pragmatic political bargaining chip,” in an op-ed for eJewishPhilanthropy.
“Let’s be clear: Jewish safety is not and can never be negotiable or sacrificed for any reason. Jewish survival even less so,” he wrote. “This is not and should not be a Jewish issue. Can you imagine the outrage if anyone suggested that Black survival, or Muslim survival, or any other group’s survival, should be put at risk?”
Nessel is a Jewish Democrat. She said last month that she would not be attending the states’ Democratic nominating convention in August because she did not “feel safe,” due to concerns about rising antisemitism and anti-Israel activism within the party.
The senior editor of one of the country’s most influential Jewish publications said on Monday that Nessel chose to appease “the mob” in her latest statement, telling Jews to “sacrifice” their “self-interests,” because she was afraid.
“The baldly anti-Jewish campaign against Nessel was aimed at pressuring her to drop the charges against the pro-Hamas activists. Eventually, Nessel relented and gave in to the mob,” Commentary Magazine’s Seth Mandel wrote. “In other words: Democratic Party anti-Semitism is real, but her fellow Jews should suck it up and, if necessary, offer themselves as human sacrifices to their pursuers.”
Hen Mazzig, a popular Jewish political influencer in the U.S., also said he was a “lifelong liberal” but criticized Nessel for her remarks, saying she took the Old Testament narrative of Esther out of context.
“I understand why many American Jews care so deeply about the Democratic Party,” he wrote in a post to X. “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.”
Nessel made the remarks during a private speech in Birmingham, where she was honored by the Jewish caucus.
She acknowledged during the speech the tensions many Jews are feeling in Michigan, as Democratic Senate nominee Abdul el Sayed, who was also at the event, gains traction in the state. Nessel has avoided endorsing el Sayed, a harsh critic of Israel, as centrists in both the Republican and Democratic Parties have raised concerns over his alliance with Hasan Piker, someone they view as antisemitic due to comments he made framing Hamas as a critical part of the “Palestinian resistance” in Gaza, repeated denials or downplaying of sweeping sexual violence against Jews in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack, saying he “would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time.”
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“Come November, what do your Jewish values tell you to do?” Nessel said. “It’s so easy to hate people right now, especially other Democrats who seem to have thrown us under the bus, despite our lifelong contributions to our party.”
Many Jewish Democrats feel they “must choose between our faith and our party,” she added, slamming arguments being made that Zionism equates to racism or fascism “by people whose entire understanding of Jewish-Israeli history fits neatly into a 47-second TikTok produced by Qatar or Iran.”
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