Two hundred Jewish leaders, rabbis, academics, and community activists are pressing the Michigan Democratic Party to guarantee the safety of Jewish delegates at its upcoming state convention after Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel declared she does not feel safe attending and accused her own party of failing to confront antisemitism.
In an Aug. 10 letter to Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Curtis Hertel Jr., obtained by The Ari Hoffman Show, the signatories urged party leadership to take all necessary steps to protect Nessel and other Jewish delegates at the Aug. 29 convention. According to The Post Millennial, the letter reflects growing alarm within the Jewish community that the partys internal climate has become openly hostile to Jews who refuse to bend to the hard-left, anti-Israel faction now exerting outsized influence in Democratic politics.
The controversy has intensified as Nessel, Michigan's first Jewish official elected to statewide executive office, has sharpened her criticism of the state partys handling of antisemitism. Asked Monday whether the Michigan Democratic Party was doing enough to address the issue, Nessel responded, Absolutely, they're not, according to the New York Post.
Myself and other Jewish electeds are subjected to a barrage of antisemitic threats, Nessel said, underscoring that the problem is not abstract but personal and persistent. Her comments highlight a striking reality: a Democratic attorney general, long aligned with progressive causes, now publicly charging her own party with failing to protect its Jewish members from bigotry and intimidation.
Nessel has already announced she will skip the convention because she fears being targeted by activists who have turned party gatherings into hostile spaces for pro-Israel or even openly Jewish officials. I don't feel safe going. I feel like my presence isn't going to be welcome. I don't want to get chased around. I don't want to get harassed. I don't want to get yelled and screamed at. I don't want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I'm saying, Nessel said during an antisemitism roundtable.
And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it's been happening to me, she added, describing a pattern of harassment that would be unthinkable if directed at almost any other minority group within the Democratic coalition. Her decision to stay away from her own partys convention underscores how far the internal culture has shifted under pressure from radical anti-Israel activists who increasingly equate Jewish identity with political sin.
Nessel further revealed that she had filed a formal complaint within the Michigan Democratic Party after a party official allegedly called her a neo-Nazi over her political views, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Why is this person more accepted in our party than me? Nessel asked, without identifying the official.
That question cuts to the heart of the crisis: a Democratic attorney general, Jewish and progressive, is asking why an individual who smears her as a neo-Nazi appears to enjoy greater standing in the party than she does. For many conservatives, this episode illustrates how the lefts identity politics collapses when Jews refuse to conform to the most extreme anti-Israel orthodoxy, leaving them exposed to slurs that would be career-ending if directed at any other protected group.
Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said concerns extend beyond Nessel and her personal security. Shes not alone, Soifer told JTA.
Soifer noted that other Jewish Democrats who attended a Michigan Democratic convention earlier this year reported feeling uncomfortable amid pro-Palestinian demonstrations that, for some participants, appeared to cross into antisemitic sentiment. That blurring of lines between political protest and ethnic or religious hatred has become a hallmark of the postOctober 7 left, where anti-Zionism often serves as a convenient fig leaf for open hostility toward Jews.
Those concerns follow turmoil at the Michigan Democratic Party's endorsement convention in April, where attendees booed Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens, a vocal supporter of Israel. Then-Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow also said an attendee targeted her Jewish husband with an antisemitic slur.
These incidents reveal a pattern, not a one-off outburst, suggesting that the partys activist base is increasingly comfortable shaming and silencing Jewish officials who do not toe the anti-Israel line. For a party that routinely lectures the country on tolerance and inclusion, the spectacle of Jewish Democrats being booed and slurred at their own convention is politically and morally damning.
Nessel has also pointed to five people federally indicted in June over an alleged conspiracy involving threats and harassment targeting the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit and Democratic officials, some of whom are Jewish. She said the defendants are Michigan Democratic Party members who remain eligible to attend the convention while the charges are pending.
Those people are still permitted to come to the convention, Nessel told MS NOW. And it's just baffling to me that while these charges are pending, they're going to be allowed to be there despite, you know, these credible charges against them.
Nessel has called on the party to enforce a code of conduct preventing activists from harassing attendees or booing speakers off the stage. We should all have the opportunity to be heard, she said.
The 200 Jewish leaders who signed Monday's letter are now demanding the party go further by issuing an explicit public warning that harassment of Jewish attendees could trigger law enforcement action. We believe you need to make it clear, publicly, that anyone who chases, screams at, or otherwise harasses Jews at your convention will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, the letter states.
Antisemitic harassment is un-American and contrary to the core values of the Democratic Party, the signatories wrote. Moreover, it will set a terrible precedent. If Jewsincluding the highest-ranking Jewish state official in Michiganare intimidated into staying away from your convention, it will not stop there.
Signatories include the president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis as well as current and former presidents of the Rabbinical Council of America, Central Conference of American Rabbis and Rabbinical Assembly, according to organizers. The list also includes prominent academics and former senior officials of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, underscoring that this is not a fringe complaint but a broad-based alarm from serious Jewish institutions.
The petition was organized by Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and Touro University professor Thane Rosenbaum, an author and constitutional scholar. Their involvement signals that, for many in the Jewish community, the Michigan Democratic Partys internal culture is now being viewed through the lens of historical lessons about how unchecked hostility toward Jews can escalate when institutions fail to act.
Hertel previously said the party was appalled by allegations contained in the federal indictment and condemned all acts of hatred and violence. A Michigan Democratic Party spokesperson also told the New York Post that the party is committed to ensuring party-hosted events are safe and secure environments for all attendees and rejects antisemitism, Islamophobia and other hateful conduct.
The Jewish leaders ended their letter by invoking anti-Israel demonstrators who chanted outside a New York City synagogue last year, We need to make them scared! Is that threat succeeding? they asked. The treatment of Jews at the Michigan Democratic Convention will be a test.
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