Hundreds of lifelong Jewish Democrats in Michigan have crossed party lines to endorse Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers, warning that Abdul El-Sayed's campaign allies have left them feeling "threatened and alienated."
The open letter, hosted at mijewsvote.com and signed by more than 400 self-described Democratic Jewish Michiganders, represents one of the most striking defections of the 2026 cycle. Among the signatories: Rob Orley, a prominent Democratic donor and senior advisor for O2 Investments who has given tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic campaigns, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Robert Gordon, the former president of Temple Israel, Michigan's largest Jewish congregation, also signed, along with Shayna Levine, daughter of the synagogue's leading rabbi, cantor David Propis of Congregation Shaarey Zedek, former University of Michigan regent Laurence Deitch, and Weight Watchers executive Hannan Lis.
These are not casual voters. They are donors, synagogue leaders, and institutional figures who built careers inside the Democratic coalition. And they are telling their party that its Senate nominee has made them feel unsafe.
The letter does not hold back. Signatories declared they feel "threatened and alienated by the politics and allies embraced by Abdul El-Sayed." They wrote that they feared what an El-Sayed victory would mean, not just for Michigan, but for the national party.
Fox News Digital reported the letter's central warning:
"If El-Sayed were to win the general election in this important swing state, we fear the far-left and anti-Jewish elements in the Democratic Party would become dominant, including in the imminent 2028 presidential race."
The signatories added: "We cannot allow him to become the Democratic standard-bearer or Michigan's senator." They also noted, "Many of us have been fiercely supportive of Democratic candidates and principles", a line that underscores how far the break has gone.
Daniel Cherrin, an attorney who signed the letter, told Fox News Digital that his decision had nothing to do with the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC. He said he has not attended an AIPAC event since college, more than 30 years ago. Cherrin previously worked with El-Sayed in Detroit and Wayne County and called him a "good" person, but said the movement surrounding the candidate's campaign frightened him.
"I am very concerned about the movement that is behind Abdul, and for the safety of my community, I don't feel safe in that environment with the people that are standing in support of him."
Cherrin went further, describing the stakes in personal terms: "They don't understand the impact that their words and their actions is having on me and my children and my neighbors." He said Jewish Democrats across Michigan "don't feel comfortable voting for the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate and are looking for a place to channel their frustration. That should not be discounted."
Former Democratic Rep. Andy Levin, who endorsed El-Sayed in November 2025, waved off the letter. Levin, who is Jewish and was first elected to Congress in 2018 to replace his retiring father Sander Levin, told Fox News Digital the opposition was predictable and narrow.
"It's not a surprise to me. The people I know associated with it are all long-time AIPAC insiders and supporters."
Levin claimed AIPAC "represents a distinctly minority position about Israel and Palestine within the Jewish community." He has personal history with the group: AIPAC spent more than $4 million against him in the 2022 Democratic primary, which he lost to Rep. Haley Stevens. That context colors his dismissal. A man who lost his seat after AIPAC targeted him is now telling Jewish voters worried about antisemitism that their concerns are just AIPAC talking.
Cherrin's response to that framing was direct: "It's not about AIPAC for me. It is about how are we protecting the sanctity of the Jewish community in Michigan and frankly and across the country with all these other races that are out there."
Levin also addressed the controversy surrounding Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer who served as a top surrogate for El-Sayed's campaign. Piker has been described as having called Orthodox Jews inbreds and said America deserved 9/11. The Democratic National Committee invited Piker to stream during the 2024 convention, giving then-Vice President Kamala Harris an opportunity to reach his audience, though Piker ultimately did not endorse Harris over the Biden administration's policy in the Gaza war. The fractures over Harris's campaign support previewed the kind of coalition problems now facing El-Sayed.
Levin said he condemned Piker's antisemitic falsehoods about the Oct. 7 attack. But he then pivoted to accuse critics of a double standard, suggesting the scrutiny exists because El-Sayed is Muslim and Piker is of Middle Eastern descent:
"So I'm not accepting Hasan Piker, but look in the mirror, sister. When it's a guy named Abdul with a guy named Hasan, you're blowing up about it and covering it massively. When it was not an Arab American or a Muslim who campaigned with him or did whatever Kamala Harris did, literally no one asked her a single question about it."
Levin framed El-Sayed's candidacy as a historic milestone, saying it was "about d*** time that Muslims had a senator" and calling El-Sayed "a brilliant person." He acknowledged El-Sayed would not "do exactly what a Jewish person would do" but said the candidate would "be someone we could talk to."
El-Sayed said last month he had "no plans" to continue campaigning with Piker. He described people focusing on his affiliation with the streamer as "missing the boat." But a photo described in the reporting showed El-Sayed speaking poolside with Piker at a Detroit party for content creators supporting his campaign on August 3, 2026, raising questions about how clean the break really was.
His campaign spokesperson issued a careful statement to Fox News Digital: "Abdul is grateful for the good conversations he's had with Jewish leaders across Michigan, and he'll continue to be actively engaged with communities to build the coalition that will defeat Rogers, restore Democratic control of the U.S. Senate, and put a much-needed check on Trump's reckless agenda."
The statement did not address the letter's specific concerns about antisemitism or the signatories' fear that El-Sayed's allies had made Jewish life in Michigan less safe. Temple Israel, where Gordon formerly served as president, was the site of an antisemitic attack in March. Cherrin referenced "security officers guarding synagogues and temples", a reality that shapes how Jewish Michiganders weigh a candidate's associations.
Republican Mike Rogers, who served in Congress for 15 years, seized on the defections. In a statement, Rogers said: "As antisemitism rises and Jewish families worry for their safety, it's critical that we have leaders who will confront hatred, not inflame it. That's where my opponent and I couldn't be more different."
Rogers added: "Abdul El-Sayed fans the flames of antisemitism. We're fighting to extinguish it."
The Michigan Senate race could determine control of the chamber. AP News reported that El-Sayed narrowly defeated establishment-backed Stevens by less than one percentage point in the Democratic primary, overcoming more than $60 million in outside spending and opposition from major Democratic figures including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, outgoing Sen. Gary Peters, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. Sen. Bernie Sanders called El-Sayed's primary win "the most extraordinary victory that I can think of in modern American politics."
But winning a progressive primary and winning a general election in a swing state are different problems. Newsmax reported that Rogers led El-Sayed 49% to 39% in general election polling, while Stevens had been essentially tied with Rogers at 46% to 45%. A longtime Democratic operative, Joe DiSano, warned: "We're going to lose races we wouldn't lose otherwise." El-Sayed's razor-thin primary victory left the party bracing for exactly this kind of general-election vulnerability.
The coalition cracks extend beyond Jewish voters. The Washington Examiner reported that El-Sayed lost Wayne County, Michigan's most populous and heavily Black county, to Stevens by more than 17,000 votes in the primary, despite having served as the county's health director. Rogers has launched a "Democrats for Rogers" coalition featuring state Rep. Karen Whitsett, a Democrat who announced she would support the Republican in November.
Vice President JD Vance has also weighed in, attacking El-Sayed at a rally for Rogers and citing the candidate's association with Piker, Just The News reported. The broader pattern of internal Democratic warfare over the party's direction has left Senate leaders struggling to hold together a coalition that keeps splintering along ideological and demographic lines.
Not every Jewish voice in Michigan opposes El-Sayed. Roslyn Schindler, a daughter of Holocaust survivors who has lived in the metro Detroit area for 50 years and taught Holocaust studies at Wayne State University, told Fox News Digital she supported El-Sayed before his primary victory. She attends Congregation T'chiyah, a progressive Reform synagogue that touts its support for Black Lives Matter and transgender rights, the same synagogue Levin attends.
Schindler said she was "certainly not an anti-Zionist" but called herself "a committed Jew" and "a committed Democrat." She said she believed the Democratic Party "should be a large tent" that "includes all members of that party, no matter what their perspective."
But when pressed on whether the party could actually contain these competing factions, Schindler offered a revealing admission:
"Is that realistic? Probably not. Do I want those people to be part of the Democratic Party? It's not really for me to want. It is what it is. They'll either be part of it or they won't."
That is not the sound of a coalition holding together. It is the sound of a party member watching it come apart and hoping for the best. Even among Democrats calling for new leadership, few have been this candid about the fractures.
When 400 lifelong Democrats, donors, synagogue leaders, university regents, publicly endorse the Republican because their own party's nominee makes them fear for their children's safety, the problem is not AIPAC. The problem is a party that has decided its progressive wing matters more than the people it leaves behind.