JTA — Joel Tauber has been through many an election in his 92 years. And, with the exception of “one out of 100 times,” he’s always backed a Democrat — something even more important in the current midterm cycle, he believes.

“Winning the Senate and the House is the beginning of a way back to our democracy,” Tauber, a founding chair of Jewish Federations of North America who has hosted former US president Bill Clinton and other Democratic leaders, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It’s really, really important to me.”

But Tauber is a Michigan resident, and the state’s upcoming US Senate primary is making him deeply uneasy. Like many a Jew in the mitten state, he is pulling for pro-Israel centrist US Rep. Haley Stevens to win on August 4.

Should her opponent, former county health official and staunch Israel critic Abdul El-Sayed, prevail instead, Tauber would take a step he’s said he’s never done before: leave the Senate ballot blank.

“I’d sit it out,” he said, of the general election. Of El-Sayed, he said, “There’s no way that I could vote for him.”

Some Jewish Democratic leaders in the state are prepared to go even further. Several prominent Metro Detroit Jews who have traditionally fundraised for Democrats are also planning fundraisers for the presumptive GOP nominee, former US Rep. Mike Rogers, as a “hedge.” Others are planning to help him if El-Sayed wins the Democratic nomination, one Jew who is close to the Stevens campaign told JTA.

Others affirmed the idea that the Jewish Democratic donor class, feeling abandoned by the party, would back Rogers.

“There are leaders in our Jewish community who are longtime, lifelong Democrats and Democratic fundraisers, who are very concerned with where their party’s going,” said Dennis Bernard, national chair of government relations for the nonpartisan JFNA and a Metro Detroit resident. “And if this is the case, they’ve made it clear, both financially and with their vote, that they would support Mike Rogers in the event El-Sayed wins the primary.”

Detroit-area Jewish Democrats have asked Bernard, over golf outings, for introductions to Rogers, he said.

The reason: They see El-Sayed — who has questioned whether Israel should be a Jewish state and suggested that Democrats who support Israel only do so because of financial motives — as portending an existential threat to the national Jewish community. If he wins in a purple state, one in which pro-Israel Jews have for years butted heads with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the pro-Palestinian Democrat, some fear more candidates with similar views will follow, and lead to an unsafe environment for Jews in Michigan and beyond. They worry that increasingly hostile discourse creates an environment in which antisemitic harassment becomes more acceptable and Jewish political activism is considered suspect.

“This is a truly once-in-a-lifetime moment where you have to become a single-issue voter,” Bernard said. “And that issue is antisemitism, our Judaism and Israel. This is where you put party third: our people first, our country second.”

Left-wing congressional primary wins in New York, Colorado and other states have stoked anxiety over the Senate race here, as Michigan — also home to a large Arab/Muslim population — is morphing into a litmus test for the relationship between pro-Israel Jews and the Democratic Party. For the majority of American Jews who back liberal policies, a decades-long bond is being tested like never before.

A similar dynamic played out on a smaller scale after Zohran Mamdani, a vocal anti-Zionist, secured the Democratic nomination in New York City’s 2025 mayoral election. Then, several prominent Jewish donors backed a rival bid by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent while maintaining Democratic ties. Despite recent polling showing that 44% of American Jews hold a favorable opinion of the mayor — a higher favorability score than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — many Jewish voters still regard his anti-Israel rhetoric as disquieting.

The backlash against Israel’s handling of the war against Hamas in Gaza and growing calls to shun the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC are further straining Jewish-Democratic bonds — and, for some of the most influential of Michigan’s estimated 129,000 Jews, are on the verge of breaking them.

Another Jewish leader told JTA there was also an effort underway to convince pro-Israel Republicans to vote for Stevens in the state’s open primary, even if they decide to later vote for Rogers in the general.

“Anyone who cares about the future of the US-Israel relationship, Democrat or Republican, needs to vote for Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary,” they said, requesting anonymity because they did not want to be seen as speaking for the community. The Republican Party is currently engaged in its own tug-of-war over Israel and antisemitism, with Vice President JD Vance recently criticizing Israel while........

© The Times of Israel