Dana Nessel’s Argument That Queen Esther Would Have Supported Abdul El-Sayed Could Signal Democratic Capitulation

The declaration by Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, that the story of Queen Esther bolsters supporting Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate candidacy is a stunning invocation of the Bible’s celebrated heroine in service of a politician some see as a trafficker in antisemitism.Those comments were made behind closed doors on Sunday to the Michigan Democratic Party’s Jewish Caucus, who were honoring Ms. Nessel. A video, though, was viewed by the Detroit News. Ms. Nessel, who is Jewish, has emerged as one of her party’s most outspoken voices on the Democrats’ leftward lurch on Israel, and the rising antisemitism some see as overtaking the party.Earlier this month, Ms. Nessel, to whom the Sun reached out to for comment, explained why she would not attend her state’s Democratic convention, reasoning that “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.”Ms. Nessel, who is also the first gay person elected to statewide office in Michigan, also declared this month that “I was Jewish before I was ever a member of the Democratic Party, and if I have to, I’ll be Jewish afterwards, too.” Those remarks came in the wake of Dr. El-Sayed’s defeat of a more centrist state and pro-Israel lawmaker, Haley Stevens, in the Wolverine State’s Democratic primary for Senate. Ms. Stevens was backed by AIPAC, while Dr. El-Sayed accuses Israel of genocide and campaigned with the antisemitic podcatser Hasan Piker, and declares that he “struggles” with the notion of a single Jewish state. In recent days Dr. El-Sayed, who will face the Republican Mike Rogers in November’s general election, has expressed regret over comments he made after a shooting and vehicle-ramming terrorist attack on Temple Israel, a synagogue at a suburb of Detroit that houses a pre-school. Dr. El-Sayed initially reasoned that “hurt people hurt people.” On Sunday he explained that it “was not at all to justify any sort of domestic terrorism.” The suspect in the incident had familial ties to Hezbollah. All the more puzzling that Ms. Nessel, who has not issued an endorsement, appeared to tell Michigan’s Jewish Democrats in the closed-door session on Sunday that Queen Esther’s story, as told in the Biblical book that bears her name, appears to point toward supporting Dr. El-Sayed. “It is perhaps up to us now,” she said, “to follow in her path and 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.” Ms. Nessel asked “What good is defending the historic homeland of our ancestors and demanding that candidates acknowledge its right to exist if the planet upon which it rests is no longer inhabitable?” She acknowledges that many Jewish Democrats feel as if they “must choose between our faith and our party.” She maintains, though, that to exhibit “selfishness and blind obedience to the world’s biggest and most dangerous fool” — President Trump — “is a direct abdication of our responsibilities as Jews whose traditions demand a profound obligation to the world and compassionate action toward others.” A plain reading of the Book of Esther — called the “Scroll of Esther” in the original Hebrew — suggests that Ms. Nessel has misinterpreted the lesson of the 2,000 year old tale. Read twice every year on the Jewish holiday of Purim, the story transpires in the dangerous and glamorous court of King Ahaseurus, the ruler of ancient Persia. Esther rises to become his queen, though she hides her Jewishness on the counsel of her uncle Mordechai. She does not compromise the “very future of her people” — she secures it for posterity. Mordechai comes to learn of a genocidal plot to exterminate the Jews being hatched by the vizier Haman, who tells the king of a certain “people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from those of every people; neither keep they the king’s laws; therefore it profiteth not the king to suffer them.”The task of disrupting the plot falls to Esther, who is told by Mordechai that if she does not risk the king’s wrath, “then will relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but thou and thy father’s house will perish; and who knoweth whether thou art not come to royal estate for such a time as this?” Esther screws her courage and declares that “if I perish, I perish.” She does not, and the Jews are saved. As Rabbi Avi Shafran explains in these pages, Jewish tradition teaches that Esther’s son with Ahaseurus , King Darius II, allows the “Jewish people to resume construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.” Some Jewish Democrats in Michigan are making a different choice, choosing to support Mr. Rogers. Ms. Nessel’s comments appear to signal that she will not join them, and will instead capitulate to the nominee. The race, which could decide control of the Senate, appears close, with a poll published on Monday showing Dr. El-Sayed with a four point lead.

Dana Nessel’s Argument That Queen Esther Would Have Supported Abdul El-Sayed Could Signal Democratic Capitulation

Dana Nessel’s Argument That Queen Esther Would Have Supported Abdul El-Sayed Could Signal Democratic Capitulation

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