Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is touting Jewish support through campaign ads and videos, but the supporters he's featuring have deep ties to anti-Israel organizations that excused Hamas's October 7 massacre.
El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, released an ad on September 8 featuring Daniel Klein, a former Detroit Jews for Justice fellow, wearing a yarmulke and posing with his family. Eleven days later, on September 19, the campaign published a Rosh Hashanah video starring Missy Shifman and her daughter Elaine Shifman at the Shifman home, reading prayers from cards and praising El-Sayed's Medicare for All platform. Both pieces of content fall under a campaign initiative called "Jews for Abdul."
A Washington Free Beacon review of the supporters featured in those ads found that each has connections to Jewish Voice for Peace, a self-described "largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world", a group that, hours after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that killed roughly 1,200 Israelis, released a statement referring to Hamas terrorists as "Palestinian fighters from Gaza." That same statement accused Israel of "threatening to commit war crimes against besieged Palestinians" and blamed the "source of all this violence" on "Israeli apartheid and occupation, and United States complicity in that oppression."
The outreach effort comes as El-Sayed faces mounting skepticism from Jewish voters and mainstream Jewish Democrats in Michigan, skepticism he has done little to resolve.
Daniel Klein, the man at the center of El-Sayed's September 8 ad, is a former New York-based reporter for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency who left journalism in 2012 to become what he calls a "community organizer." He worked at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee before joining Detroit Jews for Justice in November 2018.
His own online biography on the Detroit Jews for Justice website paints a telling picture. Klein wrote that he "currently awaits trial for misdemeanor charges incurred during the Poor People's Campaign", a series of rallies against "violence, racism, environmental devastation and poverty" that used what organizers called "creative performative arrest." He added, with apparent pride, that he is "proudest of the work he's done in support of Detroit Jews for Justice."
Detroit Jews for Justice describes itself as a "social justice organization" focused on "housing justice, water rights, [and] reproductive justice." It claims that "Israel/Palestine is not a core focus of our organizing." But the group has rejected the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's widely adopted definition of antisemitism, arguing it "does not adequately address the most dangerous form of antisemitism experienced by Jewish communities in America: white supremacist terror" and fails to provide "an analysis of solidarity and intersecting oppressions."
The IHRA definition, the standard used by most Western governments to identify antisemitism, includes examples of anti-Israel rhetoric that crosses into Jew-hatred. Rejecting it is a common move among organizations that want to insulate anti-Israel activism from scrutiny.
El-Sayed's pattern of appearing alongside controversial figures and organizations extends well beyond this one ad. Detroit Jews for Justice's 2025 annual gala featured both El-Sayed and Rep. Rashida Tlaib on its host committee, with CAIR Michigan listed as a sponsor. At least two members of the group's "Political Evaluation Team" are also members of Jewish Voice for Peace.
Klein did not respond to requests for comment.
Missy and Elaine Shifman, the mother-daughter pair featured in El-Sayed's Rosh Hashanah video, filmed a separate video for Jewish Voice for Peace on July 29 expressing their support for the candidate. In that JVP video, Elaine Shifman said, "For me, being Jewish has always been closely tied to fighting for human rights and social justice for all people." Her mother added that El-Sayed "is someone who believes in the rights and freedoms of every person, no exceptions, including Palestinians."
A 2021 Jewish Telegraphic Agency profile described the Shifmans as a "family of liberal Jewish activists." Missy's sister, Pamela Shifman, serves as president of Democracy Alliance, a liberal megadonor network. The JTA profile noted that "melding Jewish expression with social justice was embedded in her upbringing in suburban Detroit."
The synagogue at the center of these connections is Congregation T'chiyah, a Reconstructionist congregation in Detroit that founded Detroit Jews for Justice. JVP encouraged its members to attend High Holidays at Congregation T'chiyah in 2025, describing it as a "very intergenerational and queer; predominantly white Ashkenazi space with anti-racist values." El-Sayed himself attended a Passover seder at the congregation during his primary campaign against pro-Israel congresswoman Haley Stevens.
Neither Missy nor Elaine Shifman responded to requests for comment.
Jewish Voice for Peace's political arm endorsed El-Sayed in June 2026. That endorsement came from an organization whose post-October 7 record would alarm most Americans, Jewish or otherwise.
Nine days after the massacre, JVP's Detroit chapter hosted a rally accusing Israel of "genocide" and "apartheid" and demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. The national organization has hosted events featuring Rasmea Odeh, a woman convicted for bombing a Jerusalem supermarket. And Elias Rodriguez, who killed two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., in 2025, had shared social media posts boosting a JVP-led anti-Israel protest in Chicago.
Barbara Weinberg Barefield, a founding member of Detroit's JVP chapter, launched "Jews for Abdul" ahead of El-Sayed's August primary against Stevens. She has publicly accused both Israel and the United States of "horrific war crimes" and "genocide," and backed the "Uncommitted" movement that called for a protest vote against former President Joe Biden.
El-Sayed's past comments about a terrorist attack on a Michigan synagogue have already drawn fire. When a man attacked Temple Israel, El-Sayed responded by saying, "I also think it's just critical for us to understand that hurt people do hurt people, and the circumstances happening 6,000 miles away can affect the lives that we live here, and if we stand against violence, we've got to stand against violence, all violence."
He later called the remark "a mistake" and issued a qualified apology: "If my statement caused pain, I'm sorry. That was not what I intended." The New York Times reported that the apology "fell short with some Jewish Democrats in part because he seemed to be seeking forgiveness for the timing of his remark rather than its substance."
El-Sayed's Jewish outreach has been rebuffed by more mainstream Jewish Democrats in Michigan, according to the Free Beacon's reporting. His relationship with Hasan Piker, a controversial Twitch streamer who has been accused of spreading antisemitism, remains a persistent liability. Fox News Digital reported that El-Sayed refused to answer directly when asked whether Piker would continue campaigning with him, even as he met with Democratic establishment figures at DSCC headquarters. El-Sayed issued a statement saying "nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople" but stopped short of fully cutting ties.
That half-measure typifies El-Sayed's approach. The Washington Examiner reported that El-Sayed had campaigned with Piker multiple times before winning the August 4 Democratic primary, then publicly said on August 26 he had "no plans" to appear with the streamer, only to reverse course and defend Piker again days later.
His half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, publicly criticized Bernie Sanders for condemning Hamas's October 7 attack, calling Hamas fighters people "fighting their oppressors," the New York Post reported. The Post also revealed that El-Sayed's mother worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency from 1999 to 2004, an organization later designated by the Treasury Department for allegedly moving funds for terrorist activities in Palestinian territories.
El-Sayed also deleted a 2021 tweet in which he mourned both September 11 victims and approximately one million lives lost in U.S. military operations on the same day. His GOP opponent, Mike Rogers, said El-Sayed "has long separated himself from Team America."
Despite these controversies, the New York Times published a September 17 headline reading "Jewish Leaders in Michigan Urge Support for El-Sayed's Senate Bid." The Free Beacon's review suggests those "leaders" come from a narrow slice of progressive Jewish activism, one closely intertwined with organizations that blamed Israel, not Hamas, for the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
National Review noted that El-Sayed's primary victory over Stevens was far tighter than pollsters had predicted, with Stevens outperforming him among rural, working-class, and Black voters in inner-city Detroit, the very constituencies El-Sayed claimed to champion. His coalition skewed more highly educated and white than his populist messaging suggested.
El-Sayed has also faced questions about resurfaced audio in which he acknowledged his healthcare plan would raise costs for the insured, contradicting his campaign trail promises.
His campaign did not respond to requests for comment from the Free Beacon.
A Senate candidate who surrounds himself with activists from organizations that raise one red flag after another, then asks voters to judge him by his words alone, is asking for a kind of trust he hasn't earned.
When the people vouching for you spent October 7 calling Hamas terrorists "Palestinian fighters," the problem isn't the ad, it's the company you keep.