The Democratic Party is actively harming Jews. Its candidates and progressive factions accuse Jews and Israel of genocide, relativize or excuse the October 7 massacre, deny Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and foster an atmosphere of antisemitic harassment so severe that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel herself skipped her party’s convention out of fear for her safety. Nessel sees these realities. She acknowledges party members who seek the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and place the Jewish diaspora in jeopardy. Yet she tells Jews to suck it up.
Speaking to Jewish Democrats, she declared they have “a moral imperative to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest and, yes, even our own survival,” and must sacrifice “the comfort, safety, and security and even the very future of our own people” so Democrats can advance climate policy, renewable energy, and the rest of the progressive agenda. As if that weren’t enough, she claims this is what Queen Esther did.
Every part of that is wrong. Abusing Jews is not a special license; it is bad for everyone. When a major party treats Jewish safety as negotiable, the world becomes more dangerous for anyone who values civilized norms. Jews do not owe the rest of the world their own abuse so preferred domestic policies can advance. Nessel’s demand that Jews accept antisemitism as the price of “saving humanity” is itself a moral failure.
What compounds the offense is her claim of biblical authority. That claim is factually false. Esther never sacrificed Jewish survival for some greater good. She risked her own life specifically to save the Jews of Persia from annihilation—and defending Jewish survival proved consistent with what was best for the wider world. Nessel inverted the story completely. By acknowledging her party’s antisemitic harms and then instructing Jews to endure them for progressive priorities, while falsely wrapping the demand in Esther’s name, her remarks cross into affirmative antisemitism.
Nessel is a standard bearer of a party traditionally supported overwhelmingly by Jewish majorities who are now experiencing the worst kind of cognitive dissonance. How long with they remain faithful to their betrayers?
Too bad she didn't explain how genocide of the Jews will save the climate and renewable energy. She could have won the Nobel Peace Prize, if not the one for Physics.