Emhoff and Torres highlight Kamala Harris' pro-Israel stance to Michigan Jewish voters

(JTA) — SOUTHFIELD, Michigan — At a union hall in this Detroit suburb on Sunday, a crowd of around 160 mostly Jewish Democrats gathered to hear Doug Emhoff urge them to vote for his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris.

The event included get-out-the-vote calls and signups to canvas, along with Jewish-themed efforts to attract young voters, including one that riffs on the name of the first service of Shabbat: “Kamala(t) Shabbat.” And the Jewish second gentleman talked about Democratic mainstays like protecting democracy and abortion rights, in addition to issues of specifically Jewish concern. 

“Donald Trump on Jews, it’s so vexing to me that any Jew supports him,” Emhoff said, listing off the reasons why he felt the former president and Republican candidate should be rejected by Jewish voters, including his comments at a recent Jewish event that suggested he would blame Jews if he lost. “He foments antisemitism everywhere he goes. He does not care about us.”

But the flashy event wasn’t the only one the Harris campaign’s Michigan Jewish outreach team held on Sunday. Earlier in the day, the team hosted a smaller gathering at a private home in the same county featuring New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, whose goal was to convince the roughly 85 attendees that Harris is a pro-Israel stalwart who deserves their votes. 

“We had, really, dual goals today,” Michigan Democratic state Senator Jeremy Moss, who is Jewish, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the two events. While Moss described the Emhoff mini-rally as one “for the faithful,” the more intimate Torres event “was reaching those undecided voters, or those voters who are really just primarily concerned about Israel.”

The “Waffler” event with Torres exemplifies the hand-to-hand combat the campaign is waging to win over voters in Michigan — and its belief that high-profile skepticism among pro-Israel Jewish voters can be overcome.

Michigan becomes a political battleground

Michigan is home to both large contingents of Jews and Arab-Americans, making the swing a battleground over the Israel-Hamas war. Dissatisfaction in both communities over the Biden administration’s approach to the war — among Arab-Americans because the administration is supporting Israel, and among some Jews out of concern that it could do so more staunchly — is widely seen as potentially costing Harris in a state where every vote could make the difference for the country’s future. Michigan backed Trump in 2016 before going to Joe Biden in 2020.

The twin events on Sunday left no room for confusion about where Harris stands. In the words of Laura Hearshen, who sits on the board of Michigan Jewish Democrats, the campaign’s pitch boils down to: “The Biden administration is very pro-Israel, and the Harris administration will be, too.” 

That messaging may look familiar to Michiganders. A PAC associated with Trump’s billionaire ally Elon Musk has put up billboards just a few miles away from the Emhoff campaign stop, in Detroit suburbs with large Arab and Muslim populations, designed to look like Harris ads portraying her as pro-Israel.

“They will always support Israel and our Jewish communities,” one billboard reads, next to the faces of Harris and Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Jewish Senate candidate, superimposed over the Israeli flag. Others tout Harris’s close relationship with husband Emhoff, emphasizing his Judaism. 

The ads’ goal is to alienate voters who would back Harris but who oppose her on Israel, and the same PAC has sent mailers to Jewish voters calling Harris anti-Israel. Michigan Jewish Democrats cast the Musk-backed “pro-Israel” billboards as antisemitic and part of a broader Republican effort to denigrate minority communities. 

“It’s just targeting people’s darkest views,” Hearshen said. “It’s very antisemitic to think that, just because there’s a Jew in the White House, that somehow he would be allegiant to Israel and is working behind the scenes to get Israel more aid.”

Yet, as Sunday’s outreach by the Harris campaign was made clear, the language on those billboards is virtually indistinguishable from the message the campaign itself is projecting — to Jewish voters. 

“She not only understands the importance of the US to Israel, she understands the importance of Israel to the United States,” Rep. Kathy Manning, a pro-Israel North Carolina Democrat with Detroit-area roots, said at the Emhoff rally. “She brings a proven determination to stand with Israel.”

“She has prioritized Israel her whole career,” Emhoff said about Harris during his speech at the Jewish Voters for Harriz-Walz event in front of a backdrop of his wife’s name written in Hebrew. “I promise you that she’s deeply invested in the security of Israel and in the protection of Jewish people.” 

Michigan Jewish Democratic leaders suggested that messages like these are part of a shrewd calculation by the Harris campaign weeks before Election Day: that staunchly pro-Israel Jewish voters are more easily persuaded to vote for the Democratic candidate than vocally pro-Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab voters in the state and beyond. This is in part because Jews historically vote at higher rates than Muslims and in part due to a growing conclusion among mainstream Democrats that the most vocal Gaza protesters are firmer in their opposition.

“They’re protesting Kamala Harris. So to suggest that these are [persuadable] voters, it’s just not something she needs now,” said Jordan Acker, a Jewish Democratic regent of the University of Michigan whose home and business have been targeted by pro-Palestinian protesters urging the school to divest from Israel. 

Acker, who, in a speech prior to Emhoff’s appearance, touted the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to use Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to clamp down on campus protesters, later told JTA that Harris is still hoping to win a segment of Arab-American voters.

“Are there voters in the Arab-American community that need to be ‘got’ by the Harris campaign? Absolutely,” he said. “But they’re the ones who support a two-state solution, that are looking to bring the Jewish and Arab-American communities together.”

Harris’ rhetoric, particularly earlier this year, was widely perceived as being more critical of Israel than Biden’s. She has spotlighted her local Arab-American supporters in recent days in Michigan and neighboring states — even gently acknowledging some pro-Palestinian hecklers who claimed Israel was committing “genocide” while also ushering them out of the room. 

But none of that was on display at the “wafflers” event, where, according to multiple event organizers, including married Ann Arbor-based Jewish Democrats Decky Alexander and Bruce Kutinsky, Torres pushed only unambiguously pro-Israel stances to Jewish voters. (Jewish former US Rep. Sander Levin reportedly also attended the Torres event.)

Notably, Torres emphasized that Harris’s team had rejected calls by Michigan-based organizers of the “Uncommitted” protest movement for a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention. The movement wanted a Palestinian American to speak. Harris made the controversial move, Torres reportedly said, because she didn’t want to risk the chance of any speaker opposing Israel.

He also downplayed a recent letter the Biden-Harris administration sent warning Israel it could risk losing military aid if it doesn’t improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The letter, he said, was a political gesture that did not reflect any change in policy in the administration despite continuing reports of dire food shortages in the enclave as Israel continues its military campaign there. (Torres, who has been stumping for Harris in multiple states, did not respond to a request for comment.)

Harris’ effort to win over pro-Israel voters comes as allies of Donald Trump have seized on Israel in an attempt to divide traditional Democratic coalitions in Michigan. In addition to the Musk-backed ad campaign, Trump has started courting Muslim and Arab voters in the state with the help of his daughter Tiffany’s Lebanese father-in-law and won the endorsement of a Muslim mayor of a Detroit suburb.

The state’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, recently became the face of Democratic Party infighting over Israel when she accused Rep. Rashida Tlaib of antisemitism after Tlaib criticized her decision to press charges against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan. Nessel, who was at the Emhoff event but did not have a speaking role, told JTA that the party has “some fringier elements … where there is some blatant antisemitism. But it’s not the people who are leading our party.” 

(Asked to clarify whether the “blatant antisemitism” included Tlaib, Nessel did not specify but said, “There are elements of the party that certainly, I think, have bought into disinformation and misinformation, and that’s something that we need to work hard to quash out.”)

Neither of Sunday’s events for Jewish voters addressed Palestinian welfare and plans for postwar governance in Gaza. Raymond Rosenfeld, a retired political science professor at Eastern Michigan University and precinct delegate in Bloomfield Township, told JTA that supporting both Israeli and Palestinian aspirations is possible but difficult in such a fraught climate.

“Empathy is necessary. It’s a Jewish value, I think,” he said. “And you can be both pro-Israel, and you can be a strong Zionist, and still be upset over the hopelessness that exists among many Palestinians.” 

Asked whether Jews in Michigan share his attitude, Rosenfeld said, “I hope so. But I think that the environment is one that makes it very difficult for that to even be discussed.”