Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, has told a private gathering of Jewish Democrats that they have a "moral imperative" to prioritise the needs of the wider world over their own community's "safety and security" and "future". Her remarks, made at a closed-door event hosted by the Michigan Democratic Party's Jewish Caucus and reported by The Detroit News, underscore growing tensions within the Democratic Party over Israel ahead of the general election, with many Jewish voters saying they increasingly feel torn between their faith and their party amid rising anti-Israel sentiment among progressive candidates.

Speaking on 30 August in Birmingham, Michigan, Nessel invoked the biblical story of Queen Esther to argue that Jewish people should be willing to "sacrifice the comfort, safety and security" of their own community to help "save the rest of humanity", and questioned the value of defending Israel if climate change left the planet uninhabitable. She also criticised support for Donald Trump among Jewish voters as an "abdication" of Jewish responsibility. The event was also attended by Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal critic of Israel, who used the occasion to apologise to the caucus for past remarks; Nessel has said she will not back the Republican candidate Mike Rogers but has withheld endorsement of El-Sayed. Critics, including author Hen Mazzig, argued her use of the Esther narrative misrepresented the story, since Esther risked herself specifically to save the Jewish people rather than others.