Nessel gets Queen Esther wrong: Jews don’t have to sacrifice themselves - opinion

SEPTEMBER 16, 2026 17:00Michigan Attorney-General Dana Nessel is telling Jews something deeply disturbing: we may need to sacrifice our own safety and even our own future for “humanity.”That is a terrible message. It is also far outside the Jewish tradition she claims to be invoking.Speaking to Jewish Democrats on August 30, Nessel said, “It is perhaps up to us now to follow in [Queen Esther’s] 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.”But Nessel is not speaking for Jewish history when she says this. She is a radical outlier using Queen Esther to make an argument that turns Esther’s story upside down.Esther did not sacrifice the Jewish people to save everyone else. She risked herself to save the Jews of Persia.Michigan US Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed greets supporters at a rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 7, 2026. The rally also featured Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitism. (credit: ANDREW LAPIN/JTA)Nessel went even further, asking, “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?”Why should Jews have to choose?Jewish safety and concern for humanity are not opposites. Protecting Jews is not selfish. Protecting Israel is not selfish. And Jewish lives are not bargaining chips that can be sacrificed for some larger cause.Nessel also accused Republicans of supporting “selfishness” that is supposedly a “direct abdication of our responsibilities as Jews.” But there is nothing selfish about Jews wanting to stay alive.Every human life has valueJewish law makes this clear: if attackers demand that a group hand over one innocent person or everyone will be killed, that person cannot simply be handed over. Every human life has value. We do not decide that one innocent person can be sacrificed because someone claims it will save a larger number.Nessel’s argument is also based on a false choice. Protecting Jews and Israel does not mean turning our backs on humanity.The Jewish people have spent generations helping humanity. Jewish scientists Jonas Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin developed polio vaccines that reduced polio by 99%. Jewish public health scientist Dr. Israel Kligler helped lead the first successful campaign to eliminate malaria.Israeli Jews pioneered drip irrigation, desalination, and wastewater recycling. Jews make up less than 0.2% of the world’s population yet have received 26% of Nobel Prizes in Medicine.When polio appeared in Gaza in 2024-2025, Israel facilitated pauses in its fight against Hamas so more than 600,000 Gazan children could receive polio vaccinations.And when Jews were falsely blamed for the Black Death, murdering Jews did nothing to stop the plague. More than 500 years later, Jewish scientist Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine developed the first vaccine for the bubonic plague.So who is really helping humanity?The answer is not the people who murder Jews. And it certainly should not be Jews who are told to stand aside while their own safety is put at risk.That brings us to Abdul Mohamed El-Sayed.To Nessel’s credit, she has resisted the rush by too many Democratic leaders to endorse El-Sayed. She has also warned that politicians who threaten Israel’s existence as a Jewish state can put Jews in the Diaspora at greater risk.She is right about that.But then Nessel tells Jews that they may need to sacrifice their own safety and even their future for “humanity.” That makes no sense.El-Sayed’s record shows exactly why Jewish safety matters.He repeatedly dodges the simple question of whether Israel has a right to exist while saying he would be happy to discuss a Palestinian right to exist. He falsely accuses Israel of genocide and apartheid. He has pledged to follow Sharia law in everything he does.He has campaigned alongside extremist, open Jew-hater, and America-hater Hasan Piker, who said America deserved 9/11 and that the October 7 mass rapes of Jewish women and children did not matter.El-Sayed also called for reducing police funding.Most disturbing, El-Sayed justified the vehicle-ramming terror attack on a Michigan synagogue preschool that endangered 140 Jewish toddlers and teachers and injured a security guard. The attacker was a Lebanese-American Muslim tied to Hezbollah.El-Sayed responded, “hurt people hurt people” and “violence begets violence.” That is not an excuse for terrorism against Jews.His later statement that “what I was trying to say is that there is a broader question of the responsibility” did not change what he had said. It was another attempt to justify Muslim terrorism against Jews.Nessel should understand what is at stake.Jewish safety is not some selfish side issue. It is not something Jews should be ashamed to defend. And Jews should never be told that protecting ourselves makes us enemies of humanity.We do not need to prove that Jews have invented enough medicines, saved enough lives, or helped enough people to deserve safety. Jews deserve safety because Jews are human beings.Nessel should retract her dangerous message that Jews may need to sacrifice their own safety and future for the rest of humanity. And she should stop pretending that this is what Jewish history teaches.It is not.Queen Esther risked her life to save her people.Michigan Attorney-General Dana Nessel told Jews to sacrifice themselves and their homeland to feed the antisemites hijacking her political party.Morton A. Klein is the national president of the Zionist Organization of America. Elizabeth (Liz) Berney, Esq., is the ZOA’s director of research and special projects.Follow us on Google