Black conservative group brings pro-Israel campaign to Michigan Senate race

A Black conservative nonprofit is promoting support for Jews and Israel across Michigan as a contentious US Senate campaign reaches its final days. The Washington, DC-based Center for Urban Renewal and Education, known as CURE, has financed yard signs and billboards aimed at Black voters, a constituency both candidates have sought to attract.

The yard signs carry a message of Black-Jewish solidarity and have been distributed in cities with large Black populations, including Detroit, Flint and Ypsilanti. CURE director Star Parker told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by email that the effort seeks to remind Black Christian voters of reasons to support Israel. The billboards defend Israel’s right to exist and reject characterizing self-defense as genocide.

Although the displays do not identify candidates, they arrive amid difficulties for Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in securing Jewish and Black support. His statements about Israel and Jewish safety have alienated many Jewish voters. Many Black Detroit voters backed his primary opponent, US Rep. Haley Stevens, although a Detroit News-commissioned poll near the campaign’s close suggested that 87% of likely Black voters would support him.

Republican nominee Mike Rogers has pursued both constituencies. Advertising supporting Rogers has emphasized friction between local Black and Arab communities, while a new super PAC linked to him has spent heavily on advertisements accusing El-Sayed of dishonesty and disrespect toward Black voters. Detroit reporter Sam Robinson, who has interviewed scores of Black voters for a historic Black newspaper, told the Columbia Journalism Review that some distrust stems from perceptions that Arab communities are taking resources that would otherwise go to Black residents.

CURE’s signs emerged during the campaign’s final week, following an interfaith roundtable the organization hosted in Detroit on Oct. 22. Black pastors and a local rabbi discussed the history of cooperation between Black and Jewish communities, an alliance that has faced strains in recent years. Rabbi Aaron Bergman of Adat Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Farmington Hills, told JTA that the event was intended primarily to educate participants about antisemitism, rather than focus on politics.

El-Sayed has devoted much of his closing campaign to strengthening Black support through church visits and events with former President Barack Obama and senior South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn. Turnout in Black communities, traditionally a strong Democratic constituency, is considered central to his prospects of winning the seat.

Stevens introduced another uncertainty by endorsing Rogers late in the race. Parker told JTA she expected many Black Christian voters to follow Stevens’ example and believed the endorsement would help Rogers secure their backing.

Other developments suggest Palestinian rights may carry greater weight among Michigan’s Black voters this year. In August, pro-Palestinian state Rep. Donavan McKinney, a democratic socialist, defeated a pro-Israel incumbent in a congressional primary in a majority-Black district near Detroit. A Black community organizer also confronted Stevens about her support for Israel during one of her Detroit primary campaign appearances.