Dana Nessel, Who Gave You the Right to Volunteer My Survival?

A Sacramento rabbi has a message for Michigan’s Jewish attorney general: Jews have heard the “greater good” argument before. History has taught us what can happen when we are told that our safety—and even our survival—must come second.

Dear Attorney General Nessel,

When I read that you told Jewish Democrats we have a “moral imperative” to put the needs of the world above “even our own survival,” I had to read it twice.

Our survival?

Who exactly gave you the right to volunteer mine?

You are free to sacrifice your own safety for whatever political cause you choose. But you do not get to ask me—or the Jewish people—to sacrifice ours.

We Jews have spent centuries being told to be quiet, not to overreact, not to make our safety someone else’s problem. We have been told that our fears are exaggerated, our concerns inconvenient, and our safety an acceptable price to pay for someone else’s vision of the greater good.

We know where that kind of reasoning can lead.

And then, incredibly, you invoked Queen Esther.

Attorney General, let me remind you: Esther risked her own life to save the Jewish people. She did not tell the Jews of Persia to sacrifice themselves for everyone else.

You didn’t just misunderstand the story. You turned it upside down.

And I find the message behind your words even more troubling: Jewish Democrats should swallow their fears, set aside their concerns, and fall in line because keeping Democrats in power is supposedly more important than the very concerns you are asking us to overlook.

In other words: I understand you’re worried about your safety. Now be a good Democrat and vote the right way.

No, Attorney General.

My vote does not belong to the Democratic Party. It does not belong to the Republican Party either.

It belongs to me.

And if a political party wants my vote, it can earn it.

Do not lecture me that putting Jewish safety first somehow makes me selfish. And do not tell me that antisemitism, violence against Jews, or hostility toward the Jewish people should matter less because you have decided other political issues matter more.

I can care about democracy. I can care about the environment, human rights, and the future of this country.

And I can care about whether Jews are safe.

Those things are not mutually exclusive.

Jews have sacrificed enough.

After centuries of expulsions, pogroms, massacres, terrorism and the Holocaust, I refuse to apologize for believing that Jewish survival matters.

So no, Attorney General Nessel.

I will not apologize for putting Jewish safety first. I will not be shamed into putting my people last. And I will not accept the grotesque premise that Jewish survival is something Jews should be willing to surrender for the sake of a political victory.

You spoke of a “moral imperative.”

Here is mine:

Never again will I allow a politician to tell me that Jewish survival is the sacrifice required for someone else’s greater good.

Not for your party.

Not for your candidate.

Not for your election.

Not ever.