(JTA) — Local and national Jewish Democrats say they are sympathetic after Michigan’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, said she would skip the state Democratic Party’s nominating convention over concerns about antisemitism and harassment.

“I don’t blame AG Nessel for not wanting to go and basically put herself in situations that feel untenable in this moment of time and don’t add any value politically, personally,” Jessica “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Jewish Democratic caucus chair, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday.

Alexander’s comment came a day after Nessel announced during a televised antisemitism roundtable that she would be skipping the convention next month, where party leaders will finalize the state’s Democratic candidate for Senate following a divisive primary that has focused in part on Israel and antisemitism.

“I don’t feel safe going. I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” Nessel said during the roundtable. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”

She said she had filed a formal complaint within the party about a party official who had called her a neo-Nazi because of her beliefs. “Why is this person more accepted in our party than me?” she asked without naming the official. Her office responded to a request for comment by referring to the recorded livestream of the antisemitism roundtable.

Nessel’s declaration comes in the final days of the primary between Rep. Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel stalwart, and Abdul El-Sayed, a democratic socialist who is deeply critical of Israel. El-Sayed is surging in polls despite a reported $30 million spent against him by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and its supporters, whom he has made a target of criticism from the campaign trail.

Nessel’s comments also follow turmoil at the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement convention in April, where Stevens was booed by attendees. A third primary candidate who later dropped out of the race, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, said a convention attendee had targeted her Jewish husband with an antisemitic slur.

The incident has fueled alarm among Jewish Democrats, according to Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.

“She’s not alone,” Soifer told JTA about Nessel on Friday. “We’ve heard from other Jewish Democrats who attended the Democratic Party convention earlier this year in Michigan, and there was a sense of discomfort amid what felt like a pro-Palestinian protest [that] may have even blurred the line for some into antisemitic sentiment — and it’s really concerning.”

Nessel has raised the alarm about antisemitism within the party for years, alleging in 2024 that Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent pro-Palestinian voice, had been antisemitic when criticizing charges Nessel filed against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan.

For her part, Alexander said she would be participating in the nominating convention and said she believed the chair of the state Democratic Party, Curtis Hertel, had been “very accessible and very open to making sure that we, including our Jewish elected officials, feel safe in that space.” But she said she understood why Nessel was staying away.

“It would never even occur to me, but I’m not an elected official,” Alexander said. “It’s a different stake for me than it is for Dana. I understand her completely.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

 

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(JTA) — Every congregational rabbi in Maine has signed onto a statement calling for peace and urging the state’s political leaders to stop using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza, following a Democratic primary in which several candidates used the label for the first time.

But the rabbis also indicated that they, too, were unsatisfied with conditions in the Middle East and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to work toward a peaceful future.

“We call upon Maine’s leaders, and particularly its political leaders, to reject the irresponsible usage of the term in describing the Israel-Hamas War,” said the statement released on Friday. “We also call upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to end the cycle of violence and to create a better world for both Palestinian and Israeli children.”

The statement, titled “A Call for Peace and Responsible Rhetoric,” argues that using the term as a “political slogan does not advance peace in the Middle East.” The term “erases essential moral and legal distinctions, diminishes the meaning of genocide, and inflames hatred for the local Jewish community,” the rabbis say.

“Compassion for Palestinians does not require the adoption of hateful and misleading language,” they continue. “Advocating for peace does not require participation in a ‘Holocaust inversion’ against the Jewish community. And political leadership does not require demonizing one community in the service of another.”

The statement comes days after Troy Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, secured the Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nomination Saturday at the party’s nominating convention to replace Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic who dropped out of the race earlier this month. Platner faced a sexual assault allegation, which he denies. Jackson now faces Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election.

Platner’s romp to the primary victory featured routine use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions. And ahead of the convention to replace him, Jackson and several other Democratic hopefuls who later exited the race began using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza for the first time, a shift that drew scrutiny from some Jewish leaders and voters in the state.

The use of the term has become a “currency for acquiring power and position in Maine’s Democratic party,” Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, the leader of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, who also signed the statement, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“Too many Maine Democrats are cynically willing to trade in that currency at the expense of our safety and dignity,” she said in an emailed statement. “We decided we needed to say something collectively, both about the specious and dangerous nature of the claim, and about how much damage has been done to our families and congregants.”

The statement Friday was spearheaded by the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine and signed by every congregational rabbi in the state, including Rabbi Bill Siemers of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor and Rabbi Erica Asch of the Reform Temple Beth El in Augusta. (Rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement in Maine did not appear on the signatory list.)

Zach Schwartz, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, said the federation hoped the “unity displayed here in Maine can inspire Jewish communities across the US to also unite against the extremist rhetoric harming our community and our children.”

Rabbi Josh Stanton, the associate vice president of interfaith and intergroup initiatives for Jewish Federations of North America, also hailed the joint statement.

“Maine’s Jewish clergy are setting an important example with their call to put aside inflammatory rhetoric and look to the common good,” Stanton said in an emailed statement. “At a time of rising polarization and declining civil discourse, the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine’s efforts to unify the community around this important message are a mark of true leadership.”

Isaacs told JTA that she hoped Jackson would “support, understand, and advocate for all of Maine’s citizens, including the totality of Maine’s diverse Jewish community.”

“Work with us to figure out how to express outrage and legitimate critique of Israel’s government without succumbing to language that you might not know is an ancient antisemitic trope, or dismissing the security needs of Israel’s citizens,” Isaacs said of her message to Jackson. “Please have the courage to forge your own path, and not follow in the footsteps of Graham Platner, a man who should have never been normalized, endorsed, or empowered.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

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Until a few years ago, every book math teacher Dahlia Evans had read about Jews was Holocaust historical fiction. Searching for a change, she went to her rabbi, who recommended a romance called The Matzah Ball, a Hannukah-themed novel about two archenemies from Jewish summer camp who fall in love as adults.

“It brings a lot of joy, seeing yourself in the characters, reading about the holidays and all of these things that you’ve grown up with,” said Evans, a mother of two from New York who also runs a book-focused Instagram account.

Following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Jewish authors have described an increasingly hostile environment in traditional publishing. In fact, the number of books marketed as Jewish have declined over the past three years — pointing to either fewer Jewish books, or fewer publishers willing to market them as Jewish.

Even so, the demand for Jewish romance novels from Jewish readers has flourished, aided by The Matzah Ball’s author Jean Meltzer and a book club she started called Jewish Joy.

“I think a reason why the community grew is because of what the romance genre itself offers the reader, which is basically happiness,” says Heidi Shertock, the author of two Orthodox Jewish romances and a leader of Jewish Joy. “We’re going to give you that happily ever after, no matter the struggles and the obstacles and the difficulties that the character is facing. And I think we need that so much right now, especially as Jews.”

Bodice rippers and book clubs

Few, if any, Jewish characters were present in mass market romance novels until 1995 when Alina Adams wrote The Fictitious Marquis, the first bodice-ripper with a Jewish protagonist. Other writers such as Jennifer Wilck and Felica Grossman continued writing Jewish romances through the 2010s.

The romance novel, whose sales had been declining, saw a resurgence after 2020, spurred by the pandemic, a TikTok reading community called BookTok and the streaming hit Bridgerton. From 2021 to 2025, romance book sales doubled to 51 million units sold.

As publishers pushed to make romance novels more diverse, Jewish romance enthusiasts had to educate the community that romances by and about Jews represent diverse perspectives too, Wilck said.

“There was slowly starting to become recognition of that and enthusiasm for that,” Wilck said. “It has gotten a lot more complicated after October 7.”

Dahlia Adler, a USA Today bestselling author of Y.A. novels, recently wrote her first adult romance titled Soon by You about a modern Orthodox perma-bridesmaid – always a bridesmaid, never a bride. She has been surprised by its lack of appeal.

“More people who usually enjoy getting to see inside a new culture do not seem to be going anywhere near this book,” said Adler, noting the book’s Jewish themes. “It could be related. It could be not.”

Where Soon by You has received positive attention is a Facebook page called “Jewish women talk about romance.” The page, launched by Meltzer in July 2023, saw an influx of members after the Oct. 7 attacks growing from 1,000 to 3,500 members.

Shertock said the online community has become a safe haven. “Jewish readers weren’t feeling safe anymore in their book clubs,” she said.

Some authors describe a similar feeling. Chayla Wolfberg, an author and Jewish Joy book club leader, said the online Jewish romance community gave her comfort and validation.

“I was seeing so many authors — a lot of people who I used to really admire and look up to — posting things blatantly in support of what happened on Oct. 7,” she said. “I was just so horrified.”

Meltzer said authors like her who had spoken up in defense of Israel or expressed grief about Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks found themselves doxxed, boycotted and lambasted in reviews.

In January 2024, Meltzer responded by launching the Jewish Joy book club, followed shortly by The Jewish Joy Box, which sends its members monthly boxes of mostly — though not exclusively — Jewish romance novels.

“It had one rule: we read books where nobody dies at the end, which was sort of a tongue-in-cheek nod to all the Holocaust books that we weren’t going to be reading,” she said. “We were going to be reading happy stories with happy endings and Jews who lived life.”

Litmus tests

Rachel Runya Katz’s novels focus on LGBTQ+ Jews of color. According to her Instagram bio, her books are “only ‘niche’ if you’re boring.” She is also vocal on social media about being an anti-Zionist Jew.

She has picked up on a “litmus test” for Jewish authors, which she said some readers won’t read if they have not spoken up about the Palestinian cause.

“There are people whose takeaway has been: I need to do a thorough background check on every Jew who I think about reading, and I’m not gonna do that to other people,” she said. “I do think that that is a form of bias.”

Katz has noticed other forms of antisemitism in the industry, both before and after October 7.

But she has also faced harsh criticism from other Jewish authors too. She said there were some “Zionist Jewish bookstagrammers who accused me of not being really Jewish and of identifying more as Black than as Jewish because I’m anti-Zionist.”

She thinks that Jewish Joy could very well be doing good work to fight antisemitism. But, she added, “I do not think that this is a good messenger for that because it’s somebody who has so prominently and publicly tried to link anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism … I think that’s a really dangerous translation to make.”

Jewish Joy leadership says that, in addition to creating a safe space for Jewish-romance fans, they want to make it welcoming for Zionists.

“We’re a pro-Zionist community,” said Meltzer. “We support Israelis, and you know the community has made the decision as a whole that they don’t want to support books right now from anti-Zionist authors.”

The Jewish Joy book club has also featured many books from authors who have not publicly commented on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We don’t really talk about that too much,” Shertock said.

As much as the group was created to satisfy Jewish readers, Meltzer also created it to support Jewish authors.“We needed to move the needle on sales,” she said. In its less than two years, the network has purchased more than 2,500 Jewish books for its boxes.

Meltzer feels like the community has needed to advocate for itself to be taken seriously both in the Jewish world, which she says tends to embrace literary fiction, and in the romance world, which she believes has been more hostile toward Jewish books.

“People take for granted that Jewish romance is going to continue,” said Meltzer. “I do not believe that. I actually think if we don’t fight every day for these books, they will stop being published.”

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