LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed apologized Saturday for remarks he made following the March attack on Temple Israel in suburban Detroit, telling members of the state Democratic Party’s Jewish caucus that he regretted how he addressed the incident.

El-Sayed spoke to the Jewish caucus during the party’s nominating convention in Lansing. His appearance came as he continues efforts to rebuild relationships with Jewish voters following his Democratic primary victory earlier this month.

The former county health director was questioned about comments he made after an attempted attack targeting the preschool at the West Bloomfield synagogue. At the time, he had said, “Hurt people hurt people,” while attempting to place the incident within a broader political context.

Looking back on those remarks, El-Sayed acknowledged Saturday, “I made a mistake.”

“If my statement caused pain, I’m sorry. It was not what I intended to do,” El-Sayed continued. Referencing the first of two statements he had made about the attack, he added: “We issued a statement, of course, condemning it, and that just should have been it, full stop.”

El-Sayed had initially condemned the attack before issuing a second statement that discussed Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. That statement noted that the individual responsible for the synagogue attack had lost family members in an Israeli airstrike. His decision to introduce that context drew criticism from many Jewish voters, some of whom viewed his remarks as an attempt to explain or justify the violence.

During Saturday’s meeting, El-Sayed maintained that discussing broader circumstances surrounding an attack can have value, but said such a discussion should not have been introduced while people were still experiencing immediate pain.

He explained that those broader “conversations” could take place “in the fullness of time.”

“Sometimes you can’t really see context in the moment of acuity or pain,” he said. “The intention for me was not to trample that pain. It was not to discount it. It was not at all to justify any sort of domestic terrorism. That’s wrong, full stop.”

The apology came after a Jewish Democrat attending the meeting directly questioned El-Sayed about his earlier comments. His outreach to Jewish voters has intensified since his primary victory, and he is scheduled to participate in another Jewish caucus event Sunday honoring Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, with congressional nominee Jeremy Moss also expected to attend.

Both Nessel and Moss have publicly clashed with El-Sayed over issues involving Israel and the Jewish community.

El-Sayed has made several other adjustments to his campaign messaging in recent days. He has softened some of his previous criticism of Israel during campaign appearances and publicly distanced himself from Hasan Piker, the far-left political streamer who was once aligned with the campaign and has faced accusations of antisemitism.

Later Saturday, El-Sayed accepted the Democratic nomination in a speech that contained only an indirect reference to American military support for Israel. He said, “It shouldn’t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that that money’s going to be spent on you, and your kids, and your schools, instead of being dropped in the form of a bomb on somebody else, and their kids, and their school.”

Despite the apology, the atmosphere among roughly 30 Jewish Democrats attending the caucus meeting remained cautious. The gathering included a delegate who said his daughter and grandson were inside Temple Israel during the attack.

“Our safety as Jews in America relies on, I think, what’s said by public figures, and how they present themselves in public, and how they advocate for Jews in public,” the delegate said shortly before El-Sayed addressed the controversy.

El-Sayed also faced questions about his position on the two-state solution, a longstanding component of Democratic foreign-policy discussions concerning Israelis and Palestinians. Asked whether he would support that framework as a senator, he declined to endorse it outright and instead emphasized a process focused on rights and self-determination.

“It’s incoherent to start with a solution and say, ‘Figure out how to work here,’” El-Sayed said. “To me, it’s about starting with a process and saying, ‘How do we dignify equal rights to peace, dignity and self-determination for Palestinian people and Jewish Israelis alike?’”

He said he remains open to a two-state arrangement if Israelis and Palestinians themselves choose that path.

“It’s incoherent to start with a solution and say, ‘Figure out how to work here,’” El-Sayed said. “To me, it’s about starting with a process and saying, ‘How do we dignify equal rights to peace, dignity and self-determination for Palestinian people and Jewish Israelis alike?’”

He added that he would consider a two-state outcome “if that’s what a free Palestinian and free Jewish Israeli people decide.” But he also argued, “Our country, under the guise of a two-state solution, has been aiding, arming and abetting a government that wants to foreclose on the possibility of a second state.”

That position generated concern among some attendees, even though several Jewish Democrats welcomed his apology over the Temple Israel remarks.

Rebecca Kasen, a Jewish Democrat from the Lansing area who attended the meeting, said she appreciated El-Sayed taking responsibility for his earlier comments.

“I really liked him apologizing for misspeaking. We’ve all made comments that we regret later on,” Kasen told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I was less comfortable with what he said about not supporting a two-state solution.”

Still, Kasen said the apology changed her overall impression of the candidate. She indicated that she was more prepared to support him than she had been before the meeting.

“I was probably a more reluctant voter for him” beforehand, she said. That had changed: “Instead of just going to vote now, I am going to be enthusiastically voting for him.”

The controversy surrounding El-Sayed is unfolding as Michigan’s Senate contest takes on heightened national importance. With control of the Senate potentially at stake in the 2026 midterm elections, Jewish Democrats in the state are facing increased attention over how they view their party’s candidates.

Some longtime Jewish Democratic voters have considered supporting Republican Senate candidate and former Rep. Mike Rogers, while disagreements over Israel and antisemitism have produced tense moments within the state Democratic Party.

At the convention, Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, the Democratic nominee for state attorney general, addressed the Jewish caucus and emphasized the significance of electing a Jewish Democrat to the office.

“We’re going to win and keep the attorney general’s office in the hands of a Michigan Jewish Democrat.”

Notably absent from the convention was Dana Nessel, the state’s highest-ranking Jewish elected official. Nessel had previously announced that she would skip the gathering because she feared becoming the target of antisemitic harassment.

Earlier in the week, Nessel reiterated her concerns about El-Sayed’s Temple Israel comments during an interview with The Atlantic and said she hoped he would eventually retract or clarify them.

Nessel’s son, Zach Nessel, who serves as secretary of the state Jewish Democratic caucus, told members that his mother stayed away because of “agitators” who had confronted her at the party’s spring endorsement convention.

Attendance at Saturday’s Jewish caucus gathering was reportedly below one-third of the level recorded at the spring convention.

Zach Nessel also criticized the state Democratic Party for not acting quickly enough to remove protesters from that earlier gathering. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that members of the Jewish community within the party “have a right to be concerned.”

“I think the Democratic Party needs to put more work into addressing their concerns,” Zach Nessel said. “But I think that can’t happen without showing up.”

Moss, a Michigan state senator who has become involved in another dispute connected to El-Sayed, was seen at Saturday’s convention but did not participate in the Jewish caucus programming.

Another El-Sayed ally who spoke to the caucus was Amir Makled, a University of Michigan Board of Regents candidate. Makled has represented members of the university’s pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel encampment movement, which played a role in the removal of a Jewish, pro-Israel incumbent at an earlier party convention.

During his remarks to Jewish delegates, Makled did not address previous social media activity that included sharing posts from far-right antisemitic conspiracy theorist Candace Owens and material praising Hezbollah figures.

In a later speech at the party convention, Makled referred indirectly to his involvement with the campus demonstrations, saying Michigan “will never have a university where students are punished simply because their speech makes the powerful uncomfortable.”

Between meetings with candidates, Jewish caucus members discussed their concerns about the approaching midterm elections and the political challenges facing their community.

Many said they remained deeply focused on protecting democracy and election security from what they viewed as Republican threats and considered Democratic efforts to regain Senate control important.

At the same time, some participants acknowledged that persuading Jewish voters to unite behind the Democratic ticket could prove difficult because of El-Sayed’s positions and those of other candidates on the slate.

Michigan has an estimated Jewish population of about 100,000, while the Senate contest is being closely contested in polling. That combination could make Jewish voters particularly significant in a race where relatively small shifts in support could matter.

One attendee summarized the dilemma facing the group by asking:

“How do we unify our community to put the country first?” one attendee asked the group. “I have a hard time doing that.”I preserved the supplied quotations verbatim, but there is one accidental repeated quotation in the source material’s two-state-solution section; I can also produce a cleaner publication-ready version with that duplication removed and the article tightened further.