From Oct 7 to Michigan: One Israeli-American's mission to stop Abdul El-Sayed

When Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, G. Shimon Levy didn’t just watch the horrifying images on television; he got on an airplane and headed straight into a war zone.

Three years later, this Israeli-born American citizen is fighting a different kind of battle. This time, it’s political, and the battlefield is Michigan.

Levy, who lives in suburban Detroit, is doing everything he can to keep Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed from making it to Washington. And he’s hoping Jewish Democrats will help him do it.

“I am begrudgingly involved,” Levy told me during an interview in the heavily populated Jewish area of West Bloomfield. “I am not doing it out of a desire to do this. I think I have things that I’d rather prioritize, but I see, I feel, I sense that we’re headed in the absolute wrong direction.”

For Levy, this isn’t simply about Republican Mike Rogers defeating El-Sayed. It’s about Jewish identity, antisemitism, Israel and the future of his children.

Levy’s personal story helps explain his passion. “Born in Israel. Grew up in Israel. Traveled the world. My parents were diplomats,” he explained.

He returned to Israel to join the military, spent nearly a decade in the Israeli Navy, then moved to America about 15 years ago to pursue graduate education. Today, he proudly holds dual Israeli-American citizenship.

But Oct. 7 changed everything. “I got on a plane and I flew to Israel,” Levy recalled. “I got on the first flight I could get on. I went back to serve.”

JEWS IN MICHIGAN FIGHT BACK: G. Shimon Levy, a traditional liberal Jew from the Detroit area who now considers himself an Independent tells me he's doing everything in his power to make sure Abdul El-Sayed never becomes a U.S. Senator: "He has made the Jews his pariah and his target throughout this campaign." So will Jewish Voters step up and vote aganst El-Sayed? "I have full confidence in our community because at the end of the day, as Jews, we need to be able to identify a threat." But is he seeing more Jewish Democrats turning against El-Sayed? He says yes. "I think it's a vast majority in Michigan. You only become attached to an issue once it comes knocking on your front door...Evil prevails when good people stand on the sidelines and do nothing." My national piece on the ground from Michigan about Jews, Muslims and the BIG Senate Race in the Wolverine State airs across the county today on The 700 Club and CBN News. https://t.co/dDxJRTV7eT @700club @CBNNews @MikeRogersForMI @AbdulElSayed #Israel #Islam

— David Brody (@DBrodyReports) October 21, 2026

As a trained military officer and reservist, Levy felt a personal responsibility to help defend his homeland. His family lived just a short drive from the communities attacked by Hamas. He traveled south and witnessed the aftermath firsthand.

“The atrocities that I saw firsthand, no more than 48 to 72 hours after Oct. 7 … were beyond words,” he said.

It was an “all hands on deck” moment, Levy explained. Everybody needed to do whatever they could. That same sense of urgency is now fueling his political mission in Michigan.

Levy isn’t some lifelong, rock-ribbed Republican. Quite the opposite. “I view myself, traditionally, more liberal,” he said. “But it’s interesting in which environment you stand, because right now, in this climate, I’m not considered a liberal. I’m considered a conservative.”

Today, Levy identifies as an independent-leaning conservative, convinced the Democratic Party has moved away from the values he once supported. He says he could have supported a different Democrat, including Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who lost the primary to El-Sayed. But now? Absolutely not.

“This guy is not what I signed up for,” Levy said, describing the dilemma he believes lifelong Jewish Democrats are confronting. And he’s hardly alone.

Jewish Democrats across Michigan are wrestling with whether to cross party lines and support Rogers but Levy believes opposition within the Jewish community is overwhelming.

“I think it’s already a vast majority. I think it’s a vast majority in Michigan,” he said. He acknowledges that the mantra for so long among many democrats has been, ‘Vote Blue No Matter Who, ' but that mindset may be changing in Michigan when it comes to El-Sayed.

“Especially with lifelong Democrats, it’s part of their identity. It’s a part of their value system. It’s a part of who they are. And suddenly they’re forced in the face of a radical candidate, of an extreme candidate … to say, okay, where do I fit in?”

Levy believes El-Sayed represents something much bigger than one Senate candidate.

“I’m less concerned about El-Sayed. I’m more concerned about what El-Sayed represents,” he explained. “El-Sayed represents a momentum, an energy that I feel is all in the wrong places. Whether it pertains to Jews, whether it pertains to America, whether it pertains to our values.”

Levy believes El-Sayed has hostility toward Zionism and Jewish political participation. He personally considers the Democratic nominee antisemitic.

El-Sayed strongly rejects that characterization, saying he respects Judaism and Jewish people while opposing Israeli government policies and American military aid to Israel. Many in the Jewish community aren’t buying it.

Here in West Bloomfield, they remember his comments following the March attack on Temple Israel in their town when he said, “Hurt people hurt people.”

For Levy, however, concerns about Jewish security are not theoretical. He says antisemitic flyers were distributed in neighborhoods around his family, helping propel him into activism and a trip to Washington to advocate for Jewish security legislation.

The increasingly heavy security surrounding Jewish institutions also troubles him.

“You can’t congregate unless you have a security guard, you can’t mobilize, you can’t go to school unless you have a security guard,” Levy said. “What other community in the States has to self-fund their security as American citizens? This is not the way it should be.”

Levy has turned political activism into practically a full-time job. He is recruiting volunteers, putting up lawn signs, attending fundraisers, speaking with voters, and running get-out-the-vote operations to help Rogers defeat El-Sayed. “This very easily can consume your day-to-day,” he acknowledged.

Yet he also worries about antisemitism coming from the political right, including rhetoric associated with Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. “It feels very lonely out there right now,” he admitted. “But I still have hope.”

He hopes the Democratic Party changes direction and Republicans reject extremist voices within their own movement.

But Election Day is approaching, and Levy is determined to leave nothing to chance. “If I have anything to do with it … we’ll spend every night and day trying to mobilize the people to just look at the facts,” he said.

He sees all of this as his personal responsibility. “I left it all on the field,” Levy said, describing what he hopes to tell himself after the election, “because it was important for me and more importantly, my children’s future in this country.”

For this proud Israeli-American, Oct. 7 was a call to serve his homeland. Now, Michigan’s Senate election has become another call to action and G. Shimon Levy has no intention of sitting on the sidelines.