Michigan Gov.-elect Jocelyn Benson has appointed Benton Harbor Mayor Marcus Muhammad to her transition council, months after a national organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism removed him from its own advisory panel. Muhammad, a student minister in the Nation of Islam, has repeatedly defended Louis Farrakhan and credits the group’s leader with encouraging him to run for mayor.
Benson, Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state, defeated Republican Rep. John James on Nov. 3 to succeed term-limited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Muhammad will serve alongside U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield on the 15-member council, explained The Washington Free Beacon. Announcing his appointment on Facebook, Muhammad pointed to the party’s control of the governor’s office and both chambers of the Legislature. “With a Democratic trifecta, the opportunity to deliver resources and opportunities are increased,” he wrote.
Benson and Muhammad knew each other well before the governor’s race. She spoke at a Juneteenth prayer breakfast he hosted in Benton Harbor last year, featured his endorsement on her campaign website and thanked him during her primary victory speech. In an August interview, Muhammad said the two had developed a friendship “outside of politics.” He also campaigned this fall with Michigan’s Democratic senator-elect, Abdul El-Sayed.
Muhammad also campaigned this fall with Michigan’s Democratic senator-elect, Abdul El-Sayed, who faced criticism from within his own party over antisemitism among his supporters. Rep. Haley Stevens, whom El-Sayed defeated in the Democratic primary, urged him to condemn a Rebellion PAC ad that blamed Israel for high grocery prices in the United States. She also singled out Hasan Piker, an El-Sayed surrogate who compared canvassing in heavily Jewish West Bloomfield to campaigning for a Black candidate in a Ku Klux Klan neighborhood. Two days before the election, Stevens broke with El-Sayed and endorsed Republican Mike Rogers. “We can’t stand with hate, we can’t stand with Hasan Piker,” she said at a Detroit church that Sunday.
The Combat Antisemitism Movement removed Muhammad from its mayoral advisory committee over the summer after the Washington Free Beacon reported on his public statements. The organization said it “will collaborate with no one who legitimizes” the Nation of Islam, citing the group’s “notorious record of antisemitism.” Farrakhan has compared Jews to “termites” and called Adolf Hitler “a great man.”
Muhammad has used his own public appearances to promote Farrakhan’s views. After a July 2020 sermon in which Farrakhan referred to Jews as “the Satan,” Muhammad posted a photograph of him with the caption, “Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.” He also promoted a Farrakhan seminar built around a Nation of Islam publication that falsely assigns Jews a central role in the transatlantic slave trade. In 2019, Muhammad said he had turned down an invitation to visit Israel on a peace mission after Farrakhan advised him against going.
Jewish communities in Michigan have faced a sharp rise in reported antisemitic incidents in recent years. The Anti-Defamation League recorded 111 incidents in the state in 2022 and 267 in 2023. The count fell to 252 in 2024, still more than twice the 2022 figure. In June, federal prosecutors alleged that the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit was among the targets of a campaign of threats and vandalism intended to pressure the University of Michigan to cut financial ties with Israel. According to the indictment, participants broke windows at private homes and posted photographs of the damage online alongside threats.
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