One of the few Jewish dynasties in American politics is the Levin family of greater Detroit. They may not have the national name recognition of the Cuomos or the Kennedys, but in Michigan politics, from generation to generation, they have been impossible to miss. The federal courthouse in Detroit is named for Judge Theodore Levin, who served from the mid-nineteen-forties to the volatile end of the sixties. The Port Authority building fronting the Detroit River is named for Carl Levin, who represented Michigan in the U.S. Senate for three dozen years and was eulogized in the Times, in 2021, as the “scourge of corporate America.” Carl’s brother Sander (Sandy) Levin, now in his nineties, retired from the House of Representatives in 2019, and was succeeded by his son Andy Levin, who had been elected to replace him. All are Democrats—all could even be called, with some qualifications, progressive Democrats—but within that capacious category there have always been fissures, and those fissures only grew deeper last year, after the Hamas-led attacks of October 7th and Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
This story is from the September 30, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the September 30, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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