Good Thursday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Jewish leaders about their efforts to build up local grassroots organizing to counter extremist political forces, and report on Bob Iger and Josh Kushner’s purchase of a controlling interest in the Los Angeles Lakers. We interview Andrew Gross, the incoming head of the American Jewish Committee’s New York/New Jersey office, and spotlight Scouting America’s efforts to provide a welcoming environment for Jewish and Israeli scouts. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Yuval Ben Neriah, Rabbi Ben Berger and Nelson Peltz.

We also have a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who is openly considering a presidential campaign in 2028, made waves over the weekend when she declared that “Woke 1.0 was crazy” in a nationally televised ABC News interview where she distanced herself from the most unpopular elements of the progressive movement. 

Left unsaid during the conversation is what specific policies in the party’s last activist wave does she think were crazy, and does she still agree with any of them? After all, the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America currently outlines many of the same issues that played a role in Democrats’ defeat in 2024 — from progressive candidates’ support for defunding the police to the Biden administration’s open-ended immigration policy that led to the second Trump administration’s harsh crackdown on refugees and undocumented immigrants. 

Presumably, she’ll be asked to answer more of the specifics in subsequent interviews. But the implication of her comments was that it’s hard for Democrats to publicly embrace the panoply of left-wing issues that became liberal conventional wisdom around the time of the pandemic without suffering a significant political penalty. Democrats aren’t exactly speaking the language of climate change activists or transgender advocates or supporting watering down penalties for criminals anymore, as was commonplace in 2020.  

But they aren’t confronting the far-left forces that drove these issues to the forefront of the conversation for much of the last decade, either. The scandal surrounding Francesca Hong’s view of Thanksgiving as a “colonizer holiday” and Abdul El-Sayed’s comments bashing football, July 4 fireworks and Mackinac Island only underscore the impression that their deeply-held views are at odds with a majority of Americans. 

And meanwhile, the DSA faction is as influential as ever in Democratic Party politics. How did that happen, even as a prominent progressive like AOC now acknowledges the excesses of the far left? It’s because the activists have refocused their attention away from their (still deeply held) unpopular social and cultural positions, and are now singularly focused on demanding candidates label Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza as a genocide. That’s the biggest litmus test right now. And their efforts are aided by the overall decline in support for Israel within the Democratic Party that’s accelerated in the last year.

Read the rest of 'What You Should Know' here.

Josh Kushner, managing partner of the venture capital firm Thrive Capital, and former Disney CEO Bob Iger have agreed to purchase a controlling interest in the Los Angeles Lakers for a record-breaking price of $12.5 billion, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. 

Announcement: “As lifelong NBA fans, we are deeply honored for the opportunity to become stewards of the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most iconic sports franchises in the world. We have immense respect for the leadership and vision of Jerry and Jeanie Buss,” Kushner and Iger said in a statement, referring to Jeanie Buss, governor and minority owner of the Lakers, and her late father, longtime Lakers owner Jerry Buss. “Our long-term commitment is to build on that foundation, compete at the highest level, and serve this extraordinary team, its fans, and the city of Los Angeles.”

Read the full story here.

Until recently, the political strategy of the American Jewish establishment could be summed up in two ways: Elect pro-Israel lawmakers to Congress and, at a much smaller scale, educate state and local officials about Jewish values and causes. But a new model of Jewish political engagement is emerging to counter growing populist angst and surging antisemitism across the political spectrum: local efforts focused on school boards and city councils and statehouses, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. 

Door-to-door: These Jewish activists are not shying away from the messy reality of politics: They aren’t here to make friends with everyone, acknowledging that not everyone is an ally. Their goal is to offer support — through door-knocking, organizing and their checkbooks — to candidates who have stood by the Jewish community in the post-Oct. 7 political firestorm, and to try to unseat those who have not. “All of these groups are starting to pop up because we realize that the infrastructure that the community has had in the past isn't enough and isn't working,” said Stefanie Clarke, a political strategist in Colorado who co-founded the Colorado Jewish Action Alliance. 

Read the full story here.

Andrew Gross arrived in his new role as the American Jewish Committee’s New York regional director on Monday with memories from the other side of the Hudson River — memories of the shattered JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City, where in December 2019 antisemitic gunmen murdered three people before themselves dying in a firefight with police. “I remember seeing the bullet casings and glass fragments on the ground,” Gross, who had become executive director of the New Jersey-Israel Commission under then-Gov. Phil Murphy just a few months before, told Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman.

Wide net: “As I do my job here at the AJC, I'm going to work with everyone to make sure that exact type of scenario does not happen again,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with JI. “Everyone,” as he described it, extends from the NYPD to New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin to AJC’s long-standing network of Jewish and non-Jewish civic allies, and even friendly interests out of the Persian Gulf. Gross said he also plans to draw on another set of experiences from Murphy’s administration as he looks now to forge stronger ties with Big Apple business leaders: his time at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Read the full interview here.

The publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times penned an open letter to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) on Wednesday pressing the senator over his repeated votes to block U.S. military sales to Israel, accusing Ossoff of failing to support Israel and of misrepresenting his positions to his Jewish constituents, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Notable quotable: “I apologize for being blunt, but please, stop lying to me and your constituents. I hear you claim, over and over again, that you support Israel — that your support is ‘ironclad,’” Michael Morris wrote in the letter. “It is not. You vote against Israel on the Senate floor in Washington, then come home to Georgia and make this untruthful claim.” He argued that, by contrast, Ossoff’s “antagonism toward Israel has remained steadfast,” pointing to his repeated votes for efforts to block arms sales.

Read the full story here.

David Flippo, the Republican nominee in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District, accepted a max-out donation from Robert Beadles, a prominent local GOP donor and commentator who has repeatedly promoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other antisemitic conspiracy theories, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Paper trail: Flippo, a military veteran who is running in a district that strongly favors Republicans to replace Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), has positioned himself as a close ally of the Jewish community. But according to FEC records, he has received $7,000 in donations from Beadles — the legal allowable limit — in May and June of 2026, the only donations Beadles has made thus far this election cycle.

Read the full story here.

Clad in khaki uniforms and merit badges, hundreds of scouts gathered on a Saturday morning for a sight that has become increasingly rare in America: a Jewish prayer service without security and where nobody felt the need to look over their shoulder, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Sense of security: At a moment when Jewish students contemplating the upcoming school year are weighing whether to wear or hide their Star of David necklaces as they return to the classroom, this summer’s Scouting America national jamboree in West Virginia offered a different message — holding a full, public Shabbat service for its Jewish scouts as part of an event organizers describe as one of the last unapologetically inclusive spaces for religious minorities in youth culture. “I’ve had the privilege of going to synagogue services around the world for the past 20 years. [The jamboree] was the only one I’ve been to, other than in Israel, where there was no need for security around the service,” Ricky Mason, chair of Scouting America’s national executive board, told JI.

Read the full story here.

Not Very Christian: For Fox News, George Deek, Israel’s special envoy to the Christian world, reflects on the “double standard” applied to Israel amid reports of attacks by Israeli extremists targeting Christians in the country. “Extremism exists in every democratic society. Sometimes it grows dangerously. Governments must confront it. But serious people understand the difference between extremists within a society and the character of the society itself. Except, increasingly, when that society is Israel. An extremist in Boston, Madrid or London attacks a Jew, and we correctly call him an antisemite. A fanatic spits at a Christian in Jerusalem, and suddenly we are invited to diagnose Israeli society. That is not analysis. It is a double standard. If you genuinely want to know whether Christians are flourishing in a country, there are better measures than the behavior of its worst citizens.” [FoxNews]

Trouble Back Home: The Wall Street Journal’s Sadanand Dhume looks at the challenges facing Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir as he notches a series of high-profile diplomatic wins but struggles with domestic constraints. “Over the past year and a half, the army chief and Pakistan’s de facto leader, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has pulled off a high-wire act: He has raised Pakistan’s international standing even as domestic challenges have mounted. But unless Gen. Munir can revive the country’s stagnant economy and calm its restive population, his diplomatic gains will likely prove evanescent. … Unfortunately for Pakistan, neither Gen. Munir’s diplomatic feats nor his consolidation of power offers solutions to the country’s domestic crises.” [WSJ]

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio was spotted at a joint practice between the Washington Commanders and the Miami Dolphins in Virginia alongside Commanders owner Josh Harris and Dolphins CEO Daniel Sillman…

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is stepping away from her role at the end of the month; President Donald Trump, who announced Leavitt’s upcoming departure from the White House, said she will now serve as “one of my top outside advisors”…

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) dismissed the notion on Wednesday that campaign spending in her favor by AIPAC’s super PAC backfired in her failed bid for U.S. Senate, and defended the pro-Israel group as Jewish Americans participating in the democratic process, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports…

Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management is preparing, as part of a consortium of investors it organized that includes Abu Dhabi-based BlueFive Capital, to make a bid for Wendy’s that would take the fast food chain private…

TheWrap’s media editor looks at the pushback to New York magazine’s recent edition that focused on New York City’s Middle East culture scene while denigrating Israel, including the characterization of the Jewish state by one reporter as “the land mass currently called Israel” and lumping Zionism together with Islamophobia and xenophobia…

Israeli chef Yuval Ben Neriah is opening a chain of Japanese fast casual restaurants across Europe in a $10 billion venture; the first branch of the yet-to-be-named chain is set to open in Vienna…

Israel Police announced a monthlong gag order on details related to an Israeli mother-daughter pair who disappeared last week in Austria; the request for the order came from the Lahav 433 major crimes unit, which took over the case…

A new report from the Israeli think tank IMPACT-se, which monitors educational materials around the Middle East, found that most of the “problematic themes” in Saudi curricula targeting Jews and Christians had been addressed, noting that the materials indicated a shift “toward greater moderation, inclusivity, and alignment with the broader reform objectives of” Riyadh’s ambitious Vision 2030 project…

The European Broadcasting Union announced changes to next year’s Eurovision Song Contest in which a winning country would “automatically be ineligible to host” if it was involved in an “armed conflict” or a “sensitive geopolitical situation” at the time…

More than 25 European countries signed on to a joint statement condemning Iran’s use of the death penalty to “silence dissent, intimidate communities, and punish individuals” tied to the Islamic Republic’s anti-government protests… 

The governor of Iran’s central bank said the country would soon join BRICS’ New Development Bank, two years after Tehran joined the growing consortium whose founders include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa… 

Yeshivat Chovevei Torah announced that Rabbi Ben Berger will serve as the Modern Orthodox seminary’s president and CEO, after eight years at Hillel International, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports; Berger succeeds Rabbi Dov Linzer, who served as president and rosh yeshiva for seven years and will continue in the latter role…

Rachel Nielsen is joining the Milwaukee Jewish Federation as chief operating officer…

Israeli journalist Oren Nahari died at 70 of complications from ALS, a year after announcing his diagnosis and days after his last radio broadcast…

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Israeli President Isaac Herzog was honored with an honorary degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary on Wednesday in a special ceremony with JTS Chancellor Emerita Shuly Rubin Schwartz at the President's Residence in Jerusalem.

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Co-chair and CEO of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, Michael De Luca turns 61... 

Member of the New York State Assembly for 24 years, since then she is the county clerk of Queens County, Audrey I. Pheffer turns 85... Retired CPA and senior executive in Los Angeles, Morton Algaze turns 83... Treasury secretary through all four years of the Biden administration, Janet Yellen turns 80... Documentary still photographer of the American and international Jewish communities since 1970, Robert A. Cumins turns 78... Beverly Hills, Calif., resident, Ruth Fay Kellerman... VP and chief of staff at The Aspen Institute, James M. Spiegelman turns 68... Film producer, writer and director, Susan Landau Finch turns 66... Founder of the Council of Orthodox Jewish Organizations of Manhattan, he is also the executive chairman of LifeHealth Network, Michael Landau... Storyteller, producer and writer, Jeffrey Mark "Slash" Coleman turns 59... Editor-in-chief of the Hollywood Reporter, Maer Roshan turns 59... Co-founder and managing director at Beacon Global Strategies, he was chief of staff at the CIA and the Pentagon during the Obama administration, he is a graduate of CESJDS, Jeremy B. Bash turns 55... President of Accessibility Partners, a Maryland firm that hires people with disabilities for tech jobs, she is also the founder of a nonprofit I Support the Girls, Dana Marlowe... Three-time Olympian water polo player, now head coach at Pepperdine University, Merrill Marc Moses turns 49... Professor of government at Harvard University, he was the director of the Harvard Center for Jewish Studies, Eric Matthew Nelson turns 49... Professor of law at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, Joshua Michael Blackman turns 42... Deputy general counsel and global head of contracts and litigation for Tower Research Capital, Matthew Weiss turns 40... Weekend editor for The Washington Post, Sara Sorcher... Israeli Olympic long-distance runner, she ran the marathon for Israel at the Paris Olympics in 2024, Maor Tiyouri turns 36... Counsel at CD&R, Nathan Jablow... Senior account supervisor at Edelman, Jodie Michelle Singer... VP of business development at Azul Hospitality Group, Adam Dahan... Head of investor relations at Israel Legacy Partners, David Angel... Elaine Hall... Jonathan Gerber...