Daily Kickoff
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2026
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we break down the final polls before Israelis cast their ballots next week, report on Pope Leo XIV's commitment to combat antisemitism, and spotlight the Americans vying for Knesset seats in the Israeli election. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Bill Ackman, Sacha Baron Cohen and Bianna Golodryga.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with assists from Tamara Zieve, Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod.
The Weekly Print
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, featuring stories from Jewish Insider and eJP, including: Robert Kraft’s Blue Square gala pulls in $32 million as NYC’s Waldorf glows blue; AIPAC to end candidate endorsements, PAC contributions to allies; and JFNA announces $35 million, 100-person initiative to combat antisemitism. Print the latest edition here.
Today's Agenda
As candidates around the country head into the home stretch ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms, former President Barack Obama is set to campaign on Saturday in Detroit with Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Michigan gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson. The campaign event comes days after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) made an 11th-hour $1 million contribution to El-Sayed’s campaign in response to a report that AIPAC was putting $9 million behind GOP nominee Mike Rogers.
The radical group PAL-Awda, which has organized several disruptive demonstrations in Jewish neighborhoods, plans to hold a demonstration targeting an Israeli real estate event at a synagogue in Riverdale, N.Y., on Saturday night.
New York elected officials representing the Bronx — including Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), state Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz, Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and City Councilmember Eric Dinowitz — issued a joint statement condemning the planned Riverdale protest as “an attack on Jewish New Yorkers.”
Two Palestinian gunmen carried out a shooting attack at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday morning, wounding five people, two of them critically.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said the terrorists, who were killed by Israeli soldiers, had planned a larger attack against civilians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who linked the attack to Hamas, said he instructed security forces to cordon off Hebron and the IDF said it has launched offensive counterterrorism operations in the area. Hamas praised the attack and called for more, without claiming responsibility for the shooting.
In Tel Aviv on Sunday, Israeli defense-tech leaders, Elbit, Israel Aerospace Industries and XTEND are slated to take part in Israeli DefenseTech Innovation Day.
One Thing to Know
By Lahav Harkov
The likeliest outcome of Israel’s upcoming election is a stalemate, according to the final polls ahead of next Tuesday’s election, with neither side — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc and the bloc opposing him, led by Gadi Eisenkot — projected to reach a majority of the Knesset.
Israeli law prohibits the publication of new polls from Friday until the Oct. 27 election.
In the average of six mainstream TV and newspaper polls, the Eisenkot-led bloc had more seats than the current coalition. An average of polls from the last two days showed Eisenkot’s bloc narrowly ahead, holding 52 seats to the Netanyahu bloc’s 50 seats.
The Big Reads
vatican visit
Pope Leo affirms commitment to fighting antisemitism in meeting with AJC leaders
In a meeting at the Vatican with American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch and other AJC leaders from around the country on Thursday, Pope Leo XIV affirmed his commitment to combating antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. “Rooted in our shared spiritual heritage, this friendship also calls us to defend human dignity, to serve the poor, to protect religious freedom and to promote justice and peace,” the pope told the Jewish leaders. “Essential to this commitment is the rejection of all forms of religious and ethnic hatred and discrimination.” Speaking to JI after the meeting, AJC leaders emphasized the significance of the meeting and of the pope’s commitment to rejecting antisemitism, given both the massive influence that the pope and the Catholic Church hold around the world and the Church’s own history of fomenting antisemitism.
poll position
U.S. experts split on Netanyahu’s prospects ahead of Israel’s election
Middle East policy experts offered differing assessments on Thursday of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prospects in next week’s election, with some suggesting his political experience could carry him to another victory despite unfavorable polling, while others warned that neither his coalition nor the opposition may secure enough seats to form a government, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Speaking at the Hudson Institute in Washington, David Makovsky, the Ziegler distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Michael Doran, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at Hudson; and David Wurmser, a senior analyst for Middle East affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, examined the political divisions and security concerns shaping the race. The discussion was moderated by Hudson senior fellow Ludovic Hood.
stars, stripes and seats
Meet the Americans hoping to secure a seat in the next Knesset
American immigrants to Israel have played outsized roles in governing the Jewish state from its establishment: Golda Meir, born in Kyiv and raised in Milwaukee, was a member of the first Knesset, working her way up to become prime minister 20 years later in 1969. A few years after that, Marcia Freedman, from New Jersey, became a pioneer of Israeli feminism in the Knesset, and in the 1980s, Brooklyn-born Rabbi Meir Kahane entered the Knesset as a one-man faction that was later banned because of its racist platform. Broaden that out to people who spent formative years in America or have American parents, and you have another two prime ministers: Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett, respectively. Several of the parties likely to win Knesset seats in next Tuesday’s election have candidates who meet those criteria, and some of them spoke with Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov this week.
The Rundown
The rest of today’s original stories from Jewish Insider — full stories, all published on the site.
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it is investigating suspicious oil trading and online prediction market bets tied to U.S. military actions in the Middle East…
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee sent a cable to the State Department this week expressing skepticism about the Board of Peace’s ability to implement the Trump administration’s peace plan for Gaza, citing a lack of personnel and resources…
The Wall Street Journal looks at how the entry of Emirati diplomat Lana Nusseibeh — who spent more than a decade as the UAE’s envoy to the U.N. — into the race to succeed António Guterres as U.N. secretary-general “has shaken up a fraught process” amid a deadlock with no clear frontrunner as the UAE works to, per the WSJ, “establish itself as a trusted global mediator”…
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan criticized Hasan Piker ahead of the far-left streamer’s planned event in Minneapolis, with a spokesperson saying, “She believes we should be focused on the things that bring Minnesotans together, not divide us”; Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison also distanced themselves from the event, to a degree, saying they do not plan to attend. Five Democratic state senators also joined a push to cancel the event…
Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) and 11 Senate Democrats wrote to the Trump administration demanding they work to release Abdalkareem Issa Ahmed Safi, an 18-year-old American citizen being detained by Israel…
A super PAC aligned with President Donald Trump announced plans to spend $6.3 million against Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) to boost his opponent, former Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer, part of an overall $25 million new investment in races across the country…
Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) campaigned with Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) on Wednesday in the heavily Jewish community of Monsey, N.Y., as Lawler remains locked in a tight reelection battle against Cait Conley in the state’s 17th Congressional District…
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law urged the Department of Justice to investigate whether UNRWA USA, the U.S. charity affiliate of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, should be required to register as a foreign agent…
In a press release, the anti-Israel group TrackAIPAC, which has been accused of antisemitism, vowed to “keep going” in the wake of AIPAC’s decision to stop endorsing candidates and directly earmarking donations; the group highlighted its “proprietary tools to trace AIPAC’s network” it has used to broadly target individual Jewish and pro-Israel donors…
Sol Werdiger, the chairman of Agudath Israel of America, endorsed New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for reelection, citing her decision earlier this month to opt the state into a new federal scholarship tax credit program for which Agudath Israel had advocated…
Law enforcement in New York City is investigating as a possible hate crime an incident in which a Jewish man was stabbed with a needle or syringe in the city’s Diamond District…
Police in New York arrested a Long Island man accused of attempting to set fire to the Young Israel of West Hempstead synagogue and damaging a police vehicle…
A federal grand jury indicted a 22-year-old Utah man on charges including possessing a destructive device, threatening to bomb a building and attempting a hate crime, after he allegedly posted “I wanna blow up a synagogue” online in December 2025 and a search of his home found six pipe bombs and two rifles…
Sacha Baron Cohen said that the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s production team expressed concern over his casting as the demon Mephisto, citing the historical negative associations between Jews and the devil…
The New York Times interviews “Nobody Wants This” actor Jackie Tohn about the evolution of her character, Esther, and what she says is the show’s ability to represent “Jewish joy.”
Show creator Erin Foster responded to recent comments about the Gaza war by actor Adam Brody, which prompted backlash from Jewish fans after he accused Israel of genocide and said he wanted “a free Palestine,” telling podcast host Amanda Hirsch, “While I love Adam, I also disagree with him. And that’s OK … I want our Jewish fans to know that I see you and I hear you and I understand how you feel”...
Bill Ackman, speaking on Thursday at the Sheba Medical Center's annual ARC summit in Tel Aviv, predicted that Israel would soon have its first $1 trillion company — “I would be surprised if not in the next five years, let alone the next 10”...
World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder warned in a Haaretz interview that Israel would “lose badly” if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — with whom Lauder was once close — wins; Lauder also revealed that he brokered a near-complete 1990s peace deal with former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad that he said Netanyahu rejected, choosing “politics over peace”…
CNN’s Bianna Golodryga announced she will leave the network after nine years; Variety reports that the longtime anchor and co-author of Don’t Feed the Lion is in talks with both CBS News and Politico…
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Mizrahi Math: In The Wall Street Journal, Mijal Bitton does a deep dive into the voting behavior of Israel’s Mizrahi citizens, many of whom will choose this month between the Likud party that has been their traditional political home, and the Yashar party of Gadi Eisenkot, a son of Moroccan immigrants. “That loyalty has long puzzled analysts who take their cues from American racial politics. But it’s only a puzzle if you assume that a group with a history of discrimination will adopt progressive politics. Most Mizrahim don’t see themselves as oppressed. What they object to is condescension: many feel that the right treats their traditions with respect, while the left treats them as a problem to be modernized. The question is whether Eisenkot can break that pattern.” [WSJ]
Strike Watch: The Atlantic’s Nancy Youssef and Jonathan Lemire consider President Donald Trump’s options vis-a-vis Iran ahead of the midterms next month. “Trump has toyed with the idea of resuming hostilities before Election Day, a push championed by those in Washington who believe that a show of force could allow the president to claim some sort of October-surprise victory. … Some officials hope that uncertainty about what the United States will do — and when — will keep Tehran on edge.” [TheAtlantic]
Fear in France: eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher talks to Jewish leaders in France about how the community is responding to the violent riots that have swept the country. “However, leaders in the already anxious French community warn that this mob violence — fueled by antisemitic conspiracy theories — could swiftly be turned against the Jewish community, and local institutions are having to prepare their security protocols and infrastructure accordingly.” [eJP]
Picture of the Day
A delegation of Catholic officials traveling to Israel with the Orthodox Union met earlier today with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in Jerusalem. Nathan Diament
Wine of the Week
Family Baum Winery Vintage 2024
By Yitz Applbaum
Tasting the wines of a new winery is, for me, like discovering a new planet. It happens rarely, and when it does I lose myself for days in the possibilities, with far more to say than a single column can hold. This week, the planet was the Family Baum Winery Vintage 2024, a spectacular blend of carignan and syrah. The moment the wine touched my tongue, each grape announced itself: the carignan earthy and gently rustic, the syrah warm with pepper. The mid-palate opened into a wave of umami, and the finish lingered long after the glass was set down.
Thirteen months in oak gave this wine the best of what wood can offer, toasty vanilla and a quiet smokiness, with none of the heaviness that burdens over-oaked wines. It will hold beautifully for at least five years. Pour it alongside chicken cacciatore, and don't be surprised if the second bottle is open before the first course is finished.
Birthdays
Leslie Grossman, actor, she has appeared as various characters on the FX anthology series “American Horror Story,” turns 55 on Sunday
JOHN NACION/FX VIA GETTY IMAGES
friday
Herbert Simon, chairman emeritus of the shopping mall developer Simon Property Group and the principal owner of the NBA's Indiana Pacers, turns 92
Gerald Sorin, distinguished university professor of American and Jewish studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz, turns 86
Nahum Barnea, Israeli journalist who has written for Davar and Yedioth Ahronoth, he won the Israel Prize in 2007, turns 82
Kenneth Feinberg, attorney best known for his role as special master for the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and for similar roles in a number of mass torts, turns 81
Alfredo Arrigo Sadun, neuro-ophthalmologist, academic, author and researcher, he is vice-chair of ophthalmology at UCLA, turns 76
Moshe "Mori" Arkin, Israeli businessman, he is the founder and chairman of Arkin Holdings, a pharmaceutical company, turns 74
Ira Steven Behr, screenwriter and television producer, best known for his work on “Star Trek,” turns 73
Sam Raimi, filmmaker, actor and producer famous for creating the cult horror “Evil Dead” series, as well as directing the original “Spider-Man” trilogy, turns 67
Kenneth D. Tuchman, founder and CEO of global outsourcing company TeleTech (now TTEC), turns 67
Simon Rosenberg, founder of the now-shuttered New Democrat Network, turns 63
Gordon Korman, author of 100 children's and young adult fiction books, turns 63
Kenneth Kurson, former editor-in-chief of The New York Observer, turns 58
Adriana Debora Kugler, former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, she is a tenured professor of public policy at Georgetown, turns 57
Boris Lozhkin, president of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine and VP of the World Jewish Congress, turns 55
Trevor Engelson, film producer and literary manager, best known for his three-year marriage to Meghan Markle starting in 2011, turns 50
Shaina Wasserman, interim COO at Temple Shalom of Newton
Ari Rennert, CEO of Renco Group, a family-owned private holding company founded by his father, Ira Rennert, turns 48
Allison Preiss, communications consultant
Benjamin Haddad, minister delegate for European affairs in the French government, turns 41
Amy Kurzweil, cartoonist for The New Yorker, turns 40
Ayelet Kahane, director of development at Mabua Israeli Beit Midrash
Annika Lichtenbaum, senior associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Hogan Lovells Cadwalader
Rachel Shabad, former speechwriter and special assistant at the U.S. Department of Labor, now a sales manager with the Empire Portfolio Group
Allison Rachesky, VP of content marketing and partnerships at SiriusXM
Richard Rubenstein
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