Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Monday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we explore the role that Arab voters could play in tomorrow’s election in Israel, and look at Rep. Elaine Luria’s fight to hold onto her congressional seat. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Adam Laxalt, Elon Musk and Robert Kraft.
With just over a week until Election Day and as the polls tighten, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) are upping their engagement with the state’s Hasidic Jewish community as they vie for the top job in Albany.
The Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition endorsed the GOP nominee on Sunday during a meeting between Zeldin and FJCC leaders, rabbis, community members and activists. Zeldin also held a rally in Borough Park where he was cheered on by hundreds of Hasidic and other Orthodox supporters.
Meanwhile, Hochul visited the Ohel of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in Queens.
The 11th-hour outreach to the community was underscored in a New York Times article published with the headline “How the Hasidic Jewish Community Became a Political Force in New York,” and cites both Zeldin and Hochul’s outreach to the community. The piece notes how Zeldin is “enthusiastically courting” leaders in the Hasidic community, while Hochul “has numerous supporters” in the bloc.
Last week, the head rabbi of the Hasidic enclave of New Square, Rabbi David Twersky, received a phone call from President Joe Biden, asking for him to support embattled Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY). And earlier this month, the mayors of Kaser and New Square, as well as the village administrator of Kiryas Joel, appeared onstage with Biden, Hochul and Maloney at a tech and business development event in Dutchess County, N.Y.
The Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly kicked off last night in Chicago, the first time the organization has held an in-person GA since 2019. Ben Sales, eJewishPhilanthropy’s news editor, is on the scene, where today’s sessions will be dedicated to viewpoint diversity. Sign up for eJP’s Your Daily Phil and get the latest GA updates.
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Laxalt campaign paid thousands to political operative linked to Twitter account that denigrated Jews, women

Nevada republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt speaks during a Hispanic Heritage Month Fiesta at the RNC Hispanic Community Center on October 13, 2022, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Until it was removed from Twitter on Thursday, an anonymous account called “LaxaltStan” — which spent much of its time denigrating Jews, women and gay and transgender people, among other groups — had emphasized that it was “NOT AFFILIATED” with Adam Laxalt, the Republican Senate nominee in Nevada. But past social media activity contradicts that assertion, linking the account to a political operative who received more than $6,500 from the Laxalt campaign in August, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
‘Go follow my main’: In a now-deleted tweet uncovered on the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine, the anonymous user behind the account identified himself as Michael Pecjak, a conservative activist from Nevada who previously served as a campaign staffer for a former Republican House candidate in Las Vegas. “Go follow my main @MichaelPecjak,” the “LaxaltStan” account declared last March, directing users to Pecjak’s personal profile.
Sudden disappearance: In a statement to JI on Thursday, Brian Freimuth, a press secretary for Laxalt, said Pecjak “was terminated in August and is not affiliated with the campaign in any way.” Freimuth did not provide a reason for the termination and did not confirm whether the campaign was aware of Pecjak’s connection to “LaxaltStan.” Pecjak did not respond to requests for comment from JI sent to his public Facebook and Instagram accounts on Thursday afternoon. Hours later, however, the “LaxaltStan” account was removed from Twitter.
Hateful tweets: In recent weeks, the “LaxaltStan” account compared abortion to the Holocaust, claimed that “Jews are not a religious sect and are a cult,” and expressed disapproval of a right-wing news publication because its top editor had once described the outlet as a “pro-Jewish website with a reputation for treating women and minorities well.” The account also said that “guns should have more rights than women,” declared that gay rights advocates are “going to hell” and suggested that nearly half of “LGBT+ individuals have a mental illness,” among other things.
Ties to extremism: Though somewhat obscure, Pecjak’s connection to the Laxalt campaign is one of the most recent instances in which the Republican Senate candidate — who helped lead the effort to overturn the presidential election results in Nevada — has been tied to far-right extremism. The Anti-Defamation League has warned that Laxalt has “pushed 2020 election conspiracies” and “is associated with the anti-government Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association,” a far-right group whose members have backed his campaign.