Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Friday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at J.D. Vance and Rep. Tim Ryan’s outreach to the Jewish community in Ohio and the history of Detroit Yeshiva Beth Yehudah’s high-profile gala speakers ahead of White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain’s keynote on Sunday. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Samantha Power, Jonathan Medved and Amos Hochstein.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent JI and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: In final weeks of Arizona governor’s race, Lake’s outreach to Jewish voters yields mixed results; In L.A. mayoral race, competing visions of the golden dream; Kanye was invited to tour a Holocaust museum. Would it have worked?; Kushner hails Saudi Arabia as another startup nation; Israeli entrepreneur looks to sell electric trucks in Saudi Arabia; and How Jewish aid groups helped Florida and Puerto Rico. Print the latest edition here.
Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter kicked off last night with reported firings of CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, the legal affairs and policy chief, over product decisions and content moderation, setting the social media platform abuzz with speculation about Musk’s future plans.
Shortly after the announcement, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt expressed concerns that in taking charge of Twitter, Musk would allow it to be a safe space for antisemitism and exacerbate a trend of pushing out of marginalized communities from social media.
“Despite my reservations, I was cautiously optimistic that Elon Musk would take the concerns of civil society to heart, but developments over the past two weeks have been troubling,” Greenblatt said in a statement. “This includes, but is not limited to, Mr. Musk warmly welcoming back Ye to Twitter after Ye made antisemitic comments on Instagram and was booted off the platform. I worry that this will be indicative of Mr. Musk’s approach to content moderation on the platform.”
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid met with U.S. mediator and energy envoy Amos Hochstein at the Kirya Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv last night, following the signing of the maritime agreement between Israel and Lebanon that was completed earlier in the day at the U.N. peacekeeping base in Naqoura, Lebanon, along the contested border between the two countries.
“Amos, I want to thank you and your crew for all the great work — nothing less than great work — in making the deal between us and Lebanon happen. It wouldn’t have been possible without you and without the support of President Biden, who was there for us all the way. His commitment to Israel is deeply appreciated and your commitment to the whole process is deeply appreciated,” Lapid said.
In a hot mic moment, Lapid could be heard joking to Hochstein, “maybe you’ll be forgiven for destroying relations with the Saudis,” before they both laughed.
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff spoke yesterday with survivors of the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting, including Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers, a White House official said. Emhoff offered his support to Myers and the Tree of Life community and discussed actions that the administration is taking “to combat hate-fueled violence,” the official said, adding that Emhoff said he will continue speaking out against gun violence, antisemitism and hatred of all kinds.
detroit dinner
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain to give keynote address at Yeshiva Beth Yehudah dinner on Sunday

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain joins other guests for a celebrations of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court on the South Lawn of the White House on April 08, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
In 2014, former President George W. Bush stepped up to the lectern in the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center — the same place his wife, former First Lady Laura Bush, stood two years earlier — and in front of a sold-out crowd, began to speak. This was not a campaign event for the former president, but rather the annual dinner of Michigan’s prominent Jewish day school, Yeshiva Beth Yehudah, for which Bush was giving the keynote address. The dinner, which is not an inherently political event, is annually attended by over 2,000 guests and consistently attracts high-profile government officials. This year’s guest speaker on Oct. 30 is White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, Jewish Insider’s Tori Bergel reports. Klain, who is Jewish, has worked with or under Biden on-and-off for the past four decades — including as chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1989-1992 during Biden’s time as committee chair, and as chief of staff, from 2009-2011, when Biden was vice president.
A night to remember: “I’ve been going [to the dinner] for over 22 years,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) told JI during a phone interview on Thursday. “As well as having a chance to visit the schools, and so on, and I really feel what they’re doing is special. I mean, the values that are being taught, the support for the young people, the encouragement for them, I mean, they really are our next generation of leaders.”
A-list alums: Notable past event speakers include First Lady Jill Biden in 2021, former Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley in 2019, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2018, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) in 2017, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2016, among many others, each of whom praised Beth Yehudah’s mission and spoke of their support for the Jewish people.
Why it’s popular: Tevi Troy, who served in the George W. Bush administration and was a White House Jewish liaison, said that the reason for the event’s popularity in Washington is twofold. “So first of all, it’s in Michigan, which is a key swing state, so both sides of the aisle are interested in winning over the Jews of Michigan, and Michigan in general,” Troy told JI. “Second of all, it’s not a controversial organization, so you’re not saddled with let’s say, Israel policy when you do this event. It’s about unity, so it’s kind of a friendly organization in that sense and a safe space in that way. It also has a long history — it’s been around since 1914 — and the fact of the previous big-name guests helps them get good guests in the future.”
Motor City Boys Choir: Another reason for the dinner’s attraction? “They have a phenomenal boys choir, and it’s always the highlight of the evening,” Stabenow said.