Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Tuesday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we interview Richmond, Va., Mayor Levar Stoney about his recent trip to Israel, and look at the implications of a proposed rules change at the Department of Education. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Dara Horn, L’Chaim OG and Douglas Schoen.
The Biden administration will host its third-annual virtual “People’s Seder” next Monday at 5:30 p.m., Shelley Greenspan, the White House’s liaison to the Jewish community, confirmed to Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch on Monday.
“Every year at Passover, Jews around the world begin the retelling of the Passover story with Ha Lahma Anya, which includes the line, ‘Let all who are hungry, come and eat!’” Greenspan told JI. “This is one of the core values of the holiday — that everyone, no matter one’s income level, deserves to celebrate being free at Passover.”
This year’s virtual White House Seder, which is co-hosted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will focus on food insecurity. “Even while there is a feast in front of us, our neighbors are hungry and we can never truly be free until each and every one of us is food secure,” said Greenspan. She declined to say whether President Joe Biden would participate in the Seder, and did not name any White House officials who are participating. Read more here.
All eyes are on Chicago today, where voters head to the polls for a runoff to determine who will succeed Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who fell short in February’s election for the city’s top job. Going head-to-head in the Windy City are former education superintendent Paul Vallas and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson. The final poll released before today’s election showed Vallas with a four-point lead.
Both Vallas and Johnson have spent the final weeks of the campaign reaching out to Chicago’s Jewish community, we reported last week, which could play a key role in today’s results.
“This is going to be a very close race,” Leonard Matanky, a rabbi who leads Congregation K.I.N.S., an Orthodox synagogue in West Rogers Park, told JI on Monday. “However, I believe that many in our community are naturally drawn to Paul Vallas — he has a track record and significant leadership experience, and his commitment to education and public safety resonates very strongly with us. Against the backdrop of the rise in antisemitism, the critical need for strong public and parochial education to guide our youth, and the complex challenge of governments, Paul Vallas’ candidacy speaks the loudest.”
Today is also Election Day in Wisconsin, where a closely watched Supreme Court race is set to decide whether conservatives will maintain a majority or if control will tip to the liberal wing, although the court is nominally nonpartisan. Liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz faces conservative former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly for a 10-year term on the court. Spending in the race has passed $42 million, including significant outside spending, and Protasiecwicz has substantially outraised Kelly.
The animating issue, particularly for Democrats, is abortion rights. Wisconsin, a key battleground state, has a long-standing law outlawing nearly all abortions, which could potentially be overturned by a more liberal court. “[Today] is going to be a referendum on abortion,” Mordecai Lee, a University of Wisconsin political science professor, told Jewish Insider. The issue, Lee said, could help turn out “disaffected women in the suburbs, college educated [voters]” in favor of Protasiewicz.
Both sides, including outside groups, have been active on TV, with Kelly characterizing Protasiewicz as soft on crime. “I think one of the things that’s different this time around is that… Mr. Kelly also has some problematic history on this front, and so third-party groups have been able to put him on the defensive on that. And it means that it’s sort of a wash,” Joe Zepecki, a Milwaukee-based Democratic strategist, said.
The outcome today could have implications for 2024. A liberal-controlled Supreme Court could revisit Wisconsin’s conservative-led congressional redistricting as well as the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing ballot drop boxes and other election-related decisions, which “would substantively provide an advantage for Democrats,” Lee said.
The result will likely come along tight margins, Zepecki said, and may not be a strong indicator of where the state leans in 2024. Record turnout in a Supreme Court race was 1.5 million voters, he explained, while presidential turnout has been over 3 million. However, results in the Milwaukee suburbs could be an indicator of whether “some of that Trump effect on suburban voters has abated or not.”
We don’t often note state Supreme Court races, but as CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski put it, “The Wisconsin election tomorrow is probably significantly more consequential” than news of former President Trump’s indictment, which is scheduled for today in New York.
rising star
Richmond’s Levar Stoney, recently returned from Israel, eyes governor’s mansion

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney leads a very Democratic city that is currently home to Virginia’s popular Republican governor. The 42-year-old mayor is quick to admit he’s got his eye on the governor’s mansion, just a few miles from his home in the Old Dominion’s capital city. “I’m going to seriously consider running for governor in 2025,” Stoney, a Democrat, confirmed in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch last week.
Looking for allies: Stoney commended Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin for his work fighting antisemitism, including his creation of the first state-level commission dedicated to addressing antisemitism. “When I had my first conversation with Governor Youngkin, I told him that when he’s doing some great things for the Commonwealth of Virginia, I want to recognize him for that,” said Stoney. “When it comes to the commission to combat antisemitism, I think Governor Youngkin was doing the right thing. And I think the recommendations, the follow-through, I applaud that.”
On the scene: Stoney, who leads a city of 226,000, has become a vocal advocate for the city’s 10,000 Jews. As the president of the Democratic Mayors Association and a sometimes-surrogate for the Biden administration, the second-term mayor has carved out a niche for himself on the national stage. He’s also taken an active role internationally. Stoney delivered an address at a December conference in Greece dedicated to antisemitism, and he recently returned from a delegation to Israel for American mayors.
Democracy dish: Stoney’s recent trip to Israel, on a delegation organized by the American Jewish Committee, was his first. “I’ve got two words for you: It’s complicated. That’s what I learned on the trip,” he said. The delegation flew home one day after protests and widespread strikes briefly halted outgoing flights at Ben Gurion Airport, and the group saw firsthand the Israeli public debate over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s now-paused judicial reform legislation. “It’s my hope that, during this pause, we find a way to strengthen democracy in Israel, because Lord knows we don’t need a democracy devolving into an autocracy,” Stoney said. “We need to strengthen democracy. And when you strengthen democracy, you will use it as a tool to combat hate and antisemitism.”
Not as seen on TV: Stoney reflected that the Israel he experienced was very different from what he described as the “Americanized media version” of the country. “For instance, I didn’t know that Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis all live amongst one another. You would not know that from the American media,” he said. “They all want to coexist and live in harmony. Just like we have in this country, in the United States, there’s extremism on both sides, who unfortunately impede the progress towards peace.”