Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Friday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we begin with a look at the trend toward extremism in both major political parties from Jewish Insider Editor in Chief Josh Kraushaar. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ze’ev Orenstein, Sue Altman and Mark Robinson.
One of the biggest changes to politics in America over the last decade is the proliferation of extreme views and factions — from the left and right — that have slowly and steadily become assimilated in both parties’ coalitions.
Politics at the turn of the 21st century were defined by both parties fighting for persuadable moderates, and gatekeeping radical views and individuals to avoid tarnishing their brands. Campaigns in our current social media-infused age are driven by the most outspoken and extreme voices dominating the partisan discourse, with any efforts at policing guaranteed to spark an internal backlash.
That dynamic is clearly at play in the battle for the GOP nomination, where former President Donald Trump continues to dominate, despite facing multiple indictments and the prospect of jail time. But the degradation of discourse can also be seen in smaller ways, such as the alliance of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign with a social media influencer with a long history of antisemitism, both publicly and privately.
The tolerance of radical views is also on display within the Democratic coalition, albeit in different ways. Extreme ideas from the party’s left flank — such as defunding the police — have been giving Democrats political headaches as they try to broaden their appeal. But instead of overtly criticizing the views of the Squad, they’re content to overlook the Left’s excesses to keep their coalition partners happy.
The Democratic Party’s inclination to ignore lawmakers spouting inaccurate and incendiary rhetoric is particularly evident when it comes to Israel. Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-MI) Twitter feed is frequently a platform for making baseless accusations against Israel — to the point where Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt this week called on the congresswoman to stop “knowingly slander the Jewish state in a time of rising anti-Jewish hate.” But her rants drew no condemnation from party leaders.
But that low bar for policing one’s own is now the bipartisan par for the course. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has done nothing to punish Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) over his support for prominent antisemite Nick Fuentes, even after the congressman spoke at his conference and promoted a favorable documentary about him. He’s even less likely to police his own caucus, given his party’s razor-thin majority in the House.
Former President George W. Bush might have called this dynamic the soft bigotry of low expectations. And in our anything-goes political era, it’s a trend that’s likely to continue until principled leaders stand up and speak out against extremists within their midst.
the stepped street
A new excavation of an ancient Jerusalem road expected to draw modern-day pilgrims

More than 15 feet under the busy Silwan neighborhood east of Jerusalem’s Old City, there’s a quiet road that is off-limits to the people above. It’s less than a half-mile long, but its history dates back some 2,000 years. Known as the “stepped street,” or the “Pilgrimage Road,” the wide stone slabs that make up this pedestrian street were believed to be built by the Romans. The road was rediscovered by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 2004, after a sewage pipe burst. Archaeologists expect visitors to be able to walk the length of the road in two years, following the completion of an intricate excavation project, reports Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch, who visited the archaeological site in June.
Underground infrastructure: For more than a decade now, archaeologists have overseen an underground excavation of the road, using heavy iron beams to prop up the above-ground infrastructure while they hollow out everything that has accumulated on top of the road over the past two millennia. Historians and archaeologists assert that the road connected the Pool of Siloam, a Roman-era pool used by Jewish pilgrims as a ritual bath, to the Second Temple.
Pilgrim’s path: Each year, hundreds of thousands of people visit the City of David National Park, a popular tourist attraction and historical site in East Jerusalem that oversees several major archaeological projects related to ancient Jerusalem and biblical history. The number of visitors is expected to increase dramatically when the Pilgrimage Road opens, and the world’s Christians come in larger numbers to walk on a sacred stretch of ground that Jesus is considered likely to have walked.