
Daily Kickoff: Rhode Island special + Swift scheduling
👋 Good Tuesday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we spotlight the congressional race taking shape in Delaware’s at-large district, and look at how Taylor Swift’s 2024 tour dates are upending planning for Jewish life-cycle events. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Jacob Steinmetz, Ishay Ribo and Hannah Goldfield.
The 2024 primary season officially gets underway today, as voters in Rhode Island go to the polls in a Democratic congressional primary that has grown surprisingly heated and personal. A special election is being held in the heavily Democratic 1st District after former Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) stepped down earlier this year to run a nonprofit.
The race appears to be Aaron Regunberg-versus-everyone. The progressive former state representative led in a recent poll, and the final days of his campaign have featured a flurry of high-profile progressive lawmakers: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) came to Providence to campaign with him, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) endorsed him.
Regunberg has also garnered attacks from his 10 opponents, including former Biden administration staffer Gabe Amo, Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos and state Sen. Sandra Cano, the three contenders closest to him in a recent poll commissioned by Amo’s campaign. Even some on the left have criticized Regunberg for his ties to a Super PAC funded by his father-in-law. Matos, who has held the most senior position of anyone in the race, has also faced controversy; dozens of the signatures she gathered to run for office were forged.
“It was hers to lose and she’s done everything she can to lose it,” Fox Providence political analyst Joe Fleming said of Matos on Friday. He added that Regunberg has been working hard to court the progressive vote: “In a 12-way race, you don’t need 50% of the vote to win.”
National Israel advocacy organizations like AIPAC, Democratic Majority for Israel and J Street have largely stayed out of the race. But other grassroots pro-Israel groups have stepped in. Last week, Matos appeared at a virtual fundraiser hosted by NORPAC, a large pro-Israel PAC. JACPAC, a group that supports pro-Israel and pro-choice candidates, is backing Regunberg.
Cicilline has avoided getting involved in the race, but his predecessor, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), recently endorsed Amo. The district hasn’t elected a Republican since 1992.
Polls close at 8 p.m. tonight. Turnout is expected to be very low in this off-year race, and all it takes is a plurality of the vote for a candidate to win the primary — and be catapulted to Congress.
Republican voters in Utah will also be nominating a likely successor to Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) tonight. Stewart’s former legal counsel Celeste Maloy will be facing off against Becky Edwards, a Trump critic, and Bruce Hough, a longtime RNC committeeman, among others in the GOP primary. Stewart is resigning from the House this month because his wife is ill.
Israeli coalition and opposition figures spent Tuesday morning giving their reasons to resist another attempt by President Isaac Herzog to bring about a compromise on judicial reform – but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his office are being suspiciously quiet about a plan that he reportedly told Herzog he’d be willing to adopt, JI senior political correspondent Lahav Harkov reports.
The plan, according to Israel media, mostly entails compromise from the right, not the left: freezing bills relating to the judiciary for a year and a half, softening the recently legislated ban on using “reasonability” as a reason to overturn government decisions, convening the panel that selects judges and promising not to change its makeup.
National Unity party leader Benny Gantz refuses to talk directly with Netanyahu, but hinted that he’s game, saying at a Jewish People Policy Institute conference that people “must recognize the need to compromise so we can coexist in one Jewish and democratic state…The reality requires complex solutions.”
Justice Minister Yariv Levin told Haredi radio station Kol Barama that he cannot agree to any compromise that does not involve changes to the Judicial Selection Committee. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said his party won’t accept the plan, period.
Senior figures in Yesh Atid, the party of Opposition Leader Yair Lapid — who is in Washington today — say that Netanyahu is trying to put on a moderate façade in order to get an invitation to the White House. Meanwhile, the prime minister dodged questions about a compromise from the delegation of reporters traveling with him to Cyprus.
In Nicosia, Netanyahu met with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the presidential palace. Netanyahu tweeted that the three sides are “exploring cooperation in energy, combating climate change, and expanding the Abraham Accords.” He also noted that Israel intends to open its dairy market to Greek, Cypriot and other imports.
swift effect
‘Look What You Made Me Do’ — Change my bat mitzvah date

Eleven-year-old Orlie Solzman was at Jewish overnight camp when Taylor Swift made a decision that would change her life. The pop star announced in August that she plans to add four additional North American stops to her already massive Eras Tour, including three shows in Orlie’s hometown of Indianapolis. This would be welcome news for most middle school girls to receive in a letter from home. Except Swift’s Indianapolis shows — Nov. 1-3, 2024 — fell on Orlie’s bat mitzvah weekend. Within an hour of Swift’s announcement, Orlie’s parents emailed their synagogue and asked to change the date. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is projected to be the largest tour in music history, and its effect on the local economy, and psyche, of each city she visits is indisputable. The downstream impacts of Swift’s tour on the Jewish community and Jewish events are similarly stark, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
You’re On Your Own, Kid: “As soon as we heard the dates, my husband’s first reaction was, ‘We’re going to have to change her bat mitzvah,’” Orlie’s mother, Andrea Solzman, recalled. Their extended family lives out of town, and the Solzmans knew hotels would be impossible to book. (Every hotel in Indianapolis is currently sold out for that weekend, still more than 14 months away, according to Hotels.com.) Just one or two dates remained open at Congregation Beth-El Zedeck, and the family settled on Labor Day weekend 2024 for the new bat mitzvah.
Shake It Off: Now that the Eras Tour’s massive scale is known, families living in the cities she will visit next fall — Indianapolis, New Orleans, Miami and Toronto — must decide whether to move lifecycle events including bar mitzvahs and weddings. Rabbis are considering how to incorporate Swift into their teachings, and many are cheekily planning to invite her to synagogue events such as Shabbat dinners or Sukkot gatherings (the fall harvest holiday takes place during Swift’s Miami tour dates).
I Knew You Were Trouble: “Taylor Swift weekend is now part of our programming calendar. We’re not going to counterprogram it,” said Rabbi David Gerber of Congregation Gates of Prayer in New Orleans, where Swift is slated to perform over Simchat Torah. But in New Orleans, a city known for its eclectic cultural events and a thriving music scene, ignoring Swift would be out of the question. “Our [Shabbat] theme next week is ShaBarbenheimer. So it’s entirely possible that we’ll have, like, Swift-hat Torah or something.”