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Kraft-ing a campaign

New England Patriots scion Josh Kraft wants to be Boston’s first Jewish mayor

Kraft, the son of philanthropist Robert Kraft, said he hopes his potential win will give Jewish Bostonians ‘a sense of pride’

Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Josh Kraft posed for pictures with supporters after his speech announcing his bid for mayor of Boston.

When Josh Kraft announced on Tuesday that he would be entering the Boston mayoral race, a small blue pin on his lapel was the only hint at the historic nature of his campaign. 

The square pin was a symbol of the #StandUpToJewishHate campaign created by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, an organization founded by his father, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, that uses public awareness campaigns to draw attention to antisemitism. 

If elected, Kraft would be Boston’s first Jewish mayor. But first, the Democrat must defeat incumbent Mayor Michelle Wu, a progressive Democrat and the first woman of color to hold the post in Boston — and while she is not particularly popular, it’s still difficult to defeat a sitting mayor. 

Kraft’s message, he told Jewish Insider in an interview after his public campaign announcement, is simple: He wants to listen to Bostonians, which he says Wu has stopped doing.

“There’s just a lot of concerns, especially around the cost of living, specifically around housing, and they feel like the current administration is very top-down and doesn’t listen,” Kraft, who has never held public office, said. “I feel like that’s our path to be successful: listening to people, hearing people, taking their concerns seriously and figuring out ways to support them. But I do know it’s not going to be easy.”

Kraft, who is 57, has spent his whole career working in community nonprofits, including 12 years as the CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston. Now, as the president of the New England Patriots Foundation, he is leaning into his family’s philanthropic legacy. 

Kraft said his mother, Myra, who died in 2011, taught him the most important lessons about giving back.

“She’d go to a community-based organization, either here or in the Ukraine or somewhere, and they’d roll out the carpet. She would just ignore it all, get her hands dirty, start cleaning babies, maybe in a daycare, or working with kids,” Kraft said. “She was more about doing the work, not talking about it, and that’s what I’ve learned from her.”

Kraft’s professional background has not included the kind of Jewish philanthropy for which his parents are best known. But being Jewish is important to him — and he knows that being Boston’s first Jewish mayor would be an important symbol for Jewish youth in the city.

“With the rise of antisemitism, and maybe some kids at school or college being quiet about their Judaism, hopefully it’ll give them a sense of pride,” said Kraft, who currently serves as the co-chair of the Massachusetts Task Force on Hate Crimes. He views the goal of that work as protecting not just the Bay State’s Jewish communities, but all marginalized groups.

“It starts with my own sense of Judaism and also the rise in antisemitism, but in the end, it’s about hate against all groups,” Kraft said. 

The local government in Boston, like that in other cities, was forced to confront the war in Gaza as city councilors spent months debating a cease-fire resolution, which they passed in May 2024 after removing controversial language around “apartheid” and “genocide.” If the issue came before the council again, Kraft said he would try to sit down with the council members “and then try to create the best kind of statement that supports everybody.”

Still, support for Israel is an important personal value for Kraft. “I do believe that a strong Israel is good for the United States, and in the end, I actually support a two-state solution,” he said.

Kraft’s top priority is lowering the cost of housing, which he described as the main issue he has heard from residents. He wants to incentivize developers by easing regulations on building housing, and he outlined a rent-control plan. 

Mostly, though, he is starting his campaign not with detailed campaign promises, but a more simple proposal: to follow through on his goals, which he said Wu has failed to do since she was elected in 2021. 

Kraft moved to Boston from the suburbs less than two years ago, but he said long-term residency within the borders of Boston is “less of an issue, as long as we can prove that we understand people and what their stresses are, and what they worry about, and we listen to them and hear them out,” he said. Wu, who moved to nearby Cambridge to attend Harvard, also faced concerns from voters about not having roots in the city of Boston. 

“You can’t promise everything to everyone. I know that,” said Kraft. “But at least hear them and really understand what concerns them.” 

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