【中美创新时报2025 年 2 月 3 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）乔希·克拉夫特 (Josh Kraft) 是谁？他是非营利组织的领袖，也是爱国者王朝的儿子，他正在挑战吴弭 (Michelle Wu) 的波士顿市长职位。克拉夫特将于本月宣布竞选市长。《波士顿环球报》记者Emma Platoff 对此作了下述详细报道。
承诺很宏大，但桑迪·扎莫尔·卡利克斯特对此表示怀疑。
那是 2014 年，波士顿男孩和女孩俱乐部买下了哈兹勒顿街上的旧图书馆，计划将其改造成一个青年中心，后来成为乔希·克拉夫特马塔潘青少年中心。住在附近的 Zamor Calixte 担心最初的喧嚣会消退，设施将因缺乏让孩子们忙碌所需的资金而陷入困境。
最终，正是 Kraft 本人缓解了她的担忧。然后，作为男孩和女孩俱乐部的负责人，Kraft 向她保证，该组织打算投资她的社区，并且在过去十年中一直致力于此，甚至确保每个邻居在中心的年度街区派对之前仍然收到传单。
“他在倾听，”Zamor Calixte 说。“人们想忘记他是亿万富翁的儿子这一事实，但他已经致力于社区和我们的年轻人。”
这栋建筑——侧面印有 Kraft 的名字——仍然矗立在哈兹勒顿街上，这是 Kraft 准备竞选波士顿市长时未来复杂情况的巨大砖块象征。
Josh Kraft 有机会击败吴弭市长吗？4 位作家做出回应。
乔希·克拉夫特是爱国者队老板罗伯特·克拉夫特的第三个儿子，在波士顿从事非营利性领导工作多年，他身边的人说，他的工作改善了这座城市无数年轻人的生活，表明他会成为一位富有同情心、有社区意识的市长。
然而，他进入慈善界的道路一直被其家族的巨额财富所笼罩，而这一特权现在却成为一种政治负担，因为他正在竞选罢免吴弭市长，吴弭是第一位当选为该市市长的女性和有色人种，她的父母是台湾移民，在芝加哥以外长大。
这位政治新手非常了解这种紧张关系。多年来，他经常开玩笑说，自己生来就有“幸运的 DNA”，在“栗树山的贫民窟”长大。他也承认，他的家族姓氏——以及家族财富——帮助他进一步发展事业，包括他父母的慷慨捐赠帮助他为当时经营的切尔西男孩女孩俱乐部建造了一座新大楼。
“我并不笨，”他在 2008 年告诉《波士顿环球报》。“我父母捐赠了 200 万美元。”
但不仅仅是卡夫的捐赠让这个曾经孤儿的俱乐部拥有了一个拥有六道室内游泳池的崭新会所。卡夫还筹集了 900 万美元来开设这个场地，了解他的人都说，这表明他对筹款和非营利工作的真正热爱和天赋。支持者说，他是一位敬业、注重团队的领导者，致力于倾听所有人的声音，他的动力来自影响力，而不是个人荣耀。
当然，经营一个非营利组织，即使是一个为数千名儿童服务的组织，与经营一个美国大城市也是截然不同的。卡夫没有担任民选公职的经验，他正寻求领导一个拥有 20,000 多名员工的少数族裔占多数的城市，而此时美国正处于极其动荡的时刻。为了赢得选举，他还必须说服选民，他是管理陷入困境的波士顿公立学校的最佳人选，他和他的孩子都没有上过这所学校。到目前为止，在预计在未来几天正式宣布这一决定之前，人们对克拉夫特作为市长具体想做什么知之甚少，不过住房问题预计将是主要关注点。
克拉夫特拒绝接受本文采访，他在一个有四个有时吵闹的兄弟的家庭中长大，是个和事佬，他为人谦逊，不会霸占麦克风，据他身边的人说。他更喜欢穿牛仔裤和爱国者队的连帽衫，而不是西装，如果不是因为他的姓氏，可能很难看出他是身价 118 亿美元的男人的儿子。
“我不认为他是新英格兰爱国者队的继承人，”东马萨诸塞州城市联盟前负责人达内尔·威廉姆斯 (Darnell L. Williams) 说，他通过非营利工作认识了克拉夫特几十年。“我认为他是一个脚踏实地的人。 … 他从来没有给我留下傲慢、自以为是或享有特权的印象。”
如果当选，现年 57 岁的克拉夫特将成为波士顿首位犹太裔市长。他与伴侣米歇尔·佩雷斯·维乔特 (Michelle Perez Vichot) 住在波士顿北区，后者担任后湾区一家私人社交俱乐部‘Quin House’ 影响力基金的主管。他已离异，有两个成年女儿，她们都住在波士顿郊外，在非营利组织工作。
克拉夫特担任马萨诸塞州东部城市联盟董事会主席，并通过爱国者基金会领导其家族的慈善事业，这是一个无薪职位。他打算在即将到来的竞选期间继续担任这份工作。
这是他早年表现出的兴趣的延续——在他与已故母亲迈拉·克拉夫特 (Myra Kraft) 的餐桌上，迈拉是当地慈善事业的受人爱戴的人物，曾与男孩和女孩俱乐部 (Boys & Girls Club) 密切合作。
“乔希总是问我妈妈那天去了哪里，做了什么，而我们其他人则想和我爸爸谈生意，”他的哥哥乔纳森·克拉夫特 (Jonathan Kraft) 在最近的一次采访中回忆道。 “乔希显然是我们所有人中最聪明的。……他从小就很聪明。”
如果他的两个哥哥追随父亲的脚步——乔纳森·克拉夫特现在担任卡夫集团总裁，是首席执行官罗伯特·克拉夫特父亲的得力助手——那么乔希·克拉夫特则追随母亲的脚步。他为波士顿男孩女孩俱乐部工作了三十年，其中包括 12 年的总裁兼首席执行官。
“在我看来，他拥有他母亲的心，”为城市青少年服务的马库斯·安东尼·霍尔教育学院的执行董事普里西拉·弗林特说。克拉夫特的慈善事业支持了她的组织，弗林特希望如果当选，他将指导城市对该组织的拨款。她支持克拉夫特竞选市长，但她在 2021 年支持吴，因为她认为吴没有兑现一些竞选承诺。
高中时，乔希·克拉夫特又迈出了与众不同的一步，他选择就读位于韦斯顿的私立里弗斯学校，而不是他的哥哥们就读的贝尔蒙特山学校。乔纳森·克拉夫特说，他希望别人把他看作是一个独立的个体，而不是一群吵闹的兄弟中的第三个。
从威廉斯敦的威廉姆斯学院毕业后，乔希·克拉夫特在南波士顿的男孩和女孩俱乐部找到了一份工作，致力于防止中学生辍学。这份工作让他突然面临暴力、贫困和毒瘾等挑战，他从未亲身经历过。
“我们的父母让我们明白我们是幸运的，但这有点概念化——只有亲身体验了才知道这是真的，”乔纳森·克拉夫特回忆道。
南波士顿的工作让他充满活力，改变了他。当乔希·克拉夫特给亲朋好友打电话时，他想谈论的是他正在教的孩子们。他邀请他的兄弟乔纳森和其他几个人来指导他项目中的学生。
这项工作似乎也让克拉夫特开始思考政策解决方案。
1992 年，乔希·克拉夫特在一篇关于逃学的报道中告诉《波士顿环球报》，“必须做出一些重大改变。我认为我们应该开设育儿课程，颁发家长执照，并对不让孩子上学的家长施以严厉的惩罚。”
一位发言人表示，克拉夫特的观点在过去几十年里发生了变化，他不再支持对家长采取惩罚措施。
克拉夫特在男孩女孩俱乐部中担任更重要的职务。他为切尔西俱乐部找到了一个永久的新家，后来成为整个波士顿组织的负责人。在担任这一职务期间，俱乐部的会员人数和预算都增加了一倍，达到 2600 万美元。克拉夫特经常公开开玩笑说，糟糕的 LSAT 成绩让他无法进入法学院，多年来，他一直表示，他真正的教育是在俱乐部的那几年获得的。他还获得了哈佛大学教育研究生院的硕士学位。
一些了解克拉夫特的人说，他一直受到对城市年轻人的承诺的驱动。少数人讲述了克拉夫特悄悄给有需要的家庭开支票的故事，包括为一名在监禁期间死亡的年轻人的葬礼提供资金。
前市议员、管理指导组织 Big Sister Boston 的 Annissa Essaibi George 说，当她要求克拉夫特捐款时，他明确表示他想帮助制定策略，而不仅仅是捐钱。
“他绝对想了解他所支持的组织。他想参与其中，”在 2021 年市长竞选中输给吴的埃塞比·乔治 (Essaibi George) 说，她还没有决定今年秋天将支持谁。
许多与克拉夫特在慈善事业上合作过的人强调，他所做的远不止拿着支票出现。但这张支票，以及它所代表的家族财富，是很难被忽视的。
波士顿有些人说，富有的慈善家不是管理他们城市的合适人选，现在不是他尝试的合适时机。
“我不会为一个白人男性参选而做跳跃运动和后空翻，”詹姆斯“吉米”希尔斯 (James “Jimmy” Hills) 说，他曾是吴的支持者，曾任市政厅工作人员和在线脱口秀主持人。希尔斯认为，随着唐纳德·特朗普上任，波士顿需要市政厅的连续性和经验。
2011 年，乔希·克拉夫特 (Josh Kraft) 参加了在父亲罗伯特·克拉夫特 (Robert Kraft) 家中举办的年度家庭聚会，为波士顿男孩女孩俱乐部筹款。
2011 年，乔希·克拉夫特 (Josh Kraft) 参加了在父亲罗伯特·克拉夫特 (Robert Kraft) 家中举办的年度家庭聚会，为波士顿男孩女孩俱乐部筹款。比尔·布雷特 (Bill Brett)
克拉夫特还必须摆脱其家族与总统的关系，因为总统在这里备受厌恶。
特朗普是罗伯特·克拉夫特 (Robert Kraft) 的数十年好友，2005 年，他参加了特朗普与第一夫人梅拉尼娅·特朗普 (Melania Trump) 的婚礼。2011 年迈拉去世后，特朗普安慰了罗伯特·克拉夫特。罗伯特·克拉夫特后来为特朗普的首次就职典礼捐赠了 100 万美元。
“友谊胜过政治，没有更好的词可以形容，”乔希·克拉夫特 (Josh Kraft) 在 2017 年接受《波士顿环球报》采访时谈到他父亲与共和党总统的关系时说。“你可能不同意你朋友的观点，但为什么要让这种观点毁了友谊呢？”
罗伯特·克拉夫特自此与特朗普划清界限。他说，去年秋天，自 2021 年 1 月 6 日特朗普支持者暴徒袭击美国国会大厦以来，他就没有与总统交谈过。
乔什·克拉夫特也批评了这场叛乱，他在 2023 年杜德利尼科尔斯学院毕业典礼上对该国的政治状况表示遗憾。
克拉夫特目前登记为民主党人，虽然他有时会投票给共和党，并向共和党候选人捐款，但他从未支持过特朗普，他的团队说。在 2016 年共和党初选中，他投票给了俄亥俄州温和派州长约翰·卡西奇。在吴本人竞选 2021 年市长期间，克拉夫特向缅因州共和党参议员苏珊·柯林斯以及社会保守得多的共和党人捐款，一位发言人说，这些礼物是出于这些政客对以色列的支持。
政治策略师乔伊斯·费里亚博·博林 (Joyce Ferriabough Bolling) 表示，克拉夫特夫妇以慈善事业而闻名于波士顿的有色人种社区。不过，她警告说，会有一群核心人士说他“来到这里，以为他可以买到选举结果”，她说。
克拉夫特在波士顿工作了几十年，但住在城外的一个郊区。2023 年秋天，他在波士顿登记投票，一家与爱国者队有关联的有限责任公司购买了他现在居住的北端 200 万美元公寓。
无论他的具体地址是什么，克拉夫特的朋友和盟友都说，他对这座城市的忠诚几十年来一直显而易见。
“如果你有同情心和同理心，并且愿意与这座城市的人民合作，‘你是否来自这里’对我来说并不重要，”罗米尔达·佩雷拉 (Romilda Pereira) 说，她多年来一直与克拉夫特合作处理监狱重返社会问题，包括学徒计划 Operation Exit。 “他确实在实地工作，并且确实知道谁在做这项工作。”
当然，吴也不是在波士顿长大的，尽管她在竞选市长之前住在波士顿并担任了多年的市议员。吴则没有过多谈论克拉夫特的竞选，只是在最近接受 GBH 电台采访时进行了一番挖苦。
住在罗斯林代尔的吴说：“在某个时候，当你成为候选人时，你必须为自己说话，而不是让顾问为你说话。波士顿居民希望你知道发生了什么，有明确的立场，能够直接进入那里并非常清楚地解释你将如何完成工作。”
许多熟悉克拉夫特的人说他们很少谈论政治。乔纳森·克拉夫特说，他只在过去一两年里听到弟弟谈论竞选公职。
非营利组织领导人布莱克·乔丹 (Blake Jordan) 认识乔希·克拉夫特 (Josh Kraft) 几十年，他说克拉夫特多年来有时会谈论市长办公室，认为他可能是下一个潜在人选。
“几年前，他甚至说，‘我觉得我可以做更多，我想做更多，’”乔丹说。“他考虑过各种他能做的事情，我认为他总是回到市长这个位置上。”
数十年的公众关注让克拉夫特经常登上演讲台，谈论他的价值观：同情心、社区和希伯来语短语“tikkun olam”，意思是“治愈世界”。但他尚未公开回答大家心中的问题：你为什么想成为波士顿市长？
克拉夫特上周在波士顿大学希勒尔对一小群学生发表演讲时给出了一个提示。据一位与《波士顿环球报》分享了此次活动笔记的与会者称，在一名学生问到他参选的动机后，克拉夫特谈到了将人们团结在一起。
“我爱波士顿这座城市，”克拉夫特说。“对我来说，波士顿没有理由不成为美国最适合每个人的城市，无论是住在‘麻省和卡斯分校’的吸毒成瘾和无家可归的人，还是住在附近几条街价值 2000 万美元的联排别墅里的人。”
题图：乔希·克拉夫特是新英格兰爱国者基金会的主席，也是亿万富翁罗伯特·克拉夫特的儿子，他于去年 5 月参加了在波士顿布鲁斯·C·博林大楼举行的马库斯·安东尼·霍尔教育学院的毕业典礼。肯·麦加格为《波士顿环球报》撰稿
附原英文报道：
Who is Josh Kraft, the nonprofit leader and son of the Patriots dynasty, challenging Michelle Wu for mayor?
Kraft set to announce bid for mayor this month
By Emma Platoff Globe Staff,Updated February 3, 2025
Josh Kraft, president of the New England Patriots Foundation and son of billionaire Robert Kraft, attended the Marcus Anthony Hall Educational Institute graduation ceremony in the Bruce C. Bolling Building in Boston last May.Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe
The promises were grand, but Sandy Zamor Calixte was skeptical.
It was 2014, and the Boys & Girls Club of Boston had bought the old library on Hazleton Street, with plans to renovate it into a hub for youth that would later become the Josh Kraft Mattapan Teen Center. Living near the site, Zamor Calixte feared the initial hoopla would fade and the facility would be left to languish, starved of the funding needed to keep kids busy.
Ultimately, it was none other than Kraft himself who assuaged her concerns. Then, the head of the Boys & Girls Club, Kraft reassured her the organization intended to invest in her neighborhood and has stayed committed in the decade since, down to ensuring that every neighbor still gets a flyer before the center’s annual block party.
“He’s listening,” Zamor Calixte said. “People want to take away the fact that he’s the son of a billionaire, but he has committed himself to community and to our youth.”
The building — with Kraft’s name emblazoned on the side — still stands on Hazleton Street, a big brick symbol of the complexities ahead as Kraft prepares to launch a bid for Boston mayor.
Does Josh Kraft have a chance against Mayor Wu? 4 writers react.
The third son of Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Josh Kraft has had a long career of nonprofit leadership in Boston, work that those close to him say has improved the lives of countless young people in the city and shows he would be a compassionate, community-minded mayor.
And yet his path to and through the philanthropic world has been gilded by his family’s enormous wealth, a privilege that now presents a political liability as he campaigns to unseat Mayor Michelle Wu, the first woman and person of color elected to lead the city, who was raised outside Chicago by Taiwanese immigrant parents.
It’s a tension the political neophyte knows well. He has often joked over the years that he was born with “lucky DNA,” growing up “on the mean streets of Chestnut Hill.” And he has acknowledged that his family name — and family money — helped further his career, including when a generous donation from his parents helped fund a new building for the Boys & Girls Club of Chelsea, which he ran at the time.
“I’m not stupid,” he told the Globe in 2008. “My parents did a $2 million gift.”
But it wasn’t just the Kraft gift that landed the once-orphaned club in a shiny new clubhouse with a six-lane indoor swimming pool. Kraft also raised $9 million more to open the site, a demonstration of what those who know him say is a genuine devotion to and talent for fund-raising and nonprofit work. Supporters say he is a dedicated, team-oriented leader committed to hearing all voices, and is motivated by impact, not personal glory.
Of course, running a nonprofit organization, even one that serves thousands of children, is a very different enterprise from running a major American city. Kraft has no experience in elected office, and he is seeking to lead a majority-minority city with more than 20,000 employees at an incredibly tumultuous moment for the nation. To win, he will also have to persuade voters that he is the best person to manage the beleaguered Boston Public Schools, which neither he nor his children attended. So far, ahead of a formal announcement expected in the coming days, little is known about what, specifically, Kraft wants to do as mayor, though housing is expected to be a major focus.
Kraft, who declined an interview for this story, grew up as a peacemaker in a house of four sometimes rowdy brothers, and he is unassuming, not one to hog the microphone, those close to him say. He prefers jeans and a Patriots hoodie to a suit, and if not for his last name, might be hard to identify as the son of a man worth $11.8 billion.
“I don’t see him as a New England Patriots heir,” said Darnell L. Williams, the former head of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, who has known Kraft for decades through their nonprofit work. “I see him as a down-to-earth guy. … He’s never come across to me as someone who’s arrogant or entitled or privileged.”
If elected, Kraft, 57, would be Boston’s first Jewish mayor. He lives in the North End with his partner, Michelle Perez Vichot, who works as director of the impact fund for the ‘Quin House, a private social club in the Back Bay. He is divorced and has two grown daughters, who both live outside Boston and work at nonprofits.
Kraft chairs the board of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts and heads his family’s philanthropy efforts through the Patriots Foundation, an unpaid role. He intends to keep that job during the coming campaign.
It’s a continuation of an interest that showed itself early — at his family’s dinner table, with his late mother, Myra Kraft, a beloved figure in local philanthropy who worked extensively with the Boys & Girls Club.
“Josh would always ask my mother about where she had been that day and what she had done, while the rest of us wanted to talk to my dad about business,” his older brother Jonathan Kraft recalled in a recent interview. “Josh is clearly the smartest of all of us. … He was wise at a young age.”
If his two older brothers followed in their father’s footsteps — Jonathan Kraft now works as president of the Kraft Group, right-hand man to father Robert Kraft, the CEO — then Josh Kraft followed in his mother’s. He spent three decades working for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, including 12 years as president and CEO.
“He seems to me to have his mother’s heart,” said Priscilla Flint, executive director of Marcus Anthony Hall Educational Institute, which serves city youth. Kraft’s philanthropy has supported her organization, and Flint hopes that if elected, he would steer city grant funding to it. She is supporting Kraft for mayor, though she backed Wu in 2021 because she feels Wu has not followed through on some campaign promises.
In high school, Josh Kraft took another step to set himself apart, opting to attend the private Rivers School in Weston instead of Belmont Hill, where his older brothers had gone. He wanted to be seen as his own person, not the third in a line of rambunctious brothers, Jonathan Kraft said.
After graduating from Williams College in Williamstown, Josh Kraft took a job with the Boys & Girls Club in South Boston, working to keep middle schoolers from dropping out. The role was an abrupt introduction to challenges of violence, poverty, and addiction he had not experienced firsthand.
“Our parents made us understand we were fortunate, but it’s sort of conceptual — it’s not real until you experience it,” Jonathan Kraft recalled.
The work in Southie energized and changed him. When Josh Kraft called loved ones, what he wanted to talk about was the kids he was working with. He enlisted his brother Jonathan and a handful of others to mentor the students in his program.
The work also seemed to get Kraft thinking about policy solutions.
“Something drastic has to change,” Josh Kraft told the Globe in 1992 in a story about truancy. “I think we should have parenting classes, parent licenses and severe penalties for parents who don’t keep their kids in school.”
A spokesperson said Kraft’s views have changed in the decades since, and he no longer supports punitive action against parents.
Kraft moved to bigger roles within the Boys & Girls Club. He secured a permanent new home for the Chelsea Club and later became head of the entire Boston organization. In that role, he doubled the club’s membership as well as its budget, growing it to $26 million. Kraft, who has often joked publicly about the lousy LSAT score that steered him away from law school, has said over the years that his real education came during his years at the club. He also earned a master’s from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Some who know Kraft say he has always been driven, in particular, by a commitment to the city’s youth. A handful recounted stories of Kraft quietly writing checks to families in need, including to fund a funeral for a young man who died while incarcerated.
Annissa Essaibi George, a former city councilor who runs the mentoring organization Big Sister Boston, said that when she asked Kraft for a donation, he made it clear he wanted to help think through strategy, not just give money.
“He absolutely wants to get to know the organizations he supports. He wants to get involved,” said Essaibi George, who lost the 2021 mayor’s race to Wu and said she has not decided whom she will back this fall.
Many people who have worked with Kraft on philanthropy emphasized that he does far more than just show up with a check. But the check, and the family wealth it represents, is hard to ignore.
There are those in Boston who said a wealthy philanthropist is not the right person to run their city, and now is not the right moment for him to try.
“I’m not doing jumping jacks and backflips about a white male running,” said James “Jimmy” Hills, a former City Hall staffer and online talk show host who has been a supporter of Wu. With Donald Trump in office, Hills argued, Boston needs continuity and experience in City Hall.
Josh Kraft attended an annual house party at the home of his father, Robert Kraft, to benefit the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston in 2011.
Josh Kraft attended an annual house party at the home of his father, Robert Kraft, to benefit the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston in 2011.Bill Brett
Kraft will also have to outrun his family’s ties to the president, who is largely loathed here.
Trump was a decadeslong friend of Robert Kraft, who attended Trump’s wedding in 2005 to first lady Melania Trump. Trump comforted Robert Kraft after Myra died in 2011. Robert Kraft later donated $1 million to Trump’s first inauguration.
“Friendship trumps politics, for lack of a better term,” Josh Kraft told the Globe in 2017 of his father’s relationship with the Republican president. “You might not agree with what your friend believes, but why let that ruin a friendship?”
Robert Kraft has since distanced himself from Trump. He said last fall he had not spoken with the president since Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol.
Josh Kraft, too, has made a point of criticizing the insurrection, as he lamented the state of the country’s politics in a 2023 commencement address at Nichols College in Dudley.
Kraft is currently registered as a Democrat, and while he has sometimes voted Republican and donated to GOP candidates, he has never supported Trump, his team said. In the 2016 GOP primary, he voted for John Kasich, the moderate governor of Ohio. Kraft has donated to Wu herself, during her 2021 mayoral bid, to US Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, as well as to far more socially conservative Republicans, gifts a spokesperson said were motivated by those politicians’ support for Israel.
The Krafts are well known in Boston’s communities of color for their philanthropy, said Joyce Ferriabough Bolling, a political strategist. Nevertheless, she cautioned, there will be a core group of people who say he’s “coming in here and thinking he can buy the election,” she said.
Kraft has spent decades working in the city but living in a suburb just outside its borders. In fall 2023, he registered to vote in Boston, and an LLC tied to the Patriots purchased the $2 million North End condo where he lives now.
No matter his exact address, Kraft’s friends and allies say his devotion to the city has been obvious for decades.
“If you have compassion and empathy and you’re willing to work with the people of this city, the thing of ‘if you’re from here or not’ doesn’t matter to me,” said Romilda Pereira, who has worked with Kraft for years on prison reentry issues, including the apprenticeship program Operation Exit. “He is actually on the ground and actually knows who’s doing the work.”
Of course, Wu also did not grow up in Boston, though she lived in the city and served as a city councilor for years before running for mayor. Wu, for her part, has not said much about Kraft’s run, beyond a dig during a recent radio interview on GBH.
“At some point, when you’re the candidate, you’re going to have to speak for yourself, and not just have the consultants do it for you,” said Wu, who lives in Roslindale. “Boston residents expect you to know what’s happening, to have clear positions, to be able to get right in there and very clearly explain how you’re going to get things done.”
Many who know Kraft well said they have rarely spoken about politics. Jonathan Kraft said he has only heard his younger brother talk about seeking political office in the last year or two.
Blake Jordan, a nonprofit leader who has known Josh Kraft for decades, said Kraft has talked sometimes over the years about the mayor’s office as a potential next perch.
“He was even, years ago, saying, ‘I feel like I can do more, and I want to do more,’” Jordan said. “He thought about various things that he could do, and I think he always kept coming back to being the mayor.”
Decades in the public eye have often landed Kraft behind a podium, where he tends to talk about his values: compassion, community, and the Hebrew phrase “tikkun olam,” which means “heal the world.” But he has yet to publicly answer the question on everyone’s mind: Why do you want to be mayor of Boston?
Kraft offered one hint last week as he spoke to a small crowd of students at the Boston University Hillel. After a student asked about his motivations for running, Kraft talked about bringing people together, according to an attendee who shared notes on the event with the Globe.
“I love the city of Boston,” Kraft said. “To me, there’s no reason why Boston shouldn’t be the best city in America for everyone, whether someone’s on ‘Mass. and Cass’ struggling with addiction and homelessness, or they live a couple of blocks that way in a $20 million townhouse.”
