President Donald Trump applied the woke-standard of absolutism like “defund the police” and “abolish ICE” to begin the process of eliminating the federal Department of Education and move control of schools to the states. He orchestrated a photo op with signing an executive order in front of school children which bemoaned the DOE’s spending over $3 trillion since its creation in 1979, without improving student knowledge.
US President Donald Trump holds an executive order in the East Room of the White house in Washington, DC, March 20, 2025 to start dismantling the Department of Education, in front of young students. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)
The photo session included a young Orthodox Jewish student in the background. It was perhaps not surprising, as Trump was the only president to invite an Orthodox rabbi to speak at his inaugurations – both times.
When Trump held the signed EO aloft and the other students similarly did so, the Orthodox boy in large blue kippah continued to write. People speculated whether he had OCD and was compulsively checking his spelling. Perhaps he was correcting grammar in the EO or adding footnotes like the biblical commentator Rashi (1040-1105).
As the Children of Israel walked the desert, they built a home, a mishkan, for God. Exodus 36: 2-7 introduces us to the work:
“2 Then Moses summoned Bezalel and Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the Lord had given ability and who was willing to come and do the work. 3 They received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary. And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. 4 So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left what they were doing 5 and said to Moses, “The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done.” 6 Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: “No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.” And so the people were restrained from bringing more, 7 because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.“
The Torah relates that there was such an outpouring of donations to help build the mishkan, that it overwhelmed those skilled craftsmen performing the actual construction work.
Alas, we do not have that kind of over-enthusiasm for causes today, but we definitely have many foot soldiers in trying to stem the tide of antisemitism in the Jewish diaspora.
Consider those fighting the rampant antisemitism at Columbia University. The university finally took action on March 21, 2025, announcing a plan that basically aligned with the demands of the Trump administration to protect Jewish students and faculty on campus. It did not happen in a vacuum.
Columbia’s Hillel had been trying to get the Columbia administration to make changes since the October 7, 2023 massacre of Jews in Israel and riots against Israel and Jews and at the university since then. Alums For Campus Fairness issued a 33-page report about antisemitism at Columbia in 2019. Countless alumni wrote letters to the school administration and withheld donations.
Announcement from Columbia Hillel on March 21, 2025
Leaders of the Jewish philanthropic world like Dan Loeb, Bill Ackman and David Magerman very publicly shifted their donations from their alma maters to Jewish schools like Yeshiva University and some in Israel. Some not so wealthy but public voices like Alan Dershowitz announced that they were shifting all of their philanthropic activities and pro bono work to Jewish causes.
All of these activities helped pivot public thought. It made former Republicans switch to the Democratic Party to help oust politicians perceived as antisemitic like Jamaal Bowman. It was part of what led a decades-long record percentage of Jews to vote for Donald Trump for president in 2024 with his promise to clean up the widespread failures in American schools.
Do not think that the work is done but take a moment to thank the many people who fought to stem the horrific tide of Jew hatred. We need them to keep putting money into Jewish institutions instead of naming buildings at disgraced universities. We need groups like StandWithUs and Brandeis Center to continue to advocate for Jews on campus. We need politicians like Rep. Ritchie Torres and Rep. Mike Lawler in the House, and Sen. Josh Hawley and Sen. John Fetterman to continue their principled work on behalf of Americans. We need the Trump administration to continue to pressure universities to stop enabling a toxic environment for Jewish and other students on campus.
Many people have been working for years to end Jew hatred and it should not be taken for granted. Now is a moment to thank them for their noble efforts.
To read progressive media, one would believe that the Trump administration is seeking to end “research and science” and “great debates” on the country’s campuses. That’s how papers like The New York Times understand the Trump administration’s letter to Columbia demanding change.
The New York Times article on March 20, 2025 misdirecting readers about the Trump administration’s letter to Columbia University
It could not be further from the truth.
The March 13 letter is just two pages long and covers nine points. Nowhere is “science” and “great debates” mentioned. “Research” is mentioned once, and the Trump administration’s letter is actively trying to protect it.
The first two points in the letter demand that the school must enforce consequences for the students that break university policies, including vandalism and harassment. It asks that the “Office of the President” handle such matters rather than the University Judicial Board, presumably because many members of the board are sympathetic to the student rioters.
The next three points build on this theme of discipline. It demands that the university adopt “time, place and manner rules,” – very common and ordinary measures – to prevent the disruption of “teaching, research and campus life” (emphasis added). It adds a mask ban so rioters can be held accountable and demanded a formalized university plan for groups that violate university policy.
The sixth point shifted from general disciplinary matters to define antisemitism, because that has been the crux of rioters’ conduct against Jews at Columbia. Presumably, it would help clearly define matters of free speech versus hate speech (to the extent that such thing exists).
The seventh bullet transitions back to discipline, empowering university security to arrest rioters.
The eighth point refers to a particular department within the school – the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department (MESAAS) – which is to be put under “academic receivership.” If there is a claim that Trump is coming after “research” and “great debates”, it must be in this discipline.
The ninth point seems to cover perhaps a related point to eighth – to make sure that admissions, including “international recruiting… conforms with federal law and policy.”
As seen above, the letter seeks to ensure the ability of students and faculty to do research (third bullet), albeit the MESAAS department has been marked as a problemed child.
The reality is that American universities have been trying to paper over their critical problems by importing students from the Global South, from those MESAAS countries. If there is a Trump target on academic research, it lies there, not in scientific matters, despite the Times claim that Trump is “imperiling the backbone of the nation’s research endeavors.”
America’s core problem lies in its PUBLIC K-12 schools which are FAILING TO TEACH MATH AND SCIENCE, with the US placing 25th among 37 OECD countries for 15 year olds. The country is relying more and more on international students – many deeply distrustful and anti-Western values – to fill the university’s STEM departments because America’s elementary and high schools have failed.
Progressive media will not place the blame squarely where it belongs – on the public school system – because it has long ago adopted the fiction that pouring billions of dollars into teacher unions will magically produce better educated students.
The Trump letter is an immediate call to make universities safe, not a call to dismantle research. The long-term fix is to remake America’s public schools, which have catered to teachers and administrators over students for far too long.
So why start another PAC that does the same thing? It’s not as though Bowman’s PAC is going after conservative non-White voters; it’s using the same alt-left agenda as Justice Democrats, including supporting Gazans who initiated and supported a jihadi genocidal massacre against Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023.
Bowman knows he has a terrible record. His brand is so tainted that he needed to go around the country including California and Virginia with other members of Congress to try to raise money during his failed primary run.
A new congressional run – perhaps this time for Rep. Ritchie Torres’s seat in NY-15 if Torres decides to run for governor against the unpopular Kathy Hochul – would require money that may not be so forthcoming to a censored former politician. As such, creating a new PAC BEFORE he announces his intention to enter a race, could give him several advantages:
He may be able to market the cause more successfully if it isn’t about him personally
He gets practice stumping and meeting donors without being forced to disclose his numerous failings
Bowman can use the Zeteo platform with Mehdi to go even more viciously anti-Israel than Justice Democrats may be willing to go, perhaps unlocking deep jihadi pockets
Disclosure rules are more lax for PACs. Pro-terrorist groups have easier times giving money to blind pools than individual candidates. Bowman can court antisemitic donors with greater ease
Should Bowman enter the race, he may attempt to repurpose this PAC to himself. This is a tactic that was used by Rick Scott who took over the New Republican PAC in 2016. Scott’s moves in this regard brought multiple investigations. As the non-partisan group OpenSecrets stated about the issue, “Federal law would prohibit an announced federal candidate or campaign from coordinating with either state-level committees or federal super PACs, which can take unlimited corporate money that federal candidates are not permitted to receive.” Campaign Legal Center wrote at that time “Campaign finance laws are in place to prevent schemes like this one that hide information from voters about which wealthy special interests are spending big money to secretly influence our votes and our government.” Imagine these aren’t “wealthy special interests” seeking profit but groups out to destroy America and its allies.
Built to Win PAC may become the alt-left anti-Israel piggybank for Bowman and his co-host on Zeteo, Cori Bush, who made their losses all about the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC rather than their own failings.
Bowman’s reemergence on two platforms: Zeteo to engage the public in race-baiting, and with a PAC to draw in unlimited monies, is potentially a cause for serious alarm for the country, especially Jews in the midst of a horrifying spike in antisemitism.
The two major wars grabbing world attention for the past couple of years has been Russia-Ukraine and Iranian Proxies led by Gaza-Israel. While Russia invaded Ukraine and the two have largely faced off with Russia maintaining about 20% of Ukraine, Gazans invaded Israel and got decimated.
President Trump’s recent interaction with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy this week has made some in the pro-Israel community nervous. If Trump will side with the aggressor (Russia), will he also back Gazans and Iran against Israel?
Devolution of exchange starts at 40:00, when Zelenskyy challenges ability to have diplomacy with Russia which does not abide by agreements
I believe that it is a misreading of Trump’s policy of America First.
Trump likes winners. Winners have the strength and position to negotiate deals, whereas losers ask for handouts. If Russia is declared the winner in the midst of the war and able to annex large chunks of Ukraine, the United States will negotiate important mineral deals with Russia rather than with Ukraine.
Gaza has nothing to offer America other than real estate. The region is in shambles and will require billions of dollars to redevelop. The political-terrorist group Hamas still rules the strip and Gazans have proven themselves morally bankrupt in supporting the massacre of innocent people in Israel. Why would Trump want to engage with the initiators of a war which they completely lost? His inclination would be to side with the Israeli victors who have a thriving liberal society and economy with leading technology to trade with the United States.
President Trump just approved nearly $3 billion in arms sales to Israel to help replenish its arsenal over the multi-front war with Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Gaza and the West Bank. Those arms should help neuter various terrorist groups and position the United States to negotiate an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Kibbutz Be’eri burned by Gazan invaders during massacre on October 7, 2023
People think such action is based on short-term thinking but it is about long-term planning. If the parties in conflict have assets and relationships which the U.S. covets, it will engage with those in charge who can deliver. If they are the more moral and ethical as is the case for Israel, so much the better.
Jason Greenblatt, who worked for Donald Trump for decades in his real estate office before working in the first Trump administration developing a new roadmap to peace between Israel and its neighbors made clear that Zelenskyy butchered a chance to help Ukrainians by not understanding how Trump operates, tweeting “Whoever prepared President @ZelenskyyUa for the Oval Office meeting with @POTUS & @VP did an absolutely terrible job! Zelenskyy did not pay attention to the messaging that was coming out of @WhiteHouse for a while now. President Trump is interested in protectinginterests 1st & foremost. That’s his job, no matter how people feel about Ukraine. He also wants to end the death & destruction in Ukraine if a logical deal can be made. Hard to believe how Zelenskyy let this devolve instead of taking the cues. What a shame for Ukraine.”
In 2017, during Trump’s first term, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas failed to understand and capitalize on Trump’s efforts for Palestinian Arabs and let the relationship completely devolve. Abbas is trying to play catch up now by trying to arrest terrorists east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL / “West Bank”). It is unclear if that will be enough to impress the administration that has watched Israel be a strong partner.
Trump’s “America First” policy may sometimes run against the wronged party, as in Ukraine. In the Middle East, Americans will have comfort that Trump has an ally which is strong, moral, has much intellectual property to benefit Americans and deeply appreciates the relationship with the U.S.
The media is going crazy about President Donald Trump’s social media post of an AI-generated video of what a “Trump Gaza” might resemble. The imaginary future isn’t the problem: it’s the United Nations policies which have produced the current reality of Gaza.
Gaza is led by Hamas, a deeply antisemitic jihadi group which is considered a terrorist group by the United States, Israel and many other countries. The UN thinks it’s a legitimate government, as UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said “Hamas is not a terrorist group for us, of course, as you know. It’s a political movement.”
The UN’s stated mission is to move at least 73% of Gazans into Israel (the UNRWA wards), making Gazans indifferent to the local situation as they think they are just waiting to move into towns where grandparents used to live in Israel
The entrance to Aida Refugee Camp, near Bethlehem with a key on top to let Arabs know that the ticket to enter Israel is via the UN
The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on February 24, 2025 that his concern is for Gaza’s suffering in this war; not Israel. He said he was concerned about “Israeli settlers” but not Hamas.
The United Nations has long legitimized an antisemitic genocidal jihadist group next door to Israel and has protected it from facing justice. It has reared generations of Gazans to only know hatred for Jews and deny their history and rights in their homeland. It has systematically inverted victim and perpetrator by using an approach that the best defense is a good offense, to vilify Israel and its supporters, rather than put pressure on Palestinian Arabs to disarm and accept the Jewish State.
Gaza under Hamas and UNHamas under Hamas and UN leadership
The AI-generated fiction of a Trump Gaza is producing wild attacks, while the real tragedy of Gaza’s bankrupt morality and devastation under the banner of the United Nations is never considered.
The United States passed the Taylor Force Act in March 2018 which prohibits the U.S. from giving funds to the Palestinian Authority as long as it continues its “Martyrs’ Payments” to terrorists who killed and injured Americans or Israelis. The PA flatly refused to stop the payments for years, with PA President Mahmoud Abbas saying that he would prioritize giving terrorists and their families money even if he had only one penny left.
In the aftermath of Palestinians’ loss against Israel in the war Gazans started on October 7, 2023, Palestinians are desperate for money. Still, US President Donald Trump is halting the generous flow of money and support to various Palestinian groups and is making it very difficult for the PA’s other sponsors like Iran and Qatar to continue to fund the decimated Palestinian Arabs as long as they support terror.
Rather than halt the extremely popular pay-to-slay program, Abbas announced on February 10 that he will transfer the responsibility of terrorist-tribute from his Ministry of Social Development to a separate agency, the Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment. Abbas thinks that this slight of hand to a foundation whose trustees are appointed by him, the PA president, will somehow confuse the United States to turn on the money spigot.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
The unpopular PA president is caught between Palestinian Arabs who seek the destruction of Israel and murder of Israelis, and the United States which accounts for a majority of Palestinian aid, now headed by an administration which will not countenance genocidal jihad, especially on its dime. Abbas prays that this farcical shell game will confuse US President Donald Trump as if he were former Obama Secretary of State John Kerry.
The Palestinians are starting to get the message that they must stop supporting terror. The issue is that the masses would rather live in rubble with “dignity” than coexist with the Jewish State.
For years, politicians tried to resolve conflicts via “shuttle diplomacy.” A senior official would act as mediator by running to one side of a conflict and take notes, then shuttle to the counterparty to relay information and take notes, all the while, attempting to bridge the gap between the parties.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry under President Obama was a classic example of this approach in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Convinced that nothing could be done that would upset the broad Palestinian Arab street, he hammered home that Israel, the stronger party, must continue to do more to placate Palestinian demands. His list of demands from Palestinians grew ever longer, never applying pressure on the Palestinian Authority.
Kerry is the prime example of a failed negotiator in shuttle diplomacy. He remained to the very end, too dense to consider how bad he approached the Middle East, making parting comments as he left office as if he had earned any credibility.
In Donald Trump’s first term in office, he immediately reversed the Kerry failed thinking of peace-making. He adopted an “outside-in” tactic of not letting the weak and ever-demanding Palestinian Authority stop broader peace in the region, and established the Abraham Accords, creating normalization agreements between Israel and several Muslim Arab countries.
Now in his second term, Trump made a bold announcement on February 5, 2025, tossing out the idea of shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East in favor of something I call “Anchor Diplomacy,” in which Trump will use the broad reach and power of the United States to impose peace between the Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. He will not run back-and-forth between the two sides, but will get the various parties to come to him, and attempt to dislodge or soften his stance in which he put the United States – not the two parties – in the center of the discussion.
Trump announced that the United States will take over the rebuilding of the demolished Gaza Strip, and Gazans will be relocated out of the area into Egypt, Jordan and other countries during the reconstruction. Gazans may return or opt to stay in the new locations with a much better standard of living.
There are many points to unpack in the Gaza statements but the practicality of one or another point is an aside. Trump is making the Arab world come to him, not the other way round. The Arab world will be forced to make Hamas disappear from the scene to prevent a U.S.-takeover, instead of the U.S. being worried whether Hamas or other terrorist groups will scuttle any progress towards calm. The United Nations will be dislodged as a biased and awful actor in the region, as the Arab street clamors for U.S. to engage monetarily but not overly intrusively.
President Teddy Roosevelt once said “speak softly and carry a big stick.” Trump has chosen a new path to waive the large stick over everyone’s head and to lay down a marker of his own. He has long built a reputation being a very loyal friend as well as a menacing enemy. He knows that the regimes of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have much to gain from the United States – or they can turn Trump into an enemy and run to the embrace of a new sponsor, perhaps China.
Trump has so far been able to get countries like Colombia to eat their words and reverse policies when he threatened economic hardship, and obviously feels that Arab countries will similarly get on board with at least some of his Gaza proposal. At the very least, they will learn that the days of treating the U.S. as an open faucet of money to abuse with unrealistic demands will not stand under Trump.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump at White House February 5, 2025
Anchor Diplomacy, the muscle of entrenching a position and forcing the sides to react, can only be effective by a mediator with tremendous influence on each side. While pro-Palestinians/ anti-Americans will chant “imperialism” and “empire” in exasperation at Trump’s Gaza announcement, the shadows which will swing the outcome will be China and/or Saudi Arabia, who might magnify or counter American power.
President Donald Trump issued several executive orders upon entering office on January 20, 2025 designed to protect American safety under the banner, “MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN.” One was entitled “PROTECTING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AGAINST INVASION,” meant to stop the flow of illegal entry into the United States and deport those who have done so. Another was called “PROTECTING THE UNITED STATES FROM FOREIGN TERRORISTS AND OTHER NATIONAL SECURITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY THREATS,” which is meant to vet people entering the country, because America “must be vigilant during the visa-issuance process to ensure that those aliens approved for admission into the United States do not intend to harm Americans or our national interests. (emphasis added)”
The United States does not require that every foreign citizen have a visa to enter the U.S. The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) has an agreement with many countries which exempt their citizens from requiring a visa for U.S. entry. It includes European countries, including Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, as well as Canada, Israel and some Asian-Pacific countries including Australia, Japan and New Zealand. People who are not citizens of these countries must fill out a visa to visit the United States, giving American security personnel a chance to review the visitors’ backgrounds.
The program has an added level of scrutiny for people from VWP countries who visited countries with significant terrorism. People who had visited Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen since March 1, 2011, or visited Cuba since January 12, 2021, need to fill out a visa as well. For example, a Canadian (who normally would not need a visa) who went to Iraq over the past decade would need a visa to enter the U.S., unless she did so for diplomatic or approved military purposes.
Several countries and territories which are hotbeds of terrorism have not yet been highlighted in the VWP. Travellers to Afghanistan, Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines should be immediately removed from the VWP visitation list. And of course, the terrorist enclave of Gaza, ruled by Hamas, the deadliest active terrorist group in the world. Any non-American who visited Gaza since Hamas’s takeover in June 2007, should have to go through a thorough visa review process.
After those immediate actions, the Trump administration should take a similar action against countries which knowingly support and harbor Palestinian Arab terrorists, including Qatar and Turkey. A German national visiting Turkey should lose his visa exemption privilege until several – perhaps five – years after the country breaks off all relations with Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups.
Then there are also VWP travellers to countries which support state sponsors of terrorism, such as China and Russia‘s backing of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which can be also added to the vetting process.
Making America Safe Again requires not only following protocols that are already in place, but updating and expanding the list of known terrorist enclaves, such as Gaza.
ACTION ITEM
Contact the White House to immediately update the VWP country travellers list to include terrorist enclaves like Gaza. comments@whitehouse.gov 202-456-1111
President Donald Trump once again turned to the Orthodox community to give a benediction on behalf of American Jewry at his inauguration. Yesterday, it was Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, President of Yeshiva University, a modern Orthodox institution. At his last inauguration in 2017, Trump called upon Rabbi Haskel Lookstein who had overseen the conversion of his daughter Ivanka, leader of Kehilat Jeshurun, a modern Orthodox synagogue in New York City, and Head of the Ramaz School, a modern Orthodox K-12 school. Liberal alumni of Ramaz objected to Rabbi Lookstein participating in the inauguration so the rabbi backed out, and was replaced by Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, also an Orthodox rabbi.
Trump’s selection of Orthodox rabbis stands in sharp contrast to every other president who chose non-Orthodox rabbis. In 2021, during Joe Biden’s inauguration at the height of the pandemic in a virtual ceremony, Sharon Brous of IKAR in Los Angeles and Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York City spoke. The two female rabbis are on the far-left of the religious and political spectrum, with the latter being married to Randi Weingarten, the powerful far-left leader of the American Federation of Teachers which only backs Democratic politicians.
The divide between Orthodox and non-Orthodox streams of Judaism is now beyond the confines of keeping kosher and Shabbat observance. There is a clear divide politically and about Israel as well.
According to a May 2021 Pew Research poll, Orthodox Jews preferences for the Republican and Democratic parties were 75% and 20%, respectively. Conservative and Reform Jews tilted towards the Democratic Party by a mirrored amount. An incredible 81% of Orthodox Jews approved of Trump’s job performance, while a similar percentage of non-Orthodox Jews disapproved of Trump’s performance.
These sentiments are echoed in the divide in the Jewish communities’ feelings about a range of issues including Israel and the treatment of American Jews. The majority of Orthodox Jews approved Trump’s handling of immigration, the environment, Israel and his treatment of Jews in the United States, while non-Orthodox Jews were much more split.
These polls were taken well before the October 7, 2023 massacre by Palestinian Arab terrorists of civilians in Israel, and the horrifying cheers of jubilation from the socialist-jihadi alliance on American campuses and in Congress. Since then, even Conservative Jews have begun to migrate towards the Republican Party (now almost one-half from just over one-quarter 3.5 years ago), while Reform and unaffiliated Jews remain entrenched with Democrats, according to an October 2024 poll by the Manhattan Institute.
It should not come as a surprise to see Trump invite an Orthodox rabbi to Washington, D.C., even while they make up a small percentage of Jews in America. It will be interesting to see if the Jewish Conservative movement continues to shift away from the Democratic Party and become a fixture in Washington during the Trump Administration.
First One Through 