Since President Trump’s January 2025 inauguration to a second term, the president’s policies have been met with both applause and criticism. His intention is to recalibrate American power abroad and security at home, in ways that many argue are directly relevant to Jewish safety, U.S.-Israel ties, and the fight against anti-Semitic violence and terror.
American Jews are not the only ones watching this second Trump term with a wary eye and a running tally. In Israel, the conversations regarding Trump’s actions are strikingly similar.
Tal Rabina Weighs In
“Trump is the one who brought the hostages [home] alive, and for that he has a place of honor in Israeli history,” noted Tal Rabina, who has a reputation as one of Israel’s most reliable media professionals. Rabina is the Strategic Director for the American Middle East Press Association and is the Strategic Director and head of the Israel office of EJA, the European Jewish Association.
“In Israel, of course, they cherish his [Trump’s] determined fight against pro-Palestinian incitement on campuses, but beyond that, and only after that, do they wonder who he really is, what his motivations are, and especially what he will demand from Bibi in exchange for his personal support. Why does he embrace (Turkey’s) Erdogan so much, and to what extent will his business interests in Qatar – the instigator of institutionalized incitement against Israel in the world – demand prices from Israel that will be difficult for us to pay? I assume that, as in any other place in the world, when it comes to Trump, there are many more questions than answers.”
Focus on Results
Those questions about motives and high price tags for Trump’s programs sit alongside a debate over the president’s performance. Putting aside questions about Trump’s character and his intentions some choose to focus on whether the president has made good on his promises.
“If twenty years in the business sector have taught me anything, it’s that what separates the winners and the losers is execution,” Hillel Fuld told Community. Fuld is a former New Yorker, in Israel many years. He is a strategic business consultant and is an online political advocate. “Trump’s first year brought with it an unprecedented number of accomplishments and, unlike previous presidents, Trump doesn’t just talk, he puts his money where his mouth is and executes.”
Agricultural Trade with Israel
In December 2025, Trump signed a proclamation titled “To Implement the United States-Israel Agreement on Trade in Agricultural Products and for Other Purposes,” implementing a bilateral arrangement to expand agricultural trade with Israel. The move deepens sector specific economic integration, giving Israeli producers preferential access to the vast U.S. market while offering American consumers and kosher food chains more Israeli products on American shelves.
For Jews and for Israel, this kind of trade policy is not just about chickpeas; it is a statement that the U.S.-Israel relationship is incorporated into everyday commercial ties.
Combatting Terror Groups
In November 2025, Trump issued an action designating certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). The order directs U.S. authorities to treat specified Brotherhood entities as part of the global terror infrastructure, tightening sanctions, travel restrictions, and financial controls against them.
For Jews who have watched Brotherhood linked movements traffic in anti-Semitic rhetoric and incitement against Israel, this step signals that ideological hostility crossing into operational support for violence will face real costs.
TikTok
In September 2025, the White House unveiled a policy framed as “Saving TikTok While Protecting National Security,” an attempt to keep the wildly popular platform operating in the United States while imposing new safeguards on data, ownership, and algorithmic control. The action pairs pressure on foreign owners and data flows with a message to young Americans that Washington is not seeking a blanket ban but rather seeks to promote a secure, American controlled version of the app.
TikTok is known for virulent anti-Semitic content, tropes, and rhetoric. For Jewish users, particularly teens and campus activists who rely on TikTok for advocacy around anti-Semitism and Israel, the new policy raises a dual set of stakes. On the one hand, tightening foreign influence over the platform could reduce hostile information operations and disinformation campaigns that have fueled harassment and conspiracy theories about Jews. On the other hand, any restructuring of content moderation and recommendation systems will shape how Jewish stories, from October 7 to synagogue life, are surfaced or buried in the digital square.
Focus on Threats on U.S. Soil and UN Organizations
By June 2025, Trump followed his January immigration security moves with a proclamation titled “Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” issued June 3, 2025. Building on an earlier executive order, this action narrows visa eligibility and travel for categories of foreign nationals deemed high risk, instructing agencies to reassess visa programs, screening, and derogatory information sharing.
Jewish organizations have long walked a fine line on such policies: keenly aware that many jihadist plotters and extremist preachers arrive via legal travel channels, but also mindful of the Jewish experience as refugees and migrants. For some, these orders represent overdue rigor in keeping out those who preach anti-Semitic hatred or glorify attacks on Jews. For others, they require tight oversight to ensure that life saving asylum and family reunification are not collateral damage.
In February 2025, Trump signed an action titled, “Withdrawing the United States from and Ending Funding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support to All International Organizations.” The measure directs the administration to pull out of and defund the UNHRC (UN Human Rights Council), UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) and UNWRA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East). These organizations have been recognized as structurally biased against the United States and its allies, including Israel. After decades of one sided resolutions against Israel at the UN Human Rights Council and other bodies, this measure is long awaited.
White House Faith Office
In February 2025, the president announced appointments to a renewed White House Faith Office, designed to systematize engagement with religious communities, including Jewish organizations. The appointments signal an intent to consult faith leaders on issues from anti-Semitism policy to school safety and international religious freedom, embedding religious perspectives inside the policymaking process.
Jewish groups often struggle to have their concerns about hate crimes, campus harassment, or threats to synagogues translated into federal action. So, for many the renewed Faith Office was welcome, and those in favor believe that the new office can be a crucial conduit. It also sends a broader cultural signal that Judaism is recognized within the American tapestry not only as an ethnic or national identity, but as a religious voice that deserves a seat at the table when Washington debates morality, security, and freedom.
Houthis Labeled as Terrorists
On January 22, 2025, Trump issued Executive Order 14175, “Designation of Ansar Allah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization,” initiating a process that led the State Department to redesignate the Houthis as an FTO and sanction key leaders. The order cites Houthi attacks that threaten American personnel and international shipping, as well as the group’s ties to Iran and their targeting of civilians.
Houthi missiles and drones have been fired toward Israel, and the group explicitly calls for death to Jews. By restoring terror designations Trump framed the move as aligning U.S. law with the reality of a group whose ideology and actions directly menace Israel and Jewish lives.
Restricting Entry to the US
Two related documents in January 2025 – an executive order “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats” dated January 20, 2025, and the subsequent June 3rd entry restriction proclamation define an overarching security doctrine at the border. The January order instructs agencies to reassess grounds of inadmissibility, toughen refugee and visa vetting, reviews deficient countries, and led to travel bans on nationals from a number of specific countries including Afghanistan, Iran, and Yemen.
For many Jews, whose synagogues and community centers have increasingly become targets, the focus on keeping out foreign extremists is welcome.
One Big Beautiful Bill Act
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law July 4th, 2025, contains an enormous defense and national security package, including roughly $150 billion in new defense spending including billions for shipbuilding, munitions, a proposed Golden Dome missile defense system, nuclear deterrence, Indo Pacific operations, and military innovation in drones and artificial intelligence. For the Jewish community many were concerned by the bill’s massive cuts to Medicare ($1 trillion), projected to remove health coverage from 78 million Americans, and make millions more uninsured. But the bill also includes defense expenditures that can prove important for us including missile defense research, the deterrence of Iran and its proxies, and keeping vital sea lanes open whose closure might otherwise threaten Israeli security.
At the border, the law injects roughly $170 billion into security: wall construction, detention capacity, technology, and a dramatic expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, aimed at deporting up to one million people each year and making ICE the single most heavily funded law enforcement agency. For voters who prioritize strong borders as a defense against terrorists and transnational terrorist networks, these are welcome commitments. Others find the measures draconian.
Israel-Iran War
The brief Iran-Israel war of June 2025 began when Israel launched a large, coordinated air operation against key Iranian nuclear and missile facilities that posed an imminent existential threat. Iran responded with more than 500 ballistic missiles and approximately 1,000 attack drones directed at Israeli cities, energy infrastructure, and military bases. Tehran’s strikes also threatened U.S. assets and wider regional stability, raising fears in Washington, Gulf capitals, and European governments of a wider regional war.
The United States intervened directly, using stealth bombers and cruise missiles to hit deeply buried Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz, Fordow, and around Isfahan. U.S. forces also helped intercept incoming Iranian missiles and drones, effectively backstopping Israel’s defenses and signaling that Washington would not allow Iran to reset the strategic balance in its favor through missile terror or nuclear brinkmanship. The combined Israeli U.S. strikes badly damaged parts of Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure and triggered retaliatory fire on a U.S. base in Qatar before a U.S. brokered ceasefire halted the war after twelve days.
Defense and Security
For Jews, one of the most striking elements is the embrace of advanced missile defense concepts like a Golden Dome, echoing Israel’s Iron Dome and signaling that lessons from Israel’s layered defense are feeding back into U.S. doctrine. The strategy’s emphasis on deterring Iran, hardening alliances, and rejecting “fruitless ‘nation building’ wars” reflects a worldview in which American power is meant to be sharp, targeted, and overwhelming – an approach that many pro Israel advocates see as essential to containing regimes and militias openly dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
Taken together, these actions and doctrines describe a presidency that has invested heavily in a particular version of security: tougher borders, louder deterrence, deeper skepticism of hostile international bodies, and more explicit alignment with Israel’s security concerns. For American Jews, the stakes are immediate – from terror designations that constrain groups firing missiles at Israel, to UN funding cuts that challenge institutions long accused of anti Israel bias, to trade deals and faith office appointments that pull Jewish life and Israeli partnership closer into the American mainstream.
Harley Lippman
Long Island-raised Harley Lippman is the founder and CEO of Genesis 10, a consulting firm. He serves on the boards of many businesses, educational, and cultural organizations and is an Executive Committee Member of AIPAC. Lippman believes that President Trump has brought a blanket of security and assistance to Israel.
“I would give President Trump very high marks in the first-year presidency,” Lippman said, citing tangible real results, including the hostage deal and brokering a ceasefire with Hamas, and secondly, Iran. “Not only did the United States give Israel the green light to attack Iran,” Lippman said, “but more importantly, America jumped in with Israel, to bomb the nuclear reactors. That’s extremely important.” Lippman also noted Iranians were able to stage a new revolution of late partly because they were emboldened by the U.S. and Israel’s actions.
Look to the Future
“What to watch out for?” Lippman asked. “Trump has to stay in the game. He has to make sure he continues to execute and to guarantee that his initiatives are ultimately successful. He needs to stay focused and disciplined… But Trump is feared. Trump is respected,” Lippman said.
Since his swearing in last January, Trump’s second term record reflects an effort to craft policies that include defending Israel’s security, confronting anti-Semitism, confronting terror, and building a military and border posture intended to keep Jews – and Americans – safer at home and abroad. Whatever one’s politics, the Jewish community will need to study, understand, and be aware of how these policies affect them, because the president’s policies will influence Jewish security, sovereignty, and moral debates in the years to come.