American culture these days is awash with stories of succession (the Murdoch empire), family drama (the Kennedys) and power (President Donald Trump on social media donning a kingly crown). Now comes a biblical tale to rival today’s news cycle — the coming-of-age story of King David — an “underdog” who comes to rule over the “House of David.”

The show’s creators, Christian filmmakers Jon Gunn and Jon Erwin, attribute the success of the series — which has become the No. 2 most-watched on Prime Video since the eight-episode season premiered on Feb. 27 — to the lessons King David’s story imparts to audiences about dealing with political rivalries and international conflicts. 

Several leading former Republican national security officials voiced concerns about Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff’s ability to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran — while sounding deeply skeptical that the Islamic Republic would cooperate in halting its nuclear program.  

Speaking on a JINSA webinar on Tuesday, Elliott Abrams, former special representative for Iran during the first Trump administration, said “it looks as if he [President Donald Trump] plans to have Steve Witkoff do it [negotiate with Iran]. The problem is that Witkoff doesn’t really know anything about the details here.” 

As President Donald Trump set his sights on Columbia University this month, pulling $400 million in federal funding and moving to deport a former graduate student who led last year’s anti-Israel encampment, predictably partisan responses emerged.

The president’s detractors cried that he is mounting a full-scale attack on higher education and liberal values. His supporters cheered what they see as a president hell-bent on fighting campus antisemitism and progressive excess. 

Israel’s decision to strike Hamas targets across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, ending a fragile ceasefire after negotiations to release the hostages held by the Palestinian terrorist group had effectively collapsed, has reignited a debate over media coverage of the conflict as it enters a new phase of escalation. 

The New York Times, for instance, distributed a push notification on Monday morning that read, “A wave of Israeli airstrikes has killed more than 400 people, Gaza’s health ministry said, raising the prospect of a return to all-out war,” without specifying that the health ministry is run by Hamas or noting any reason that may have driven Israel to take action. 

The Justice Department’s newly formed Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism filed a statement of interest in court on Monday night supporting Jewish students and a professor in their case alleging that the University of California Los Angeles permitted antisemitism on campus. 

According to the suit, in the spring of 2024 UCLA violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by knowingly allowed members of an anti-Israel protest encampment to physically prevent students and faculty from accessing portions of the campus if they were wearing items that identified them as Jewish if they refused to denounce Israel. The filing comes as the task force is separately investigating the University of California system for Title VI violations. 

In 2025, all it takes to answer any factual question, no matter how trivial — Who won the 1974 World Series? Where was Taylor Swift born? — is a quick Google search and, usually, a click to Wikipedia, which has 62 million pages in English alone. But a new report from the Anti-Defamation League urges people to think twice before using the popular free encyclopedia, arguing its administrators have failed to prevent biased editors from manipulating entries related to Israel and Judaism. 

Wikipedia is maintained by an army of volunteer editors, many of whom have spent years amassing knowledge of the site’s wonky rules in order to keep its pages up-to-date and accurate. But that honor system is vulnerable to bias. The ADL found that a group of 30 editors collaborated to insert anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives and falsehoods into articles, working together in a way that may have violated Wikipedia’s policies.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), an influential member of the conservative wing of the House Republican Conference, said in an interview with Jewish Insider last week that Israel stands in a unique place among U.S. allies and that the U.S. should always be ready to assist Jerusalem when it needs help.

Asked after a recent trip to Israel about potential additional avenues for Congress to support Israel, including future aid packages, Jordan described Israel as “in a category all by themselves.”

Leaders at the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) are warning that the Trump administration’s sudden move to cut off funding to public broadcasters imperils U.S. efforts to communicate its interests and priorities to the region and to compete with adversaries.

MBN and other publicly funded media outlets on Saturday became the latest targets of the Trump administration’s wide-ranging efforts to cut U.S. government spending and programs. MBN is an independent nonprofit but operates based on government grants. It broadcasts and publishes in Arabic through outlets including Alhurra, Radio Sawa and Elsaha.