President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he had tapped Tom Rose, former publisher and CEO of The Jerusalem Post and a close confidant of former Vice President Mike Pence, as the next U.S. ambassador to Poland. 

Rose, an Orthodox Jew and a pro-Israel stalwart, has been a personal friend of Pence’s for over three decades and a top advisor going back to his days as governor of Indiana. He served as Pence’s chief strategist and senior advisor during his vice presidency in the first Trump administration. After Trump and Pence left office in 2021, Rose told Jewish Insider that he was engaged in several professional ventures, including newspaper investments and consulting for private equity firms.

Prior to working for Pence, Rose was in the media business, managing several “newspaper properties in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Israel” before running the Post from 1997-2005. He has also co-hosted “The Bauer and Rose Show” on Sirius XM alongside Gary Bauer, former President Ronald Reagan’s chief domestic policy advisor and a strong supporter of Israel, on-and-off since 2009. 

“I am pleased to announce that Thomas Rose will serve as the next United States Ambassador to Poland. Thomas is a highly respected businessman and commentator, who had a successful radio show on Sirius XM for almost a decade, and served as the Publisher and CEO of The Jerusalem Post. He will make sure our interests are represented in Poland, and always put America First,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late Thursday of Rose, an Indianapolis native. 

“I am deeply honored and profoundly humbled to be asked by our history making @POTUS to serve as Ambassador to Poland,” Rose said on X, where he describes himself in his bio as “A not-so-secret agent of MAGA Judeo-Christian Conspiracy.” 

“If confirmed, I will spend each and every day doing my very best to promote, defend, and advance the interests of the United States of America,” he continued, calling Trump “our fabulous” commander-in-chief.

Rose’s appointment places a Shabbat-observant Jew at the helm of the American embassy in a country with a fraught history for the Jewish people. Jews made up around 10% of Poland’s population prior to World War II at more than 3.3 million people. Today, only an estimated 10,000 Jews live in Poland.

The country has experienced several high-profile antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, including a far-right member of parliament using a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukkah candles lit in the country’s parliament in December 2023 and the firebombing of a synagogue in May 2024.

In terms of his foreign policy views, Rose has been a steadfast supporter of Israel for decades and has been critical of Poland’s liberal governing coalition for its anti-Israel behavior. Rose is supportive of Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is leaving office in August due to term limits. Rose called Duda “America’s greatest friend in Europe” in a post on X following their meeting in December. 

In January, he criticized Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk for the latter’s threat to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under a warrant from the International Criminal Court over the war in Gaza if he entered the country. Netanyahu had been planning to travel to Poland to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Rose warned Tusk to “be careful,” writing on X that, “Threatening to arrest [the] Prime Minister of the Jewish State at Auschwitz … of all places … is not unnoticed by USA. Poland deserves better!” He later congratulated Duda “for preventing a rift in U.S.-Polish relations” and for “standing up for Poland by convincing” Tusk “to reverse this terrible decision.”