From its 2013 survey of American Jewry, the Pew Foundation has released newly analyzed data pertaining specifically to the Orthodox population. Pew notes the rapid growth of Orthodox Jewry relative to the overall American Jewish population, and the rapid growth of the ultra-Orthodox relative to the overall Orthodox population. It also finds that American Orthodox Jews are increasingly leaning to the political right. David Bernstein comments on what this means about the way Jews relate to both Israel and America:

[A]mong the non-Orthodox Jewish population, the percentage who don’t practice the religion and don’t meaningfully affiliate with the community is growing. The population of active Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Jews is shrinking, especially among the young. It is . . . among the former unaffiliated group that lack of interest or hostility to Israel is concentrated. When you hear . . . that young Jews are increasingly disaffected from Israel, it’s not only inaccurate, but refers mainly to [these] secular individuals with overwhelmingly left-wing politics, not raised in the Jewish religion, who still consider themselves at least partially Jewish.

Given the likely demographic future of this group—bluntly, it’s destined to have few Jewish descendants—relative to the broader Jewish community, the upshot is that the American Jewish population, with the exception of the large anti-Zionist Satmar ḥasidic sect, over time will grow increasingly close to, not distant from, Israel. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this is happening already. . . .

[Furthermore], theological, social, and even economic conservatism is going to become an increasingly important element of American Jewish life. . . . For what it’s worth, I almost never saw a kippah at conservative or libertarian political or intellectual events twenty years ago, but I see them all the time today, for example, at Federalist Society events. So not only are Orthodox Jews a growing right-leaning demographic, they appear to be getting more involved in general American political culture.

While President Trump has begun his term with a flurry of executive orders, their implementation is another matter. David Wurmser surveys the bureaucratic hurdles facing new presidents, and sets forth what he thinks should be the most important concerns for the White House regarding the Middle East:

The cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas may be necessary in order to retrieve whatever live hostages Israel is able to repatriate. Retrieving those hostages has been an Israeli war aim from day one.

But it is a vital American interest . . . to allow Israel to restart the war in Gaza and complete the destruction of Hamas, and also to allow Israel to enforce unilaterally UN Security Council Resolutions 1701 and 1559, which are embedded in the Lebanon cease-fire. If Hamas emerges with a story of victory in any form, not only will Israel face another October 7 soon, and not only will anti-Semitism explode exponentially globally, but cities and towns all over the West will suffer from a newly energized and encouraged global jihadist effort.

After the last hostage Israel can hope to still retrieve has been liberated, Israel will have to finish the war in a way that results in an unambiguous, incontrovertible, complete victory.