Weekly News Brief: Trump’s shocking Gaza proclamation, Hollywood actress lambasts anti-Israel chaos, Holocaust memoir defaced
Trump moves to combat antisemitism, 'gender-affirming' care and makes Title IX changes fulfilling campaign promises
Good morning and welcome to another week in 2025. Don’t worry if you’re feeling whiplash from the news cycle right now – you’re not the only one.
President Donald Trump and his new administration are acting swiftly to fulfill many of his campaign promises. Major developments in the second week of his second term included an executive order to deport pro-Hamas protestors in America on student visas (met with applause from the Jewish and Christian communities), a ban on federal funding for sex-change surgeries, and rolling back President Joe Biden’s Title IX rules that included gender identity language allowing biological men to use women’s bathroom facilities and compete in women’s sports.
Plus, Trump dropped a major bombshell about Gaza during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday, stating the U.S. will take over the region and rebuild. You can find more on that here.
One Trump campaign promise was to revoke federal funding for sex change surgeries for people under 19 – a move that New York State Attorney General Letitia James isn’t following.
"Regardless of the availability of federal funding, we write to further remind you of your obligations to comply with New York State laws," she wrote, as quoted by The Associated Press.
"In New York, you have the right to receive treatment without discrimination regardless of your sex, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, diagnosis of gender dysphoria, or intersex status," the AG's office said.
The Christian Post has more on the story here.
As the world commemorated the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz early last week, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor was stunned when she discovered that anti-semitism is still alive and well.
Melanie Sol’s father, Moishe, survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. In order to better understand his experience growing up in Poland and surviving the Holocaust (where approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazi regime), she interviewed her father and wrote a book, “Daughter of the Holocaust.”
When she ordered copies of her self-published book from Amazon she was shocked to find all the copies vandalized with “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” written on the pages.
"I was shocked to see vandalism – antisemitic vandalism. I flipped through the books because I ordered them to bring back to Israel, to give to friends of mine."
Julie Stahl at CBN News has more on the story, including an interview with Sol here.
On the same front, actress Patricia Heaton recounts how she couldn’t stay silent after watching Hamas atrocities in Israel on October 7, 2023. She said she was surprised when there wasn’t a public outcry against the terrorist attack but was appalled by the resulting protests across college campuses that expressed support for, not condemnation of, Hamas.
“Campuses exploded in pro-terrorist rallies with printed signs, and flags, and keffiyehs, all at the ready — immediately afterwards,” Heaton said. “And I thought, ‘Why is this any different from the Holocaust? Why is this different from Paris when the editors of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper were slaughtered?'”
Billy Hallowell of CBN’s Faithwire has more here.
We’ll have a Good News Brief and the Weekly Conversations You Won’t Want to Miss later this week.