MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

‘House of David’ Replaces Jews With Muslims Biblical Israel just wasn’t diverse enough. by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on March 24th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/house-of-david-replaces-jews-with-muslims/

The story of the rise of David, a shepherd boy, into a hero, a king and one of the great religious lyricists, is a phenomenal drama that Hollywood has fumbled again and again. For different reasons.

1951’s ‘David and Bathsheba’ was the typical clunky overdramatized spectacle of the era and the less said about Richard Gere as David the better. NBC’s Kings was an interesting, but baffling TV series, setting the struggle between Saul and David in a modern-day New York City ruled by kings.

Amazon Prime ‘House of David’ is more repugnant, but that has more to do with our own age than anything else. Our age is woke, Amazon Prime’s originals are particularly woke and ‘House of David’ starts out by jettisoning the Jewishness of the story in the most woke way possible by replacing both Saul and David with Arab Muslim actors.

David, traditionally seen as a redhead, becomes the latest ‘ginger’ to bite the dust and be replaced by what woke Hollywood decided is a more diverse appearance.

I recently wrote about a William Tell adaptation bringing in Muslim characters to show how diverse 14th-century Switzerland was. Biblical Israel was also apparently a very diverse place. But in typical woke DEI fashion, that diversity only goes one way, sidelining people who ‘look’ the wrong way and replacing them with more ‘diverse’ Arab Muslims who look the right way.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Hamas in America It’s not a protest movement; It’s an invading enemy.Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on March 24th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/hamas-in-america/

Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Tim Kaine, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Sen. Peter Welch, Sen Dick Durbin, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, and 103 House Democrats rallied in support of Mahmoud Khalil: an organizer in a Columbia University terrorist movement that called for “Death to America” and “the total eradication of Western civilization”

Half the House Democrat delegation, the party’s Senate minority leader, its former VP nominee in 2016, and two of its top 3 presidential candidates in 2020 now support the “rights” of this alien enemy to pursue its agendas of destroying Israel and exterminating its Jews, and destroying its indispensable ally America along with the rest of the civilized world.

That’s why David Horowitz’s message was that, “Mahmoud Khalil and his followers are self-declared enemies of America and should be treated as such.” And that’s also the message of the David Horowitz Freedom Center which has always been clear about who the enemy is.

That includes not just the Jihadist allies who terrorized Columbia, scrawling swastikas on its walls, taking janitors hostage and demanding the destruction of America and Israel, but all of their supporters from the street level to the highest levels of political power in Washington D.C.

“When the enemy is US imperialism, then absolutely anyone the US calls an enemy is my friend,” Momodou Taal, the latest foreign student to be targeted for deportation and defended by leftists, declared. That’s a coalition of America’s enemies that potentially includes China, Iran, Russia, Al Qaeda, ISIS, the American Left, and the top leadership of the Democrat Party.

‘Death to America’ is not just a protest slogan and the support of it by top Democrat leaders shows how the radicals who launched their 50-year assault on it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. From the days of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, the Weathermen and their bombs, what people used to call the ‘lunatic left’ is now in command and control of the Democrats.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Chaos Or The Gales Of Creative Destruction?

Posted By on March 24th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/03/24/trump-chaos-or-the-gales-of-creative-destruction/

During President Donald Trump’s first term and again in his second, we have heard his critics indict him for the “chaos” he’s stirred up in Washington. They see disorder and confusion. But those not suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome recognize this as the needed shake-up of a government that had grown out of control and become a threat to those it was intended to protect and serve.

The “chaos” label has not been used as often as “Nazi,” “fascist,” “dictator,” “tyrant” and “authoritarian” to try to vilify Trump. But it’s been part of the campaign to – let’s be frank – dehumanize the man in an effort to cripple his administration, chase him from the public square and rile the unbalanced who would do him harm.

A week into his second term, Senate Democrats wanted the country to know about the “lawlessness and chaos in America” brought by Trump. A day later, an overwrought Charles Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, said Trump “plunged the country into chaos” when he “announced a halt to virtually all federal funds across the country.”

On the same day, San Francisco Democrat and former House speaker – may she never hold that post again – made a similar accusation, wildly claiming that the “administration’s cruel decision to freeze federal funding for critical services across the country has unleashed chaos, confusion and fear for hardworking Americans.”

Sounds as if the pair and their staffs coordinated the attack. But give the Democrats credit. They know how to move in lockstep, even to the point of producing a political puppet show in which they posted “identical talking points to social media” that was widely ridiculed for its asininity. 

Even the Manchester Guardian, which daily cranks out copy scrawled by an assortment of cranks, has added its opinion, with its foreign affairs commentator whining about an “ensuing chaos” that “characterizes what may become the briefest honeymoon in White House history.” Le Monde, which bills itself as France’s “leading” newspaper, is also in the game, insisting that “Trump’s chaos” is the key to “revival” for the “unpopular and lost” Democrats.

BOOKS, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Let’s Fix Education: Episode 193, “Big Picture Thinking” Celebrating the work of Linda Goudsmit by Bruce Deitrick Price

Posted By on March 24th, 2025

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/28433/let-fix-education-episode-193-big-picture-thinking

Pundicity page: goudsmit.pundicity.com  and website: lindagoudsmit.com

BIG PICTURE THINKING

I want to celebrate the work of Linda Goudsmit. She is that rare miracle today, a big thinker. Her topic is understanding life in the 21st-century, the forces that are dragging it down, and how we can make it better.

The academic world forces scholars into small niches. They must all be specialists of something in particular. So, you won’t find big thinking there. I think we need more big thinking. Linda Goudsmit shows, in clear candid prose, what that looks like.

Knowledge-phobia, that’s the disease so prevalent in our world today. Apparently, the public schools will have to call 911 if any students start to learn anything. Oh, the horror. I think we need more knowledge. From K onward.

Some of the world is just lazy. Another big part of the world is constantly propagandizing. No matter what they pretend to care about, they are always pushing the same message. I think we need less propaganda, more love of Truth.

A few years back, I sent an email to Linda Goudsmit asking her what is the most important theme in her work. She said freedom. I had already decided that was the single word I would pick for that question. We had never discussed philosophy but somehow knew that if you don’t have freedom, you don’t really have much else.

Myself, I am a rampant generalist. Pretty much all my life I’ve been a novelist, painter, poet, art director, and now a passionate voice for education reform. But compared to Linda Goudsmit, I am stuck in a rut. So I readily appreciate her range and the tremendous amount of work that goes into studying all the facets she studies.

Now Linda Goudsmit deserves some sort of Oscar. Her most recent book is titled Space Is No Longer The Final Frontier — Reality Is. There are more than 370 pages, in 45 chapters. You will find a tremendous range with chapter titles such as:

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Two Christians Made a Show about Jews. It’s Phenomenal. ‘House of David’ is a beautiful corrective to a lie that’s seeped into American culture: that Christians see Jews as enemies. Batya Unger-Sargon

Posted By on March 24th, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/house-of-david-christians-jews

House of David is a biblical drama from brothers Andy and Jon Erwin, a duo of Christian filmmakers from Alabama. It tells the biblical story of King David, author of the book of Psalms, who was a shepherd, musician, and poet before he came to the throne. And it’s freaking phenomenal.

There’s much for Jewish audiences to love. Set in Israel in 1000 BC, the series brings the biblical story to life with compelling characters of the sort the Bible excels at; the show is respectful of the source material while also taking some subtle liberties (Agag, king of the Amalekites—the prototype in Jewish tradition for hatred of the Jewish people—is portrayed as a cannibal, for example). It has a healthy number of Israeli actors thrown into the mix, and the on-screen text identifying settings in the show appears first in Hebrew before in English. And when David sings, he sings in Hebrew, in verses culled from Song of Songs or the Psalms.

For those of us steeped in biblical texts, it’s a joy to see our scriptural world brought to life so artfully.

But the show’s most important contribution is in exposing liberal American Jews to the way so many of our Christian neighbors see us—not as an oppressed victim caste who killed Christ and should be loathed for it, but rather as an ancient, noble tribe of warrior poets and kings favored by the blessing of the God they serve.

American Jews often accept a widespread misconception that the attachment so many evangelical Christians have to Israel, and to their American Jewish neighbors, is the result of a longing for the Second Coming. In this reading, the Jews are mere instruments whose return to the land of Israel will result in their mass conversion (or mass expiration), and bring about the messianic redemption of the world. Many Jews feel offended by this apocalyptic narrative, but it’s far removed from how Jews are understood by American Christians, one of the first populations in history to organize their religion around the protection of Jews, rather than around our persecution. Though the Ku Klux Klan demonized both Catholics and Jews, there have been times in American history when it was harder to be a Catholic, a Mormon, or a Quaker than it was to be a Jew.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

2025 Jewish demographic momentum in Israel Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on March 24th, 2025

https://bit.ly/4hyGCVL

In 2024, the number of Israel’s Jewish births was 138,698 – 73% higher than 1995 (80,400), compared to 42,911 Arab births – 18% higher than 1995 (36,500).

In 2024, Jewish births were 76% of total births, compared to 69% in 1995. The surge of Jewish births has taken place due to the unprecedented rise of births (since 1995) in the secular sector, notwithstanding a rising level of education, income and wedding age and expanded urbanization. Since 1995, Israel’s ultra-orthodox sector has experienced a mild decrease of fertility, while the modern orthodox rate of fertility has been stable.

In 1969, Israel’s Arab fertility rate was six births higher than the Jewish fertility rate. In 2022, Jewish fertility rate – 3;Israeli Muslims – 2.86.Muslim fertility rate has been Westernized: Jordan – 2.87 births per woman, Iran – 1.91, Saudi Arabia – 1.87, Morocco – 2.25, Iraq – 3.1, Egypt – 2.65, Yemen – 2.82, the United Arab Emirates – 1.61, etc.Israel’s robust Jewish fertility rate reflects robust optimism, patriotism, attachment to roots, communal solidarity, frontier-mentality and less abortions. Arab demographic Westernization is attributed to sweeping urbanization, enhanced status of women (education, employment, rising wedding age, shorter reproductive period) and expanding use of contraceptives.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China Has Set Up Iran’s Next War in the Middle East by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on March 23rd, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21488/china-iran-middle-east-war

Iran, in short, has a nuclear weapons program because of China. For a long time, the international community looked the other way as the “atomic ayatollahs,” in violation of their treaty obligations, worked on building these fearsome devices. President Donald Trump, to his credit, is taking the issue head on.

Tehran almost certainly has [a nuclear bomb] by now. The Iranians themselves have made that clear. There is only a “one-week gap from the issuance of the order to the first test” of a nuclear bomb, according to an April 2024 public statement of a senior Iran lawmaker.

Diplomats from Russia, Iran, and China met in Beijing this month to support Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Tehran, bolstered by Beijing and Moscow, publicly said it had no desire to talk to Trump.

There are in fact conversations behind the scenes, but Iran nonetheless would not be as brazen if Beijing were not fully supporting it.

If Waltz is as good as his word — that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon — then China, by arming the ayatollahs with nukes, has made sure that the world’s next confrontation will be historic.

“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told ABC News’s Martha Raddatz on March 16th.

Waltz’s demand was in fact more comprehensive. He said that Iran must also hand over, among other things, missiles and uranium enrichment capability.

China helped Iran possess both. Beijing has set the stage for the next war in the Middle East.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Inside the Cult of Luigi Mangione By Olivia Reingold

Posted By on March 23rd, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/inside-the-cult-of-luigi-mangione
A Columbia grad, a cashier from Utah, and a Lockheed Martin engineer have one thing in common: They believe the alleged killer is a progressive American hero.

For the past few months, Nicole Haedo, a 36-year-old logistics coordinator, has been walking around her small town of DeKalb, Illinois, wielding an act of “quiet defiance” at her fingertips: a fresh manicure dedicated to progressive causes.

Ten nails, each a proverbial middle finger. On her left hand, her thumb bears the word TRUMP with a slash through it. On her pinkie: BLM. Her middle digit is an ode to The Handmaid’s Tale—an avatar for abortion rights. And the nail on her pointer finger is painted black with the words FREE LUIGI painted on top in bright green.

“It’s my small way of showing support,” she told me. “This is my way of keeping his story alive.”

She is talking about Luigi Mangione—the 26-year-old man accused of murdering a healthcare CEO in Manhattan in the early hours of December 4, 2024.

Haedo said her mom was shocked when she first saw her tribute to the suspect.

“She was like, ‘But he’s a murderer,’ ” Haedo told me. “I’m like, well, first of all, ‘He’s innocent until proven guilty—and second, whoever the shooter was, if his actions start to change the healthcare system, it saves lives.’ ”

Sure, “nobody wants to see bloodshed,” she admitted to me. But “the shooting of the CEO was just a small tip of the iceberg of what’s to come in America.”

“People are getting fed up,” she said.

“It’s my small way of showing support,” Haedo says of her pro-Mangione manicure. “This is my way of keeping his story alive.” (Lyndon French for The Free Press)

When Americans learned that a man shrouded in black had fired three gunshots into the back of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Midtown sidewalk, the first reaction for most was horror. But within hours, a different emotion began to surface: glee. By the afternoon, when UnitedHealthcare announced the death of its top executive on Facebook, more than 77,000 online commenters found it so funny they responded with a laughter emoji. Meanwhile, Reddit users were discussing how to start a legal defense fund for the gunman.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on March 23rd, 2025

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

Every week I look forward to Michael Ordman’s exhaustive compilation of positive news from Israel, the best antidote to columnists, academics, and newscasters who routinely defame, libel and slander the Jewish nation.  Israel, an embattled democracy makes more contributions per capita to the health and aspirations of humanity, than any other nation. Read it all. rsk

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR

$1.7 million raised for Bibas family. In a public fundraising campaign, the Lehosheet Yad (Lend a Hand) foundation has raised more than $1.7 million in 24 hours from nearly 31,000 donors. It will help freed hostage Yarden Bibas’s recovery and establish a memorial for his wife, Shiri, and two young sons, Ariel and Kfir.

https://www.jns.org/bibas-family-fundraiser-exceeds-1-3-million-in-under-24-hours/

The 10,000th Birthright volunteer. New York’s Madison Stock is the 10,000th participant in the Birthright Israel volunteer program. Activities include food rescue operations to prevent shortages in the Israeli market and supporting kibbutz restoration projects in areas hardest hit on Oct 7 2023 and the subsequent war.

https://www.jns.org/22-year-old-is-10000th-participant-in-birthright-israel-volunteer-program/

IDF soldier makes connection in Sri Lanka. A Golani soldier wounded in Gaza, was vacationing in Sri Lanka and read the story of Purim in a synagogue. He suddenly realized that the scroll he was reading from had been dedicated to the memory of 3 IDF soldiers including has own Major, Moshe Bar-On who fell in the same battle.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/405368

Syrian Druze visit sacred site in Israel. Israel opened its border to allow hundreds of Syrian Druze dignitaries and leaders to visit Israel. They the Galilee tomb of the Biblical Yitro (revered as a prophet) for the first time since 1948.  Amazing video. Useful article about the Druze at the second link below.

https://www.israelunwired.com/israel-opens-its-borders-for-syrian-druze-something-big-is-about-to-happen/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-druze-honor-the-prophet-jethro-in-annual-pilgrimage-to-ancient-tomb/

Aid for Syrian Druze. 10,000 packages of humanitarian aid (including oil, salt, flour, sugar, rice, and more) have been delivered to the Druze community in the battle areas of Syria. This was coordinated with the head of the Druze community Sheikh Muafik Tarif, and the Druze Religious Council, and the IDF.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/405309

How to navigate crises. Waze co- founder Uri Levine has published a new edition of his handbook for entrepreneurs, “Fall in Love With the Problem, Not the Solution”. It now has a chapter on how to navigate crises, such as Oct 7 2023 and the subsequent war, using interviews with CEOs and their roads to recovery.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/waze-co-founder-uri-levine-has-written-the-book-on-startups-navigating-crises-literally/

Still happy despite the war. Israel remains in the top ten list of happiest countries in the world despite an anxious year with the wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Its 8th placed in the World Happiness Report 2025 is down from 5th in 2024 but still remarkable, considering.

https://www.jns.org/israel-8th-happiest-country-despite-war/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Identifying gene on / off switches. (TY TPS) Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hadassah Medical Center used DNA methylation (chemical tagging human DNA) to uncover insights into how genes are turned on and off. It could transform the diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases.

https://worldisraelnews.com/new-dna-mapping-reveals-gene-on-off-switches-paving-way-for-disease-treatment/

Why people exercise. Tel Aviv University researchers used AI tools to discover what motivates people to exercise. They found that 23.9% of those who engage in sports do so to improve their appearance, 18.9% exercise to maintain their physical health, and 16.9% exercise to maintain their mental health.

https://www.aftau.org/news_item/tau-research-people-exercise-more-for-their-appearance-than-their-physical-health/    https://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e54489

 

More smiles soon. (TY Atid-EDI) Dror Ortho-Design has successfully completed user experience trials for its ZSmile platform (see here previously) ahead of commercial release. Feedback has been integrated for ZSmile to begin manufacture and distribution in Israel in the first half of 2025. 250 patients have already been treated.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/02/24/3031133/0/en/Dror-Successfully-Completes-User-Experience-Trial-of-its-new-ZSmile-Platform.html

 

Personal 3D models for pre-surgical training. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Stratasys and Europe’s Siemens have used Stratasys’ RadioMatrix™ materials and Digital Anatomy® technology with Siemens Healthineers’ algorithms to produce complex patient-specific anatomical models for pre-surgery planning and education.

https://investors.stratasys.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/932/stratasys-and-siemens-healthineers-bring-a-new-era-for

 

Mental health tech innovation. The 2025 Israeli Mental Health Technology Landscape Map, by Startup Nation Central and the ICAR Collective and Bezyl, highlights around 120 Israeli companies leveraging AI, automation, and digital platforms to enhance mental health care access and improve treatment outcomes.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/syxaay0sjg

https://finder.startupnationcentral.org/reports/mental-health-2025-landscape-map

 

1-2-3. (TY Yanky) Efrat and Daniel Cohen were delighted when their first child was followed by twins. Now Efrat has given birth to triplets at the Kaplan Medical Centre. Says Efrat: “The staff were amazing, supportive and attentive. We have given the grandmothers a heads-up – double shifts and night shifts if needed.”

https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/bj124vnj1x

Remote healthcare in Virginia and North Dakota. (TY OurCrowd) Uninsured patients in rural southwest Virginia will receive remote medical monitors from Israel’s TytoCare (see here previously) to save hospital visits. Meanwhile, medics in North Dakota with TytoCare devices will visit patients discharged from hospital.

https://wtop.com/virginia/2025/03/bringing-the-doctor-to-your-doorstep-rural-virginia-clinics-expand-telehealth-access/ https://news.sanfordhealth.org/news/hospital-at-home-program-launches-at-sanford-fargo/

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The Angst of the Well-Endowed One enormous facet of the education controversy remains ignored Matt Taibbi

Posted By on March 23rd, 2025

https://www.racket.news/p/the-angst-of-the-well-endowed
I’m sure a lot of good people are being hammered by the recent cuts, and yes, there are real speech issues in play. The reaction from academia however leads me to believe these institutions are so myopic and intrinsically exploitative that they can’t be fixed without first being taken apart. They have to be moved back to reality, but if they won’t go on their own, what is there to do?

From Thomas Edsall in the New York Times this morning:

Marc Andreessen, a billionaire venture capitalist, cryptocurrency investor and pivotal but unofficial adviser to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, made the case in a recent interview that the entire system of American higher education should be shuttered and abandoned… The American university system commands worldwide respect. What would prompt a call for its abolition?

At Johns Hopkins, the loss of $800 million in U.S.A.I.D. grants has forced the school to lay off 2,200 foreign and domestic workers… The Trump administration announced that it was cutting $400 million in grants to Columbia University “due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

Twenty years ago, maybe even ten, I’d have found these stories about Elon Von Hitler-Musk detonating thousands of campus-related jobs horrifying. But the education sob stories now flying off the presses are a Burj Khalifa of “needs context.” A gigantic lie of omission is a constant feature of these stories:

Take Johns Hopkins. NBC News was one of many to highlight the “grave consequences” the new administration’s policies have had on the famed institution, noting “the changes will also have an economic impact in Baltimore because the university is the largest private employer in Maryland.” NBC pointed out that “about half of Johns Hopkins’ funding last year came from federal research dollars, according to a letter from Ron Daniels, the university’s president.”

It seemed odd that the “largest private employer in Maryland” is half-funded by the federal “research dollars,” but I shrugged and went to the Johns Hopkins website to read the Daniels letter. When there’s money on the line and university presidents have time to compose their thoughts, expect the ultimate in soaring magniloquent resplenditude. Daniels didn’t disappoint.