Van Jones, a CNN political commentator and longtime progressive activist, played an unexpected but notable role in 2025 by remaining steadfast in his support of Israel in contrast to much of the left since Oct. 7. In televised segments and social media commentary, Jones acknowledged the moral seriousness of Hamas's atrocities and criticized efforts to excuse or minimize them within activist circles. His willingness to challenge ideological conformity on the left made his interventions significant for Jewish audiences accustomed to uniform hostility in progressive media spaces.

Caroline D'Amore, entrepreneur, media personality, and founder of Pizza Girl, became an unexpectedly visible voice for Jewish solidarity in 2025. Following Oct. 7, D'Amore used her substantial social media platform to speak openly about Israel, antisemitism, and the need for moral clarity in cultural spaces often reluctant to engage. She traveled to Israel during the war, documenting what she saw and sharing it directly with audiences far beyond traditional Jewish or political circles. In industries where silence can be the safer path, D'Amore chose visibility. Her advocacy reflected a new generation of public figures unwilling to outsource Jewish defense to institutions alone, bringing the conversation into mainstream culture.

Haviv Rettig Gur, senior analyst at The Times of Israel, has become one of the most essential interpreters of the Jewish story in an age of noise and distortion. A historian by training and a journalist by craft, Rettig Gur brings deep historical knowledge to contemporary crises, situating Israel's dilemmas within the longer arc of Jewish peoplehood. Yet it is not only his command of facts that distinguishes him. He speaks with uncommon humanity, treating even the most painful subjects with empathy and moral seriousness. At a time of fury and fragmentation, Rettig Gur models something rare: intellectual rigor joined to wisdom, and analysis grounded in love for the Jewish people. He is one of our finest representatives.

Batya Ungar-Sargon, an anchor for NewsNation, was a highly visible media figure in 2025 pushing back against what she argued were elite distortions of Israel's war and the surge in antisemitism in the West. Through widely circulated columns, frequent cable-news appearances, and public debates, she argued that much of the Western discourse erased Jewish vulnerability while excusing or romanticizing violence. Ungar-Sargon consistently framed the issue not only as one of Israel, but as a broader moral failure among cultural and academic elites — an argument that brought Jewish concerns into mainstream political and cultural conversations well beyond Jewish media.

Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist and CNN contributor, was a consistently visible presence in 2025 defending Israel during some of the most contentious on-air debates following Oct. 7. Appearing frequently on CNN programs such as CNN NewsNight and State of the Union, Jennings repeatedly pushed back against panelists who framed Israel's military response as disproportionate or divorced from Hamas's actions, pressing instead on the group's use of civilian infrastructure, its stated goals, and the implications of abandoning deterrence. He also challenged what he described as selective outrage in international coverage, arguing that Israel was being judged by standards not applied to other democracies confronting terrorism. While not positioning himself as a policy expert, Jennings’s role was significant precisely because of the forum: he ensured that a clear, unsparing pro-Israel case was made, repeatedly and in real time, on an international network where such arguments were often contested or marginalized.

Nadav Eyal, one of Israel’s most respected journalists and strategic commentators, was a particularly important voice in 2025 for readers seeking serious, unsentimental analysis of Israel’s war and its global implications. Writing columns, delivering lectures, and speaking to international media, Eyal focused on how Israel’s military campaign intersected with diplomatic pressure, internal political strain, and shifting attitudes in the West. He paid close attention to civil–military relations, the endurance of Israeli society under prolonged mobilization, and the risks posed by erosion of trust—both domestically and with key allies. What set Eyal apart over the past year was his ability to speak honestly to Israeli audiences while also translating Israel’s dilemmas to the outside world, offering neither slogans nor reassurance, but clear-eyed analysis rooted in democratic accountability and strategic realism.

Amit Segal, one of Israel’s most influential political analysts, was central in 2025 to explaining how wartime decisions were made inside Israel’s political system. As chief political correspondent for Channel 12, Segal broke and contextualized major developments involving the war cabinet, coalition stability, and tensions between elected officials and the security establishment. His influence extended well beyond Israeli television: through in-depth conversations on Dan Senor’s Call Me Back podcast, Segal walked international audiences through the mechanics of Israeli governance under fire, explaining not just outcomes but processes—who decides, under what constraints, and with which political tradeoffs. Heard alongside figures such as Nadav Eyal on the same platform, Segal provided the institutional and political grounding that complemented Eyal’s broader strategic and international analysis, together offering one of the clearest composite pictures of Israel at war available to non-Israeli listeners.

Sharri Markson, an Australian investigative journalist and primetime television host for Sky News Australia, was one of the most prominent English-language media voices outside the United States covering Israel’s war and its international ramifications in 2025. Through columns, television appearances on Sky News Australia, and investigative reporting, Markson focused on Hamas’s tactics, Iran’s regional strategy, and what she argued were systemic failures of international institutions tasked with addressing terrorism and civilian protection. She paid particular attention to how narratives about Gaza were constructed and disseminated globally, frequently challenging reporting she viewed as omitting Hamas’s role or sanitizing its ideology. In an Australian media environment that became sharply polarized after Oct. 7, Markson’s work helped shape public debate well beyond Australia, reaching Jewish and non-Jewish audiences across the English-speaking world seeking security-focused, fact-driven coverage of the conflict.

Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator and cofounder of The Daily Wire, remained one of the most influential Jewish media figures in 2025, devoting sustained attention to Israel’s war, rising antisemitism, and the ideological currents driving anti-Zionism. Through daily podcasts, long-form discussions, and public appearances, Shapiro examined the moral and strategic dimensions of Israel’s fight against Hamas while also addressing the fractures within the American right. Notably, he held firm against criticism and pressure from segments of the far right that opposed US support for Israel or trafficked in antisemitic tropes, making clear distinctions between conservatism, isolationism, and ethno-nationalism. His willingness to confront extremism on his own flank, while maintaining a large and ideologically diverse audience, underscored his role as a central—and stabilizing—figure in Jewish public life during a volatile year.

Elica Le Bon, an Iranian-American writer and activist, became a standout voice in 2025 for linking Israel’s war to the lived experience of Iranians who have spent decades under the Islamic Republic. Known for sharp, fast-moving commentary on social media and in interviews, Le Bon drew on her background in the Iranian diaspora to explain how the same regime that represses women, jails dissidents, and crushes protest movements at home fuels violence against Israel through Hamas and Hezbollah. She brought humor, cultural fluency, and moral clarity to a conversation often bogged down in jargon—skewering Western activists who romanticize “resistance” while ignoring the realities of life under Tehran’s rule. For many Jewish audiences, her work was refreshing not only for its substance, but for its tone: confident, unsentimental, and grounded in the shared interests of Israelis and Iranians who want the same thing from the future—freedom from the regime that menaces them both.

Eli Sharabi, an Israeli civilian kidnapped by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks, has become one of the most powerful human faces of the hostage crisis across the world. While held in Gaza, advocacy on Sharabi’s behalf—led by his family and supporters—helped keep sustained international attention on the hostages as individuals rather than statistics. After his release during a hostage exchange, Sharabi’s remarkable story which he has courageously shared with thousands underscored both the brutality of Hamas’s actions and the long-term human cost borne by Israeli families. His experience, widely cited in discussions of the war’s moral stakes, reinforced for Jewish and non-Jewish audiences alike what was at risk beyond military or diplomatic outcomes: the lives of ordinary people caught in extraordinary violence.

As the discourse over Israel, Judaism, and antisemitism continued to grow louder—and often harsher—in 2025, Mark Penn kept returning the conversation to numbers. A veteran pollster and political strategist, Penn spent the year analyzing how American public opinion on Israel, antisemitism, and the war was actually shifting—often cutting against assumptions held by activists on both sides. Through polling, presentations, and commentary, he highlighted widening generational gaps, the outsized influence of media ecosystems, and the resilience of pro-Israel sentiment among broad swaths of the electorate despite intense campus and online pressure. His work has been closely followed by donors, policymakers, and institutional leaders looking to replace intuition with evidence, and to understand where persuasion remained possible—and where it did not—in a rapidly changing opinion landscape increasingly hostile to Israel.