Seven Republican senators are seeking to codify import-labeling rules implemented by the Trump administration on products produced in West Bank settlements, Jewish Insider has learned.

In November 2020, the Trump administration changed U.S. policy to allow goods produced in some Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be labeled as “Made in Israel.” Under the policy, products created in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of the West Bank were labeled as products of the West Bank, and those produced in the Gaza Strip were marked as such.

In some ways, the special election next Tuesday in Ohio’s deep-red 15th Congressional District has come to be viewed as an early test of former President Donald Trump’s prevailing influence within the GOP.

The crowded Republican primary in the suburbs of southern Columbus is pitting a Trump-backed former energy lobbyist, Mike Carey, against Jeff LaRe, a state legislator endorsed by the moderate former incumbent, Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH), who vacated his seat in mid-May to lead the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) fulfilled less than half of the applications it received for 2021 grants, a FEMA spokesperson told Jewish Insider. 

In total, nonprofits submitted 3,361 applications requesting nearly $400 million in NSGP funds, far outstripping the $180 million appropriated by Congress for the 2021 fiscal year. Of those, 1,532 applications were approved.

Congressional Republicans are pushing to reform or cut funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) — the U.N. agency tasked with providing aid to Palestinians — after the Biden administration restored funding cut by former President Donald Trump to the often-criticized body.

The UNRWA Accountability and Transparency Act, which has 12 sponsors in the Senate and 28 in the House and was introduced Tuesday, would freeze aid to UNRWA entirely unless the secretary of state certifies to Congress every 180 days that the organization meets a series of criteria. They includeconfirmation that no UNRWA employees are members of or affiliated with terror organizations; that no UNRWA resources are being used by terror groups; and that the U.N. agency’s schools do not provide educational materials containing anti-American, anti-Israel or antisemitic content.

Writer and journalist Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt joined “Limited Liability Podcast” co-hosts Richard Goldberg and Jarrod Bernstein to discuss the latest controversies — including Ben & Jerry’s and the new Netflix show “My Unorthodox Life” — plus her own life as a journalist and a rabbi’s wife, bridging the secular-religious “chasm,” as she calls it, and the politics of kosher certifications.

On the rise of outrage culture: “I don’t know if you saw that meme — you know, that popular meme with the guy walking with the girl and he’s turning around, look at another girl. So that literally is what it’s like. We’re jumping from one to the other….A lot of this is a product of what Twitter has done to our brains, where we’re sort of addicted to the adrenaline, that outrage, and the way that the algorithm rewards it. You know, that’s really what it’s sort of, I think, sparked in us. As a journalist, I find it very disturbing, and partly because I feel that I have been complicit in this as a media person. My job is to actually contribute to that. It’s a very uncomfortable place to be in and I think, simply, in the Jewish community we have let it go really far… I’ve definitely seen that in the wider Orthodox community this past year, where people were sort of pushed to their limits due to the pandemic, due to the heated political climate. And it has really caused strife in families and communities. I say this is a rabbi’s wife who has gotten people, even before pandemic, we had people telling us after a beautiful catered Shabbat dinner in the synagogue, they would walk out and they would say, ‘Thank you so much, Rabbi, but next time never seat us next to people the other side of the political aisle.’ I literally had that happen several times. I think that social media outrage has contributed to it.”

Payment processing giant PayPal announced today that it is partnering with the Anti-Defamation League on a project to examine how extremists and hate groups use financial platforms to fund criminal activity and root out bad actors, Jewish Insider has learned. The data gathered will be shared with others in the financial industry as well as lawmakers, law enforcement and other civil rights groups.

ADL’s Center on Extremism will lead the program aimed at “uncovering and disrupting the financial pipelines that support extremist and hate movements,” according to a joint ADL/PayPal statement. The initiative will focus on white supremacists, anti-government organizations and those propagating and profiting from antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, and anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-Hispanic and anti-Asian hate.

Jordan’s relations with Israel have improved since the new Israeli coalition government took office, Jordanian King Abdullah II told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a meeting last Thursday.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), a longtime member of the House committee, recounted the committee’s conversation with Abdullah in an interview on Friday with Jewish Insider.

With just over one week remaining until the closely watched special election in Ohio’s 11th Congressional District, prominent Democratic lawmakers are descending on the Cleveland area as the race that has come to represent a high-stakes showdown between moderates and progressives enters the final stretch.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) visited the district on Saturday, drumming up support for Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator and staunch progressive who had been leading the Democratic primary field in recent months. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), for whom Turner worked as a 2020 presidential campaign surrogate, is expected to make an appearance next weekend.