“The Jordanian-Israeli relationship is at an all-time low,” Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Thursday at an event in New York City hosted by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The two countries recently marked the 25-year anniversary of their historic peace agreement, although their relations have recently become strained.
“Part of it is because of the Israeli domestic matters,” said Abdullah, in an apparent reference to the political gridlock in Israel which could see the country hold its third election in less than a year.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The top U.S. general is visiting Tel Aviv for meetings with Israeli military leaders amid heightened tensions with Iran in the Mideast. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley met Sunday with Israeli counterpart Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi. Israel’s military said in a statement that Milley’s visit was a […]

Likud MK and former Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat suggested a plan on Sunday to hold elections for a Likud Party “deputy leader,” who would automatically assume the “most senior post in the government or the Knesset after the chairman of the party” and take over the premiership should the prime minister be removed from office.
Currently, when the prime minister travels or undergoes a medical procedure under sedation, he names another Likud minister to stand in for him.
Barkat said his model is “inspired by the U.S. model, [with] the president and vice president working together.”

JERUSALEM (AP) — A human rights researcher who is being deported from Israel over his alleged boycott advocacy says he will remain in his position and continue doing the “important, urgent work” of documenting violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories from abroad. Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch since […]

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who legally jumped into the presidential race Thursday after filing official paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, is making a pricey entrance with an eight-figure television ad campaign with advertisements promoting his bio and taking direct aim at President Trump.
Bloomberg is spending at least $37 million in ad buys in multiple states across the country, including California, New York, Florida, Texas and Illinois. Some of ads are set to air on national networks as early as Sunday, and most of the other ads will run on local broadcasts beginning Monday.

The Lod District Court in central Israel handed down a life sentence Sunday to the terrorist responsible for murdering a rabbi in a stabbing attack in Shomron last year.
Abdel Hakim Bin Adael Assi was convicted in July of murdering Rabbi Itamar Ben-Gal, a 29-year-old father of four, in a stabbing attack in the city of Ariel in Shomron last year.
In addition to the life sentence handed down to the terrorist, the Lod District Court also ordered that he pay the Ben-Gal family 258,000 shekels ($74,320).
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

An 80-year-old woman was killed on Motzei SHabbos after an elevator collapsed in a shaft in a residential building in Yerushalayim.
Senior MDA medic Yossi Cassuto and MDA paramedic Yosef Kalman, said, “In an elevator outside a residential building we saw an 80-year-old woman lying unconscious, without a pulse and breathless, suffering from injuries to her lower limbs.”
“We were told that the elevator probably fell from a few meters. We immediately started performing CPR operations, but ultimately had to pronounce her dead.”
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

United Torah Judaism chairman, Deputy Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman, may soon be appointed Minister of Health if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu resigns as Minister of Health in the wake of the indictment filed against him.
The dilemma of what would Litzman do if Netanyahu resigns was brought to a vote before the Agudat Yisrael Council of Torah Sages, which approved the move on Saturday night.
Litzman has already held the title of “Minister of Health” in the past but in 2017 resigned from the government due to the conflict over construction work on Shabbos. He returned to the Health Ministry as Deputy Minister a month later.
Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com}

The gala banquet of the International Kinus Hashluchim of Chabad will be held today at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center in Edison, NJ. Watch it live on Matzav.com at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time: 

It’s way past normal working hours but the crew at Agra d’Pirka headquarters are oblivious to the time.  For the past several weeks, as the Agra d’Pirka Decade Dinner event steadily approaches, they’ve been working weekends and evenings, and doing lots of overtime.  But they are not resentful or annoyed. In fact, they are invariably cheerful and enthusiastic. That’s because they are working on a project that’s meaningful, inspiring, and dear to their hearts.  And they know that they’re part of something big.