Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, your 15-minute audio update on what’s happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, from Sunday through Thursday.

US correspondent Jacob Magid and reporter Luke Tress join host Anne Gordon on today's episode.

With the drug epidemic out of the United States shifting from prescription pills to heroin to fentanyl, and with overdoses on the rise, Tress sheds light on why fentanyl is a deadly threat, and why no demographic, including the American Jewish community, is immune to this plague of addiction.

Magid reports on Jared Kushner's upcoming book about his time in the White House as senior adviser to his father-in-law, then-US president Donald Trump, including where he contradicts former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman's account of a US-Israel plan for annexation.

Magid also fills us in about Israel’s security cabinet vote to withhold more than half a billion shekels from the Palestinian Authority to offset the money the PA pays terrorists.

Discussed articles include:

Jewish communities grapple with addiction as fentanyl crisis ravages US

In new book, Kushner claims envoy Friedman went rogue to okay West Bank annexation

In new book, Trump’s Israel envoy hammers 4 rocky years into a smooth path to peace

Israel to withhold NIS 600 million from PA over its payments to terrorists’ families 

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IMAGE: Fentanyl-laced fake oxycodone pills collected during an investigation in 2019. (US Attorneys Office for Utah via AP)

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