Nearly 160,000 young Jews from North America have taken part in Taglit-Birthright Israel, a 10-day free Israel trip aimed at revving up their Jewish identities.
The attacks on 10 sites in the Indian city, which killed nearly 200 people, could lead to a shift in the way Israel views global terrorism and the way to combat it.
The successor to the late Saudi King Fahd has previously proposed a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The street was made famous by the TV show \”Melrose Place,\” and for years, scores of tourists have trawled Melrose Avenue every day, hoping that some Los Angeles stardust will rub off on them.
Soon after Alef Jewish Restaurant opened for business in Krakow\’s Jewish quarter more than a decade ago, a gaggle of Polish schoolgirls wandered in during their lunch break. The anxious students asked the restaurant\’s co-owner, Janusz Benigier, whether they served non-Jews.
Summer is often a season of travel and vacation. Whether travel is a part of our plans for this summer, most of us have had the experience of being a tourist.
Once we declared here that we would visit Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, we expected people to say, \”How quaint! How interesting! What an unusual place to visit.\” Instead, we invariably heard, \”Why Bratislava?\” And in Prague, when we announced our next stop, the reaction was, \”Why do you want to go there?\” Amazingly, even in beautiful Bratislava itself, residents asked in wonder and bemusement, with no hint of being impolite: \”Why would you want to come here?\”
Folks in Bratislava are not used to tourists. It is not, as they say in the travel trade, a \”destination.\” No tourist buses crowd the streets like in Prague. No Israelis swarm here. And even if tourists come, we were told, they are ultra-Orthodox Jewish tourists visiting Budapest who take a taxi to Bratislava for a quick visit to the tomb of the revered early 19th century sage Rabbi Moshe Sofer (the Chatam Sofer), and then scoot back to Budapest without so much as a backward glance.
After Osama bin Laden demolished the World Trade Center, then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani made a point of dining out in Manhattan.
Whenever there\’s a wave of terror in Israel, the nation\’s hotels come up against a wave of cancellations, and the country\’s entire tourist industry — from five-star hotels to souvenir hawkers — goes into a slump. But in a few months the terror and fear subside, and the tourists come back.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.