For someone wandering the cobblestone streets of Mexico City\’s Historic Center, where the sound of the cathedral bells fills the air and the streets have names like Jesus Maria, it\’s hard to imagine that this neighborhood was once the heart of the country\’s Jewish community.
Leafing through travel books on Turkey at Tel Aviv\’s L\’Metayel (For the Traveler), veteran sojourner Ronen Lazar suggests how to curb the phenomenon of the "ugly Israeli" — the obnoxious Israeli tourist.
Tel Aviv is one of the hippest cities in the world. Unfortunately, probably the only people who know this happen to live there. Tel Avivians are a breed unto themselves: cosmopolitan, fashionable, absurdist and cynical, these hipsters are so phat they make cool seem outdated. They are a new category of Israeli stereotype, different from the ones we are with: the kibbutznik, the Chasid, the settler, the soldier, etc.
Myanmar, tucked in the middle of Thailand, Laos, China, India and Bangladesh, has had a rather turbulent history that continues today. Travel there would not appeal to those less inclined toward adventure, but my husband and I prefer such destinations. So, we boarded Myanmar Airways International in Bangkok and flew into Yangon International Airport, where we deplaned to find members of the national military waiting to \”greet\” us. Their job, among other things, was to make sure that we exchanged the obligatory $200 for their local currency before we could retrieve our luggage.
Czestochowa is known around the world as the site of the Jasna Góra Monastery, a pilgrimage place for Poles and other Catholics who flock there to see the famous painting of the Black Madonna.
Chef Erwin Van Oosten could be forgiven for not knowing what hit him when the rabbi ordered that the lasagna be sent back into the kitchen. It was the executive chef\’s first full day running the kitchen for a Caribbean cruise ship full of kosher passengers, and he had thought all was in order …
Yes, El Salvador. Not exactly (or even approximately) a tourist mecca, but a mecca of sorts to delegations organized by American Jewish World Service (AJWS), a rapidly growing and growingly effective organization devoted to connecting Jews and Judaism to the developing world.
For the past decade, members of Shaare Shalom, a Persian synagogue in Great Neck, N.Y., have traveled en masse to Miami each Passover.
What brought the first, mainly Sephardic, Jews to Charleston was its remarkable religious tolerance, not to mention the economic prospects elevating them to a new aristocracy to which their Ashkenazi kinsmen who followed greedily aspired.
Bike the Sites, a smart solution to the challenges of sightseeing in heavily trafficked D.C., allows visitors to enjoy Washington\’s history and architecture in an environmentally friendly way.
