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In this issue

Sept. 5, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: What does 'doing the right thing' entail?

Caroline B. Glick: The master strategist

Sept. 4, 2008

Ron Kampeas: Biden, Palin take lead in clash on Mideast issues

Bruce Dancis: With humor as their weapon, the Three Stooges took on Hitler

Sept. 3, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: Productive school years don't just happen

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Quick lamb stew serves up flavors of India

Sept. 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Costly Advice

Caroline B. Glick: Calling Israel's bluff

JWisdom: Wandering in Wonder by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

August 29, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: 20/20 sightlessness

Caroline B. Glick: When history is not repeated

JWisdom: Blessed or Cursed: It's Really Up to You by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 28, 2008

Steve Lipman: A Comeback for the 'Jewish Jordan'

Jeffrey Weiss: Researcher reports 'intriguing' diabetes breakthrough

August 27, 2008

Rabbi Zecharya Greenwald: Removing the perfectionist's mask

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Nunn: Summer harvest linguine

JWisdom:: The Missing Link in Spiritual Life by Rabbi David Aaron

August 26, 2008

Yaffa Ganz: Grandma gets lessons in staying cool

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: The Dems' 'soft' jihadist

JWisdom:: Today: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Plague of indifference

August 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: A friend is bearing a silly grudge from a supposed wrong. What recourse do I have?

Daniel Pipes: Barack Obama through Muslim Eyes

JWisdom:: The knowledge you need to overcome your insecurities by Malka Schulman

August 22, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Life's essential ingredient

Caroline B. Glick: Dominos anyone?

JWisdom:: Actually, Do Sweat the Small Stuff! by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 21, 2008

Today in Biblical History by Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Popularization of Kabbalah: 20 Menachem-Av 1558 CE

Jonathan Rosenblum: Lessons from the Beyond

JWisdom: : The Olympian within is rooting for you -- yes, you! –- to go for the gold

August 20, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Misleading Platform Platitudes

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Chicken Salad with Asian Dressing

JWisdom: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: America's Defense of the Jews --- Until WWII by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

August 19, 2008

Dennis Prager: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Obama's Islamist problem has nothing to do with his upbringing

JWisdom: Think your life is messed up? by Rabbi David Aaron

August 18, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Business with Friends

Diana West: Roars About Russia, Bare Whispers About Islam

JWisdom: Relationship agony: The real cause by Malka Schulman

August 15, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: To love the Divine

Caroline B. Glick: Georgia, Israel, and the nature of man

JWisdom: The Truly Righteous Don't Demand Entitlements by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 14, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Confessions of broken spirit

Libby Lazewnik: The Numbers Game

JWisdom: Six Questions You'll Be Asked in Heaven? - Uh - Let's Just Take One for Now! by Gavriel Aryeh Sanders

August 13, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Georgia should be on their minds

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Go Greek: Pair flavorful lamb kebabs with a hearty salad

JWisdom: Human hybrids aren't science fiction by Rabbi David Aaron

August 12, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bless us

Daniel Pipes: The West's Islamist Infiltrators

JWisdom: From Sadness to Gladness: The Route from Tisha b'Av to Rosh Hashana by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

August 11, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: A Jewish view on fair pricing

Caroline B. Glick: Ignoring failure in Gaza

JWisdom: 'Communication' Is Not The Answer! by Malka Schulman

August 7, 2008

Rabbi David Gutterman: A Continuing Story With a Sustaining Goal

Rabbi Berel Wein: Mourning and morning

JWisdom: Yes, we are still in exile by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 6, 2008

David Ashenfelter: Government made military engineer's life a living hell because of his faith, Defense Department report documents

Jonathan Tobin: Speak the Truth; Defeat the Lies

JWisdom: Jewish Spirituality: Fusion or Confusion? by Rabbi David Aaron

August 5, 2008

Chris Leppek: Church/state wall beginning to crumble?

Paul Greenberg: Exit Olmert (no encore, please)

JWisdom: Serenity: Make the commitment by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin (Read by Gavriel Sanders)

August 4, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Am I taking advantage of another's psychological quirk?

Andrew Silow-Carroll: A black and a Jew walk into the White House…

JWisdom: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: Edward R. Morrow visits the ‘living dead’ by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 8, 2008 / 5 Sivan 5768

Era of cheap airfare is over

By Rod Dreher


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | A friend e-mailed the other day to say she and her husband were off to France this summer. "I know, the dollar," she said. "But we're not getting any younger, and France is France."


Go! I told her, and don't even think twice about it. The door is closing on a marvelous era, and such pleasures should be savored while they can be.


The era of cheap airfares is over. The head of British Airways said so, and who can possibly doubt it? I took the news surprisingly hard, because my children likely won't have the opportunities I did for exploring the world.


As a country boy visiting my great aunts Hilda and Lois in their cabin, I would sit between them on their red leather couch, with a weathered Rand McNally atlas splayed across our laps. Those old ladies showed me the places in Europe they had been as Red Cross nurses in the Great War.


Using my finger as a pointer, we would take imaginary trips, with my elderly tour guides describing the people and places I'd see if I were there. Eccentric Hilda once read my palm, tracing with her long fingernail a line in my hand that prophesied a future of travel.


Well, I certainly hoped so. But people like us didn't go to Europe. In 1974, when I was 7, Mr. Bickham, the wealthy farmer who lived down the road, took his wife to Paris. Had they gone to the moon and back, I could hardly have been less dazzled.


Ten years later, I was standing on the Champs-Elysees. Our family hadn't gotten rich; rather, in 1978, the airline industry had been deregulated. Suddenly, ordinary people could afford to fly to Europe. I started buying inexpensive, off-season tickets and traveling frugally and frequently. Until I started a family and could no longer afford it, I went at least once a year.


Europe changed my life. One example, among many: On that first trip, as a teenager, I stood in the magnificent medieval cathedral in Chartres, utterly overcome by its beauty and complexity. What kind of religion builds such a temple to its G-d? I thought. I staggered out of that Gothic pile a different man, walking a new road.


"It was right that I had gone to Europe, if only because I could look again with wonder," a prematurely jaded Truman Capote wrote in 1948. He described the continent as a bridge that led to his "imagination's earliest landscapes." That was true for me, too.


My great aunts, see, had been far beyond our place, where nothing ever happened, and had come back with enchanting tales for a restless little boy. In their tin-roof cottage at the end of a pecan orchard, amid their cosmopolitan air smelling of jonquils and old books, I learned curiosity. And to develop nostalgia for Europe, a place I'd never been.


And so, the first time I set foot on the grandest avenue of Paris, and remembered that it was on this very street that an unknown Frenchman had taken Hilda in his arms when news became general that the armistice had been signed, and kissed her madly — well, I was home.


My travels in Europe taught me to cherish so many things about life that I might otherwise have overlooked. Good food and drink, old places and traditional ways, the meaning of a sense of place, the company and wisdom of people not like myself. And, above all, the eternal possibility of wonder.


My one regret in life is that I never lived in Europe. But in that, perhaps, I was spared. Mr. Capote was disconsolate to learn that an American will always be an outsider in Europe. But then, he wrote, "gradually I realized I did not have to be a part of it: Rather, it could be a part of me."


That wisdom helped reconcile me to my insatiable European wanderlust and make my experiences there part of my own perspective. Will my kids have the same opportunity when they're older? Or will permanently high oil prices have once again made overseas travel a pastime of the rich? If the latter, my "Let's Go" generation will have been among history's most fortunate.


One day, my grandchildren may sit on my lap, and I'll trace the routes of my adventures on maps in the same musty atlas my great aunts had. (It's on my bookshelf.) There's beauty in that, I suppose. Helas, there's no substitute for being there.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


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Rod Dreher is assistant editorial page editor of the Dallas Morning News and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum).

PREVIOUSLY

05/29/08: What if they're not smart enough?
05/11/08: From horror, a child's loving gift
05/07/08:Will a canary be our last meal?
04/03/08: Economic crisis is of our own making
02/14/08: What child-men need is some tradition
02/05/08: A Republican victory this year could do more long-term damage to the party than a loss
01/22/08: Putting faith in Obama: Do GOPers tempted by him know what they're supporting?
11/20/07: We can't fix the world with The Care Bear Stare
10/17/07: Every father should read this book to his son
10/03/07: Not even our parks are safe … And I lay at least part of the blame on the cultural revolution and our obsession with the individual
08/22/07: The Decalogue, dangerous? Advice for a society that cringes at commandments
08/15/07: Playing the anti-science card
08/01/07: How the U.S. can avoid its own version of the fall of the Roman empire
07/24/07: Conservative author: Big business can be as dangerous a threat as big government
07/09/07: All quiet but the doleful pleas of a father who knows
06/28/07: When we let conspiracy theory masquerade as news, we fall prey to much more than deception
06/20/07: Stranded on Delta: They may love to fly, but it certainly doesn't show
06/13/07: When did conservatism start to mean never having to say you're sorry?
05/08/07: PBS darling gets abused by PC police
05/02/07: Impervious to beauty and deadened to depravity
04/20/07: What I know about being a loner
10/28/05: How the conservatives crumble

© 2007, The Dallas Morning News, Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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