For spring break, I decided to neglect the droves of thirsty college students hoping to quench their growing alcoholism down in Mexico, South Beach, or wherever it is college students go during spring break in a desperate attempt to merge warm weather with lots of booze. Instead, I decided to go to Israel to visit friends and look at schools for next year, and was met with something I was hardly prepared for.

I was not terrorized by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or any other fundamentalist effort seeking the destruction of Israel. It turned out that al-Qaida was not lurking in the alleys of old Jerusalem. I was, in fact, the victim of a new kind of terrorism, and I feel that it is my duty to warn folks so that they won’t be victims like I was.

So here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, I, Jonathan Schwartz, was a victim of exchange rate terrorism and before you know it, you may be a victim as well.

Remember back in late 2004 when Bush was getting elected to a second term in office, the Red Sox were giving every Yankee hater such as myself a reason to smile, and the exchange rate of the Israeli shekel to the U.S. dollar was paying out as high as a generous 4.5 shekel to the dollar? Upon my return to Israel two weeks ago, the exchange rate was at a paltry 3.3 and I could feel my wallet tightening in my pocket as I withdrew shekels from the ATM machine at the airport.

The plummeting U.S. dollar has made tourism all across the world more expensive for citizens of this great land. Even the Canadian dollar, albeit by a slim margin, is outpacing its American counterpart these days. I always thought that I’d refuse to live in a world where Canadian currency is worth more than our own. Now, I have no choice.

But fear not, loyal greenback enthusiasts! The news is not all bad, as any of my economics professors who are cringing as they read this article will tell you. A lower U.S. dollar has some benefits. Our domestically produced goods can be sold at cheaper, more competitive prices. We may even be able to make a dent in Asia’s stranglehold on the cheap goods market. Investment in the United States from foreigners has become cheaper. If any breath can be resuscitated into the American manufacturing sector, which fell off quicker than the Tamagotchi in elementary school, then the lower dollar will have done some good.

The lower dollar — along with the recession that we may or may not be in depending on who is at the podium — won’t last forever. Even the housing crisis will settle down eventually and CNBC will have nothing more to report. Business cycles are cyclical and neither the best or worst times last forever.

So cheer up. Recession doesn’t have to mean depression. With a little bit of time, responsible spending by our government, more disciplined lending from banks and the application of a firm slap to the face of Congress, the days of cheap vacations to Canada may once again be in our midst.