By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel–Although I was not in Jerusalem for Jerusalem Day this year, having been called away to fulfill grandparental duties, it was very much in my thoughts. I still have a very clear memory of those six days in June, just 46 years ago, when I was only dimly able to [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson JERUSALEM–The exhibition currently on show at the Israel Museum reveals just a tiny fraction of the grandeur and ambition of King Herod, the Idumaean who once ruled Judea with some help from his Roman patrons. He was known mainly for his grandiose building projects throughout the region, most notably the Second Temple in [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson EIN BOQEQ, Israel — Just one and a half hours’ drive away from my home just outside Jerusalem lies the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth, whose water is so salty that the human body can float quite easily on its surface. It rains very rarely and the temperature there never [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — The world is in tumoil. But is it any more so than usual? Perhaps yes. Young Jung Kim Un is threatening to use nuclear weapons against someone, maybe the US, possibly South Korea, or even Japan, or any of the countries of South-East Asia (which constitute the world’s [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel –Having grown up in a British home where Passover/Pesach was observed with rigour, it came as something of a shock when I arrived in Israel to find that not everyone did the same. It was only in Israel that I heard about people filling their fridges and freezers with bread [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — The visit to Israel of US President Obama caused great excitement for a variety of reasons. The first was why had he come? Was it to reach an agreement regarding dealing with Iran’s steady progress towards a nuclear bomb or to exert pressure towards a solution of the [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel– On our recent visit to Malta we were given special permission to examine the enormous painting by Caravaggio, ‘The Beheading of John the Baptist,’ that hangs in the massive co-cathedral (double cathedral) of Valletta, which is run by the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. After the cathedral was [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson GIVAT CHAYIM IHUD, Israel — The Theresienstadt Memorial Museum is situated in Israel’s verdant Jezreel Valley, in premises attached to this kibbutz. Once or twice a year I receive the museum newsletter, continuing the subscription taken out by my late father. For many years it appeared in stencil form on plain [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MILAN, Italy — To find oneself sitting in the majestic auditorium of La Scala here is thrilling enough in itself. To be attending a performance of Verdi’s opera Nabucco, which describes the biblical episode surrounding the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people to [...]
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, The Balancing Game: A Child Between Two Worlds, A Society Approaching War, © 2013, ISBN 978-1-62212-846-4; 258 pages, available through Amazon, $16.50. By Donald H. Harrison Readers of San Diego Jewish World are familiar with author Dorothea Shefer-Vanson as a columnist based in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion. She writes about such [...]