By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel –Music has played a vital role in the development of humankind. It can rouse people to action, soothe the troubled breast, and elicit a wide range of emotions. Some people, myself included, are addicted to music (classical, in my case), and cannot bear to be conscious for a single [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson DEAD SEA, Israel –If one lives in Israel long enough one cannot escape being brushed by the wings of history. One week in my life recently took me – metaphorically — across continents and eras. On Tuesday I joined a group of friends for a guided tour of the home of Shai [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel–I finished reading Howard Jacobson’s book, The Finkler Question, and was still pondering its manifold messages in the evening as I attended a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore. This was given in Jerusalem by an amateur troupe composed mainly of immigrants from English-speaking countries.. Friends had tried to [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Despite rumors to the contrary, Israel is a normal country at least as far as retail therapy is concerned. Shopping malls are popping up with ever-increasing frequency wherever one looks. They incorporate many advantages for both vendors and shoppers, and the ambience in them varies from quiet [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson JERUSALEM — A ginger cat scampered along the gangway in front of the stage at the special concert given in the Jerusalem Theatre by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra last Independence Day. The young soloist who was playing Rachmaninoff’s very demanding third piano concerto didn’t seem to notice, though the audience did. [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel – Some time ago I was given a small book, Jeder Tag in Theresienstadt ist ein Geschenk; Die Theresienstadter Tagebücher einer Hamburger Jüdin, 1943-1945 (‘Every Day in Theresienstadt is a Gift’) by Martha Glass, published in 1996 by the Hamburg Department for Political Education with an introduction by Barbara [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel – Reading the recent review of the Chula Vista production of the play, The Diary of Anne Frank, I was taken back twenty-five years, to the year I spent in Lincoln, Nebraska, where my husband was teaching at the University. The Cliff’s Notes publisher of booklets intended to [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — So once again British hooligans managed to disrupt a concert given by Israeli musicians in London, this time one given by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at the Proms last September. This follows a similar interruption of a performance by the Jerusalem Quartet at the Wigmore Hall earlier in [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Reading about a conference on genocide held in Frankfurt, Germany, in March 2011 which appeared in Second Generation Voices, a journal for and by the descendants of Holocaust survivors which is published in England, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief. Admittedly, the title of the conference [...]
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson EILAT, Israel — A trip to this Red Sea city from Jerusalem is always a pleasure, and especially in the winter, when the weather in Jerusalem is cold and rainy. The four-hour drive takes one through the Judean Desert, along the Dead Sea, and down to the Negev. The mountains in Jordan, [...]
