Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

[caption id="attachment_959" align="alignright" width="100"] Dorothea Shefer-Vanson[/caption]

Dorothea Shefer-Vanson is a freelance journalist based in Mevasseret Zion, Israel.

Her published works, available on Amazon, include:

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* All Quiet on the Midwestern Plains: A Tale of Deception, Betrayal, and Vindication

* The Balancing Game: A Child Between Two Worlds, A Society Approaching War

* Chasing Dreams and Flies: A Tragicomedy of Life in France

* The Diary of Anne Frank (Cliff Notes)

* Levi Koenig: A Contemporary King Lear

* A Ruffled Calm

* Time out of Joint: The Fate of a Family

Shefer-Vanson also is a Hebrew to English translator, with those works on Amazon including:
* The Rainy Day Man by Amnon Jackont
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Book Review: ‘Inflitration’ by Joshua Kenaz

The death a few months ago of Israeli author, Joshua Kenaz, led to renewed interest in his work, and impelled me to read this book (published by Am Oved in 1986). For me, reading a novel in Hebrew involves embarking on an enterprise that I know in advance will tax my patience and ability to persevere, especially as in this case the book comprises some six hundred pages of closely-printed Hebrew text. However, I decided to stick the course and acquaint myself with the writing of someone who is considered to be a bulwark of contemporary Israeli literature. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East

Attack on U.S. Capitol Causes Free World to Shudder

The sight of a crowd of people ascending the steps Wednesday in front of the Capitol building and forcibly entering the American House of Representatives, as happened yesterday and was beamed live all around the world, must have sent shudders down the spine of every freedom-loving individual everywhere. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Middle East, USA

Education for Girls in Britain and Israel

My grandchildren, who have grown up in a secular environment in Israel, find it odd that I, their (hopefully) broad-minded grandmother, should have gone to a secondary school for girls. In Israel, it is only those segments of the population which adhere to ancient tenets of gender identification that maintain gender-segregated schools for their offspring. In England, where I grew up, the situation was similar but the ideas behind it were different. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education

Israeli Frustration Abounds Amid Coronavirus Missteps

As Israel rolls inexorably towards its third lockdown (or whatever you want to call it), one cannot help feeling more than slightly peeved (British euphemism for bloody angry) as to how and why we have got to this point.

I personally have rarely left my house for the past nine months, and if I do I always wear a mask over my mouth and nose while trying to stay as far away as possible from other people. My hands are sore from constant washing. It’s true that various relatives have occasionally entered the house, but in most cases we have managed to keep our distance from one another, and we never hug and kiss one another. I fear that I have become an anti-social monster, and may never be able to engage in natural social interaction again. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East

Reunion of families who sheltered Kindertransport refugees

To mark the anniversary of the Kindertransport project, in which Britain agreed to accept ten thousand unaccompanied refugee children, the vast majority of whom were Jewish, from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939, the AJR (Association of Jewish Refugees) recently held a special zoom meeting. This was hosted by British celebrity Dame Esther Rantzen and one of the main speakers was Sir David Attenborough, whose family had hosted two girls from Germany. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Jewish History

TV Series on Yom Kippur War drives home peace necessity

Valley of Tears, the dramatic series currently being shown on Israeli TV about events in the Golan Heights at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur war, has had me and many others spellbound each week. Although several of my friends and acquaintances have told me that they are unable to watch it as it brings back too many painful memories, I find myself compelled to watch. I quite understand their attitude, and am almost surprised at my own ability to persist through every graphic scene. I admit that I find it difficult to sleep afterwards, but some obsessive preoccupation with the events of that traumatic time brings me back to the screen every week. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Jewish History, Middle East, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Rebuilding lives in a TB Sanitarium

The main theme of ‘The Dark Circle’ is the battle with TB (tuberculosis) of the characters depicted in it, just as the miracle medicine of antibiotics, known then as Streptomycin, is beginning to appear on the world stage, bringing with it the promise of salvation from diseases formerly considered incurable, even fatal. While the wider context of the book is 1950s Britain, with its entrenched class differences, prejudices and post-war restrictions, the immediate environment in which the narrative develops is a custom-built sanatorium intended to cure its inmates, or residents. [Book review by Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Science, Medicine, & Education

A Visit to the Hula Lake Area

The second Coronavirus lockdown has just ended, and the third one can already be seen in the offing. So anyone with a yen for a change of atmosphere and landscape had better utilize the opportunity to take to the open road, and get out of the house. So hubby and I decided to make for the north of Israel, to the Hula wetlands or lake area, since at this time of the year it serves as a stop-over and resting place for many migratory birds making their way from Europe to Africa for the winter. Israel’s location, between the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the arid Arabian desert to the east, has made it the preferred flight path for millions of birds migrating from their summer sojourn in Europe to Africa’s warm winter. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East, The World We Share, Travel and Food

Story of Nazi brutality published during WWII

This is not an easy, light-hearted read. Far from it. It describes in harrowing detail the experiences of George Heisler, who is one of seven men who escaped from a prison camp somewhere in rural Germany. The year is 1935, and anyone suspected of opposing the Nazi regime is liable to be summoned by the Gestapo, arrested and sent to a prison camp. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International

Shopping in Coronavirus times

I wouldn’t say I’m a shopaholic, but I was brought up at a time and place where shopping was a regular feature of life. As a child in London I would be sent round the corner to the grocery store in Willesden Lane (which was no lane at all) to buy the loaf of rye bread my mother loved. On the way home I would gnaw the crust, and once I had handed the loaf over my mother would cut off the crust, spread it with butter and give it to me to eat like a civilized person, which made it rather less attractive. But I ate it anyway. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Business & Finance, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Lifestyles, Middle East

Israel’s ultra-orthodox and the spread of COVID19

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel –In these difficult times Israel finds itself facing a fresh scandal on an almost daily basis. The latest was the bold statement made by the outgoing head of a hospital situated in the ultra-orthodox town of Bnei Brak, and hence treating primarily that population. As a rule I don’t

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Middle East

The life and unexplained suicide of Uncle Herbert

In 1928 Herbert van Son, the uncle I never knew, was a young man of nineteen. The family lived in Hamburg and his father was a successful importer of tobacco. He arranged for his son to travel to Louisville and work as an apprentice to a business associate who was a tobacco farmer and trader there. He writes about the hot, damp climate and the warm relations between him and his employer, who helped him get settled and even took him to the Kentucky Derby. It was all interesting but very different to the life he had known in Hamburg,

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Travel and Food, USA

Tracking the Fate of My Grandparents

“We don’t know anything about what happened to our (mutual) grandparents. Our parents never talked about them,” my American cousins told me when I visited them last year. The two sons of my mother’s brother, the late Dr. Kurt Hirsch, live comfortable lives in Virginia. Jack and Harry and their families maintain their connection with Israel and Judaism, and are loyal American citizens. [Dorothea Shefer-Vanson]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Jewish History, Middle East, USA