Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner…

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Spending a week in London in mid-November is not really a good idea for someone who has become used to the Mediterranean climate of Israel, but the arrival there of our son from Las Vegas proved an overriding attraction, so we went.

The weather when we got there was positively arctic, something which even native Londoners find difficult, but luckily the arctic blast passed after a couple of days, and the rest of our time there we were able to enjoy blue skies and relatively kind weather. And in typical British fashion, our principal concern was the weather.

Apart from coping with the climate, our time in London was spent in meeting old friends, as well as in sharing our love for art with our son and his children (who. like us, flew over from Israel to meet him). Thus, we were able to enjoy several meals in the local pub and the nearby Chinese restaurant en famille, as well as avoiding the long queue for the National Gallery by seeking refuge in the delightful Wallace Collection just off Oxford Street.

As is our tradition in London, we managed to see a play. This time it was ‘The Lehman Trilogy,’ performed at the relatively new Gillian Lynn Theatre. Three male actors portrayed the three brothers, immigrants from Germany, who founded the firm first in pre-Civil War Alabama and later in New York. With time they branched out from trading in raw cotton to coffee and other commodities and eventually to finance and banking. In the end, after selling the firm to outsiders, it collapsed into bankruptcy. The fate of the Lehman Brothers financial enterprise in the financial crisis of 2008 is a well-known event, and the attempt to dramatize it using just three actors provides an admirable vehicle for their respective thespian abilities. However, the exposition, though enhanced by splendid visual effects and scene changes, was too long and eventually verged on the boring, in my opinion. Particularly interesting for me was the use of Hebrew prayers (in the Ashkenazi pronunciation I remember from my own home) and the live piano accompaniment, consisting of many familiar Hebrew tunes. The theatre was packed and the audience gave the actors a well-deserved standing ovation at the end.

We were also able to attend a performance of piano duets given by two young pianists, one originally from Israel the other from Hungary, in a small art gallery tucked away behind Picadilly Circus. We sat together with a small, select audience, surrounded by enormous Baroque-era paintings hung on walls clothed in green silk while the two young men played an astounding arrangement for four hands by Max Reger of Bach’s first Brandenburg concerto, as well as more well-known duets by Schubert and Schuman. The event ended with the two brilliant pianists helping to push the grand piano aside so that champagne could be served to all those present. Truly an inspiring evening.

Getting around in London requires a fair amount of walking on hard pavements and through underground stations. A week of activities in London is not for the faint of heart or weak of legs. We loved every minute of our stay even though our return journey involved a long drive to the airport and an overnight flight back to Israel. Dawn was breaking over the Judean hills as we returned to Jerusalem, and we were glad to be back in our comfortable home once more.

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson is an author and freelance writer based in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion, Israel