Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

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

Her published works, available on Amazon, include:

* 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

Tapestries in a medieval castle inspire visitors

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson BOUSSAC, France — The region around Limoges has been known since medieval times for its weavers. The art of tapestry-making once flourished there for many generations, passing down from father to son. Today the towns of Aubusson and Felletin are no longer famous for that particular specialty, though remnants of those ancient […]

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Travel and Food

Suicide’s memoir indicts the Gur sect of Hassidim

Doing His Will (Osah Kirtzono) by Esti Weinstein, published in Hebrew by Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir, 2016. By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson  JERUSALEM –The poor woman who wrote this book (and eventually committed suicide) was born into a specific sect, tantamount to a cult, of ultra-Orthodox Judaism known as the Gur Hassidim As a child and teenager the author

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

Bravo, Americans, for standing up for the children!

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — The recent furore over Donald Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents and placing them in enclosures that have been likened to cages, seems in the end to have brought out the best in American society. After all, virtually all Americans, Trump included, can trace their roots

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, USA

‘Jacob and his Sons’ at the Israel Museum

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson JERUSALEM — The exhibition of paintings by  Francisco de Zurburan, a seventeenth-century Spanish painter, has been a major attraction at the Israel Museum for the last few weeks. I had never heard of him, so I made use of a free morning to go and take a look. What met my eyes

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Jewish Religion, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

Exhausting, yet fun, travel in North America

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Six weeks, eleven flights, six states, one one-week cruise and four countries (not including the USA). That is feeble compared with the Beatles’ tour of the USA in 1965 (twenty-five cities in thirty days), but they were much younger than we were (and probably flew first class). One

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Travel and Food, USA

Book describes education in utropia

Uscolia by Gabriel Lanyi;  Sycorrax Books, Boston, 2017 By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — It is many years since I read material on the theory of education, and this book on the subject came into my hands through the kindness of our new neighbor, who also happens to be the author. But it is no

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

Royal wedding invoked Hebrew imagery

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — As befits an English woman living abroad, I watched the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on television, and reveled in the pomp and circumstance of each shot and every angle. I loved the sight of the beautiful mixed-race bride, her dress, the bridesmaids and page-boys, the various

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Jewish Religion, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts

‘The Crown’ captivates English ex-pats

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — When we were in Las Vegas last year, visiting our son and daughter-in-law, on one particular evening they were otherwise occupied. They made sure to seat us comfortably in the living room facing the large TV screen, handed us the remote control, and told us to find something on

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

A European debate on anti- Semitism

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Unable to sleep one night I surfed through the TV channels I sometimes watch and came across a debate about anti-Semitism on France24 (in English, fortunately). The trigger for this was President Macron’s tweet about the existence of an ‘old anti-Semitism’ in France alongside a new form of the

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, International, Middle East

German Jews fared well in 20th century Britain

Their Promised Land; My Grandparents in Love and War by Ian Buruma; Penguin Random House, 2017 By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — I found this book so fascinating that I read it more or less in one sitting and, having read it on my Kindle, proceeded to order the paperback version from Amazon as I knew I

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

Memory in the Living Room

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel –In recent years it has become customary in Israel, in addition to the official ceremonies marking Holocaust Day, for small groups of people, whether survivors, descendants of survivors, or simply those who feel a connection to the subject, to gather together in private homes and talk about their own

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