Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Land is scarce in the Jerusalem area, so I can consider myself very fortunate to have a small plot of land attached to my house. It is divided into terraced sections because of the lay of the land, which is actually the side of a hill. Thus the

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson  MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Psychologists and psychiatrists have defined the outburst of mystical ecstasy and identification with our ancient city as a known phenomenon that sometimes even requires hospitalization or sedation of the person affected. It has a distant echo in the sense of awe that occasionally envelops visitors to Florence, but no

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson JERUSALEM–Whether by coincidence or design (probably the latter), Jerusalem’s YMCA building is currently showing an exhibition of exquisite Armenian ceramic work produced by one of the many workshops situated in the Old City. No mention is made of the slaughter of over a million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire exactly one hundred

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Like most – if not all – of my friends, I was disappointed by the outcome of Israel’s recent general election. Perhaps I was not quite as disappointed as some of them, as I had been expecting a result along the lines of what actually transpired. I still

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Wandering through the stalls of the Jerusalem International Book Fair held a few weeks ago my eye fell upon a display entitled ‘Lavi Publications,’ where copies of just one or two volumes in Hebrew were on display. The modestly dressed elderly lady in attendance at the stall was eager

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson JERUSALEM — The visit to Israel of friends from abroad provided us with the opportunity to walk through the Old City of Jerusalem and show them just a few of the tourist attractions in which that relatively small area abounds. One of our visitors had been to Israel several times in the last

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — And so once again, only two years after the previous election, Israel’s long-suffering population has been thrown into the maelstrom of another election campaign. Though perhaps “maelstrom” is too strong a term to describe the boredom and drudgery of being exposed to another round of groupings and regroupings

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson ZIKHRON YA’AKOV, Israel –The tragic and sudden death in a traffic accident of our daughter’s father-in-law, Eli Goldstein, brought an abrupt and untimely stop to the life of a man who was born on the land and worked the land throughout his life. His funeral, which was attended by what seemed to