Sister of Zion - Softcover

Ruth Danon has an MSc in Agricultural Sciences from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This is Danon's second book. Her book about Atarot, the first settlement in the Judean mountains and Danon's birthplace which was conquered by the Arab Legion in 1948 was published in Hebrew by Ariel Publishing House in 2007.

I truly enjoyed this book. With love and sensitivity, Ruth Danon skillfully tells a real story about Canetti's life and misgivings, her unique encounter with Israeli society, and her long-term relationship with Yehuda Danon and his family. The historical accounts interwoven into the text endow it with shades of convincing authenticity. For all these reasons, I highly recommend it. --Yossi Goldstein, history professor, Ariel University

Ruth Danon's book Sister of Zion breaks the non-official Jewish-Israeli taboo on the controversial discussion about the conversion of Jews after the Holocaust, and offers a unique close look at the life of a nun who was born and raised Jewish but the conflict between tragedy and belief brought her into Catholicism.

Sister Regine Canetti's personal story, is told by the author with a lot of respect and sensitivity, and grants the reader a unique and external look at the attitudes of the Israeli society to assimilated Jews before and after the establishment of the state of Israel.

The narrations of Jews who abandoned their religion and converted to Christianity after the second-world war were over-looked by the main-stream writers in Israel.

Ruth Danon and her protagonist, Regine Canetti, address courageously and sincerely various issues of freedom of choice and the price of living as an outcast. Regine Canetti shares with the readers, her pain, her gratifications, and her criticism of the church. Thus, this well written and interesting book provides us with the other view of the Israeli society, and let free the silenced voice of assimilated Jews, victims of the horrors of the 20 century, who are deserved to be heard. --Dr. Anat Peleg, Director of the Center of Media and Law, Bar-Ilan University

I just couldn't stop reading the book about the life of this 92 years old Sister, Regine Canetti (who is family related to Elias Canetti, the Nobel Price awarded author). Her story has been written with great talent and devoted love by Ruth Danon.

A random encounter in the middle of the Six Days War between a young Israeli military doctor Yehuda Danon - and Regine Canetti, a nun in the Sisters of Sion convent which is located in the Old City of Jerusalem, reveals the intense and breath taking story of a young Jewish girl that was driven to the cradle of Catholicism by the circumstances of life.

Regine told the wonderful story of her life to Ruth Danon who wrote it in a first person narrative in a magnificent moving and almost unbelievable way. It all starts when in the Convent situated in the Old City, during the 1967 War Days, Regine encounters a young military doctor, Yehuda Danon, Ruth's very newlywed husband. Yehuda and Regine realize on that meeting that they both speak Ladino, the dialect of Bulgarian natives. This encounter becomes along the years a very close friendship relation and leads to new ties between Regine and her family, including her father and her sister that already live in Israel. --Ehud Ben Ezer, Israeli author