Manuela Dviri

Manuela Dviri was born in 1949 in Padua

Manuela Vitali Norsa was born in Padua, Italy, in 1949 to a Jewish and Zionist family. She moved to Israel in 1968. She married Avraham Dviri, and the couple had 3 children: Eyal, Michal and Yehonatan.

She graduated in English and French literature and worked as a high school teacher. She later worked at an institute for mentally disabled children and then in international relations at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

On 26 February 1998 her son Yehonatan was killed during his army service at the Karkom outpost in Lebanon. She then left the Weizmann Institute, joined the Four Mothers movement and wrote articles calling for the IDF to leave Lebanon. After the withdrawal on 25 May 2000, she continued her pacifist work.

She writes for Corriere della Sera in Italian and for Haaretz and ynet in Hebrew. Her story collection Chocolate Egg appeared in 2000, and her play Land of Milk and Honey was staged in Paris in 2003. In 2005 she received the Peres Center Peace and Reconciliation Award for the Saving Children project, which helps Palestinian children get treatment in Israeli hospitals.