Varda Yoran

Artist sculptor Varda Yoran was born in China to Jewish parents who left Russia after World War I. After 20 years in China, surviving the Japanese occupation of her town, Tientsin, during World War II, her next 30 years were spent in Israel. She was 50 years old and living in the US when she began her life as an artist/sculptor. In her 60s, she created five large outdoor sculptures in Israel for institutions such as Tel-Aviv University and the Ghetto Fighters Museum of Resistance. In her late 80s, she created a monument which stands in Lima, Peru, honoring Magdalena Truel, a Peruvian Christian hero of the Holocaust. At age 89, she published her second book, Al: The Israeli Prometheus. At 90, she was invited to speak at two United Nations conferences on aging.