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Commentary: In praise of piXPost

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Last month, having occasion to travel overseas on holiday and seeking to avoid the harsh winter temps of inland Europe, I spent ten nights in Italy. Originally my plan was to stay exclusively in Naples, but on the advice of numerous friends and colleagues I ended up dividing my time between Naples and Rome. I left Israel Saturday, January 10th with my trusted CabinZero backpack and a return flight scheduled for the morning of January 20th. It had been twelve years since the last time I traveled in Italy. In the summer of 2013 I had visited Milan, Turin and Genoa en-route to the French Alps. My phone in those days was a Nokia 5630 ExpressMusic, which sported a 2.2-inch color display and a numeric keypad with joystick. Although smartphones and Google Maps were already a part of the travel experience back then, two apps that figured prominently in this year's travel experience were not: Google Gemini and piXPost . Jerusalem | Vienna | Bratislava | Budapest 2025: Amir Afsai Launch...
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Commentary: Sadly, I no longer collect Israeli stamps

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When this project was launched two years ago, in October 2019, it sought to develop content along two vectors: review Israeli stamps in much the same way film critics review movies, and document my experiences as an aspiring stamp collector learning to navigate the winds and bends of Israel's philatelic scene. Since that time, in line with my personal evolution in the hobby, the blog has evolved to cover a wider range of topics -- but the content that was the most enjoyable and rewarding to produce was always the stamp reviews . Why that is has to do with my opinionated nature and penchant for writing. Stamps offer a steady stream of new material to critique, and blogs are a convenient platform for expressing views and sharing them publicly. There were bumps in the road from the early going. Unlike the U.S. Postal Service , which issues a press release toward the end of every year highlighting stamps the public can look forward to in the year ahead, Israel Post rarely engages ...
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Commentary: World Postcard Day (poem)

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'Twas the night before World Postcard Day , and all through the town Not a pen wasn't stirring, oh-so-much to write down Some wrote by lamp light with coffee beside Others 'neath candles with tea or red wine "I've written ten!" said one girl with joy "I'm up to twenty," came the voice of a boy And Mamma in her 'kerchief and I in my cap Both knew that tonight there would be no nap A marathon of writing, a celebration of mail Not with keyboards and pixels but on cards and by snail Messages of love and of friendship sincere The farther they travel, the more they're held dear From Krakow , Kinshasa and Kalamazoo To Lapland, Lachish and Lima, Peru Send one to a stranger, and they'll write you back The next thing you know, a new bond is hatched Postcards of beaches and kids having fun Of buildings and mountains and cats in the sun Some shaped like hearts or perfectly round Others old-fashioned on paper turne...
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Check-in: Stamp collecting and running in Montenegro (April-May 2021)

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To travel or not to travel? There was a time when that was a rhetorical question. If a vacation was on the horizon, it was only a matter of where . Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. There were small and intermittent windows of opportunity to leave the country, and some Israelis had slipped through them -- only to find themselves stranded overseas without a return flight or forced into a quarantine facility immediately upon return. Headlines repeated promises that this country was in talks to open its borders to Israeli tourists or that airline was about to resume regular flights, but they were a mirage: the appointed time would come and nothing concrete would materialize. In February and March, as the fruits of Israel's flash immunization program began ripening, things finally appeared to be changing. By mid-April, the pandemic effectively over, roughly half a dozen countries became genuinely realistic destinations for vaccinated Israelis. They could fly out sans the need for ...
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Check-in: NetBul 2021 (March 1-31)

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NetBul 2021: Virtual National Stamp Exhibition was launched on March 1st as Israel's first philatelic exhibition to be held entirely online. Organized by the Israel Philatelic Federation (התאחדות בולאי ישראל) and lasting for the duration of the month, it featured seventeen exhibits put together by twelve exhibitors in five classes: Postal History (3), Thematic Philately (6), Maximum Cards (1), Picture Postcards (4), and Modern Philately (3). Exhibit sizes ranged from one frame to six. Fourteen exhibits were in English; three were in Hebrew. The first official notice that preparations were underway for a major Israeli philatelic event and that the event would be virtual in nature came in the October 2020 issue of the Israel Philatelic Federation's quarterly publication, Shovel (No. 119). At the time, late September and early October, SARS-CoV-2 infection rates in Israel were soaring, outdoor movement was restricted, in-person gatherings were prohibited, and an online exhib...
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