Stamp review: The Sigd Festival (2019-11-26)

The Sigd Festival | חג הסיגד

The Sigd Festival stamp, issued November 26th, 2019, is the third and final installment of Israel Post's Ethnic Festivals in Israel series. The series began in May with a Moroccan Mimouna stamp, continued in September with a Kurdish Sehrane stamp, and concluded last week with a stamp dedicated to the Ethiopian Sigd. All three stamps were designed by Mario Sermoneta and Meir Eshel, who in 2014 collaborated on a series called Pioneering Women and whose stylistic imprints are readily discernible in their work. Among the Ethnic Festivals trio, "Sigd" was assigned the highest face value at ₪7.40.

"Sigd" depicts five kesim, or priests, in traditional robes and qob hats standing shoulder to shoulder as a view of Jerusalem's Old City with its Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock forms the background rising behind them. Three of the kesim are holding microphones, and the rightmost among them, who is slightly foregrounded relative to his peers, also holds a kropilo while the leftmost kes holds a fringed red umbrella. The notes accompanying the stamp's issue indicate that the images are based on photographs by Gidon Agaza. It is possible that this Agaza photo from 2017 served as inspiration for the stamp art:

As explained in the stamp notes, the Israeli Sigd recreates a festival that has long been part of Ethiopian Jewry's yearly cycle and that draws on motifs harking back to antiquity. Praying for and preparing for the return to Zion were historically what formed the Sigd's core.

The Sigd ceremony is based on the detailed description of the renewal of the covenant conducted in Jerusalem by Ezra and Nehemia upon the return to Zion (Nehemia chapters 8-10). It was customary in Ethiopia to hold the ceremony atop a high mountain, symbolizing Mount Sinai. [...] At the summit of the mountain, the Kess (priests) led prayers praising God, expressing repentance, requesting forgiveness and longing for Jerusalem. They read the Ten Commandments, chapter 9 from the Book of Nehemia, blessings and curses to the gathered [worshipers]. At the end of the ceremony, the participants confessed their sins and expressed their desire to celebrate the following year in Jerusalem.

With the majority of Ethiopia's Jewish population having ingathered to Israel and the Sigd being held annually in Jerusalem, the festival has gradually taken on a new meaning. Praying for the Holy Temple's reconstruction, recounting the hardships of the journey to Israel through Sudan, and promoting awareness of and participation in the Sigd among the general Israeli public have established themselves as leading causes on the festival's agenda.

The image above is an official invitation to the 2019 Sigd festival in Jerusalem. It is written in Amharic, a language missing from the Sigd stamp that I would have liked to see incorporated into its design -- such as was done in the case of Israel Post's 2011 "Aliyah of Ethiopian Jewry" stamp (shown below). I say this as an admirer of languages generally but also because featuring Amharic on the Sigd stamp would have made it more relatable to Israel's Ethiopian Jewish community. Instead, the closest we get to Amharic is a phonetic representation in Hebrew of the Amharic word for "Jerusalem" on the stamp's tab.

I would also have preferred a less noisy background. Possibly due to the golden embroidery on the robes of the kesim and the fact that their skin tone was rendered too light, the clutter of gray buildings and green trees behind them distracts rather than contextualizes, confuses rather than defines, invades the foreground rather than supports it, and competes for attention rather than concedes it. In effect, the stamp has no background -- only a foreground and a middleground.

Sigd at the Temple Mount

"Sigd" is now the third Israeli stamp to overtly reference Ethiopian Jews. The first to do so was "Traditional Costume of a Jewish Woman; Ethiopia" (shown below) in 1997, followed by the aforementioned "Aliyah of Ethiopian Jewry" stamp in 2011. It is conceivable that in the future we will see stamps honoring notable Beta Israel kesim, just as Israel Post has honored notable rabbis from other parts of the world. And while there is no planned joint Israel-Ethiopia issue as of now, it will be interesting to see what the two countries do with their stamps when a joint issue agreement between them is reached.

Bottom line: 5/5 -- Strong buy. In the context of what the Sigd stamp represents, which is a religious and cultural event of profound importance to the Israeli ethos, I am willing to overlook the stamp's design flaws as unfortunate but ultimately minor imperfections. "Sigd" is the kind of stamp that had to be issued, and as such it has to be collected.