Stamp review: Mikve Israel -- 150 Years (2020-04-21)

בול 150 שנה למקווה ישראל
עיצוב: צביקה רויטמן
"Mikve Israel – 150 Years" stamp

The "Mikve Israel – 150 Years" stamp was issued by Israel Post on 21 April 2020 to mark the sesquicentennial of the first agricultural school in the land of Israel. Face valued at ₪4.10, corresponding to the postage rate for an unregistered domestic 0-200g oversized letter, the stamp shows Mikve Israel's historic synagogue with its iconic palm trees, foregrounded by a tractor beside which a young man and woman are seated on a bench with a laptop computer and a book. The tab below the stamp depicts the Mikve Israel emblem -- a farmer holding a seed basket in a plowed field, an ear of wheat on the right, and an olive branch on the left. Green, off-white, yellow, and blue are the stamp's prominent colors. It was designed by Zvika Roitman, who has been a stamp designer with Israel Post since 2003.

בול כל ישראל חברים
עיצוב: צביקה רויטמן
2010 "150 ans de l'Alliance" stamp
Design: Zvika Roitman

Mikve Israel was founded in 1870 by Alliance Israélite Universelle (Hebrew: כל ישראל חברים), a Jewish philanthropic organization established ten years earlier in Paris. In 1867 Alliance dispatched co-founder and treasurer Charles Netter (1826-1882) to the Ottoman Empire's Jerusalem sanjak in order to visit the Jewish communities there and report back on their situation. Shocked by the levels of poverty he encountered, it became clear to Netter that without outside intervention in creating employment opportunities for young able-bodied Jews they would be consigned to a life of panhandling and dependence on charity. The most realistic opportunity for employment, Netter concluded, was in agriculture, and he proposed to Alliance that an agricultural school be established with the goal of training Jews to be farmers.

בול יעקב נטר
עיצוב: אליעזר ויסהוף
1970 "Charles Netter" stamp
Design: Eliezer Weishoff

With Alliance's backing, Netter negotiated with Ottoman authorities for the purchase of land on which to build an agricultural school. Disregarding his appeals at first, the Ottomans were eventually persuaded of the benefits of Netter's plan to the Empire and agreed to allocate 2,600 dunams (640 acres) of land near Jaffa for his project. Netter took up residence inside a cave while the first buildings were being constructed, and in the spring of 1870 Mikve Israel was officially inaugurated. The school took its name, which roughly translates as "Hope of Israel," from a verse in the Book of Jeremiah that was read in synagogue the same week: "You who are the hope of Israel, its savior in times of distress, why are You like a stranger in the land, like a traveler who stays only a night?"

Mikveh Israel (Google Maps)

Mikve Israel is located just south of Tel Aviv and north of Holon. Surrounded on three sides by the concrete jungle that is the Tel Aviv metro area, its location has made it the target of various development projects over the years seeking to rezone its land for residential and other purposes. Anticipating these pressures, the Mikve Israel Law was passed in 1971-1976, making it difficult for either the state or Mikve Israel itself to use the land for any purpose other than as needed by the agricultural school. The law has not completely deterred planners from efforts to appropriate Mikve Israel's land, however: most recently, the appropriation of 80 dunams (20 acres) was approved to allow for the construction of a fourth railroad track into Tel Aviv, which will be joined soon after by two additional tracks underground.

"Banyan" stamp (India Post, 1987)

One hundred and forty-five buildings and structures at Mikve Israel were earmarked for conservation in 2010. Among these were the site's historic winery, which began operating in 1893, and the synagogue, construction of which was completed in 1896. Much like Mikve Israel itself, the winery was a first-of-its-kind undertaking in the region, processing Carignan grapes grown on site from vine cuttings imported from Italy and even supplying vines to other up-and-coming vineyards in nearby Rishon LeZion and elsewhere. The synagogue exterior was designed by Charles Netter to resemble a traditional French farmhouse, and its interior is an eclectic mix of styles. Mikve Israel is also the site of the oldest banyan fig tree in Israel, imported from India and planted in 1888. Appropriately, the Council for Conservation of Heritage Sites in Israel is headquartered at Mikve Israel.

"150 ans de l'Alliance" stamp (La Poste, 2010)

In its early years, Mikve Israel struggled to recruit students, and for a time it appeared as though Charles Netter's venture was headed for failure. Since then, however, it has gained a reputation for excellence, with notable graduates including Eliyahu Krause, who became a de-facto agricultural advisor to the local Ottoman authorities, Mario Levy, founder of the Israel Bio-Organic Agriculture Association, and numerous Israel Prize recipients. Ronen Zafrir, current director of Mikveh Israel, describes in the stamp's release notes what Netter's pioneering vision has grown to become today:

The diverse Mikve Israel community has five preschools, two elementary schools, two daycare centers, three high schools, two boarding schools, a pre-military preparatory school and higher education students; Religious and secular side by side, new immigrants from different countries alongside Israeli students from all around the country. Today, as in the past, Mikve Israel's students receive theoretical and practical training in traditional as well as innovative new agricultural fields, which constitute a significant part of daily life in the community.¹

Rinat Gilboa's Mikveh Israel proposal

Bottom line: 2/5 -- Mild pass. "Mikve Israel" wasn't originally on the agenda for a stamp review. What led to this review being written was a chance encounter with a design proposal (shown above) by Rinat Gilboa for the "Mikve Israel" stamp that was rejected in favor of Zvika Roitman's design. A comparison of the two is a useful springboard for discussing what makes a good stamp generally and what does and doesn't work in the case of Roitman's "Mikve" stamp. The two reasons Roitman's design gets a 2/5 are that it completely lacks texture and that it is too blunt. It lacks texture because the field has the color of grass but none of the textural features that grass has; the tractor has the colors of a John Deere model but none of the textural features that metal and tires should have; and the building gets the color and shape of Mikve Israel's synagogue right but has none of the textural features that suggest the synagogue's age. As for the second reason, it is too blunt because there is no subtlety to the design, no symbolism, nothing to compel the viewer to linger on the image and be rewarded for more closely examining it. Rinat Gilboa's design, meanwhile, clearly prioritizes symmetry and is only slightly richer in texture, but it is substantially richer in detail: it invites the viewer to examine, to interpret. The synagogue roof and palm tree trunks have texture, there is subtle symbolism in the black and white hands and in the gears and Jewish stars, and there is a pretty border around the stamp. Zvika Roitman's design looks like a collage of clip-art images; Rinat Gilboa's has character and lingers in the mind.

2020 "Mikve Israel" first day cover
Image source: eBay