Commentary: I tried to send mail to Dubai today. Here's what happened.

Today was the last day of my school's winter break. I woke up feeling little in the way of pressure to do anything or go anywhere. Instead, I fired up the laptop and cycled robotically through the usual sequence of news and social media sites. Nothing particularly dramatic had happened while I was alseep. On a whim, I visited the Israel Post website to check if there was any information about next month's new stamp issues. There was not. There was, however, a new update in the "Announcements" section: "Country added for overseas delivery -- United Arab Emirates."

This was dramatic news. And seeing as no one else was covering it, I shared it via the Israel Stamp Reviews Facebook page. A couple hours passed and Niall Murphy of the International Moldovan Philatelic Society and FILABRAS replied wondering, "Who will write to who and about what?" It was a good question. Of the people living in Israel who had connections in the UAE, how many still sent letters postally; and of those that did, how many would write to their connections today? That got my hypothetical brain thinking: What if I sent mail myself? The day Israel's and the UAE's phone lines established a direct link was part of history, but do we have a physical record of any calls made that day? The day the first direct imports of Emirati cargo arrived in Israel was part of history, but did anyone save a customs invoice from that shipment? A day might come when the first letters to have been mailed between Israel and the UAE will be valuable artifacts of history. Could I be a part of that?

No sooner had I begun hatching a plan than a series of kinks began conspiring against it.

Problem #1: I had never asked the post office to handstamp outgoing mail for me. The fact is none of the mail that I receive, unless it's from other philatelists, is ever canceled, so clearly mine wouldn't be either unless I outright asked for it to be. Was there a procedure customers requesting such a service were expected to follow? If there was, I wasn't privy to it.

Problem #2: To whom could I send mail? I had visited the UAE and Oman in January 2019 on my U.S. passport; but back then I was essentially traveling incognito, since Israelis were not allowed into those countries and ran the risk of being deported should their true identities be exposed. With the exception of a small group of local Jews I spent a Sabbath eve with in Dubai, no one else in either country knew I was visiting from Israel, and I'd had to invent all sorts of stories about my name, appearance and background whenever I interacted with anyone. The bottom line was I had no physical address that I could coordinate sending mail to.

חותמות דרכון: איחוד האמירויות , עומאן
2019 Gulf visa stamps

My only sliver of hope was one of the gentlemen whom I'd met in Dubai and whose name was still in my contacts. Perhaps he, provided he was still in the UAE, would be receptive to my idea of sending him mail. But how to communicate my request to this man, who hadn't heard from me in two years, without coming off like I was plotting a scam of some kind? No matter how carefully I formulated my proposal, it still had a dubious ring to it. Had the roles been reversed, I admitted, who's to say if I wouldn't block this guy's number suddenly trying to send me mail from Israel? Fortunately, my number was not blocked and an address was soon forthcoming.

Problem #3: It was hailing out. Of all the days in the year to have to walk to the post office, today had to be the absolute worst.

Problem #4: I had nothing to mail. Thanks to the generosity of Octavian of Philately Lately, I had stamps in abundance -- but not a single postcard or envelope in the house to affix them to.

Problem #5: Israel is under lockdown, i.e. all nonessential businesses are closed. No souvenir shops meant no place to buy postcards; no office supplies stores meant no place to buy envelopes.

It was around 16:00 when I finally left the house, having made an appointment at the post office for 17:00. Thankfully the hail had stopped by then, but it was still raining just enough to make walking outside unpleasant. I knew there was one souvenir shop in the Old City that was officially closed but whose owner sometimes left the roll-up metal gate raised ever so slightly so if someone really needed him he could be summoned. With any luck, he would be there now.

חנות מזכרות בעיר העתיקה
צילום: אמיר אפסאי
Old City souvenir shop
Photo: Amir Afsai (21 January 2021)

Sure enough, he was there. For all its being a primitive and harsh place to be, where no one takes credit card, where most of what people do all day is complain, and where the women wrap themselves in more layers than an onion, Jerusalem's Old City is like the friend you don't appreciate enough who's always there when you need him.

Problem #6: I still had no envelopes; and even if I did find envelopes, I hadn't brought any paper with me to write a letter on. It felt strange and artificial going to mail postcards when I had nothing to say and envelopes with nothing to put in them.

I arrived at the post office, pulled my ticket from the machine, and after a few minutes my number was called.

"Can I send a letter to the United Arab Emirates?"

"To the United Arab Emirates? Let me check. Yes. The Emirates is Group 6. Mailing a letter will cost you ₪7."

"How much is a postcard?"

"It's the same price."

"Can you cancel the stamps for me? It's important that the letters indicate they were mailed today."

"Yes, yes, of course. I'll cancel them. Do you want to buy stamps?"

"Thanks, I have my own. Do you sell envelopes?"

"Yes. Are these good? They're ten for ₪4."

Problem #7: Math. Trying to combine stamps so their face values would add up to ₪7 was overloading my brain circuits. Making matters worse, there were suddenly a lot of stamps I was finding it difficult to part with. Making matters worse still, I had gone to sit at an empty desk so I could spread Octavian's stamps out when presently a security guard approached me and said I couldn't be in the building unless I was waiting for an appointment. It was futile explaining to him that I'd had an appointment and was about to return to the lady as soon as I finished addressing and stamping my letters. "Coronavirus protocols," he replied. "You can only be in the building ten minutes before your appointment." I asked for five minutes, he acquiesced, and I snuck into an empty adjacent hall.

There was a sudden ruckus from the main hall as a dissatisfied customer launched into a profanity-riddled tirade, spitting and cursing at everyone and their mother. The same thing had happened the last time I was at the post office, just a couple weeks before. In the meantime, I managed to prepare two postcards and two envelopes before it got close to 18:00. The post office was nearly empty when I returned to my lady. "These are all ready. So you can handcancel them, right?"

She was avoiding eye contact, and I could tell she didn't like the question. Her face suggested that the answer was yes but that she was grasping for a pretext to answer no. "The handstamp is down at the other end, you see. And the guy who does the stamp, he didn't get to it today. What I can do is run the letters through this machine here."

Mail from Jerusalem to Dubai
20 January 2021

The machine printed a code, "Jerusalem," the date, and the time, and she passed each letter through it multiple times, since she knew the cancellation was the whole point. After leaving the letters with her, I walked to a stamp vending machine in a corner of the hall. I'd never used it before, but Israel Post recently announced that it would soon be replacing the old vending machine stamps with new ones, so I figured I might as well learn how to operate the thing and get whatever stamp it was dispensing today. It was a Christmas stamp -- and the machine accepted my ₪0.10 coins, which store owners in the Old City always grouch about. Now I know where to bring my spare change.

"Season's Greetings" Christmas stamp
Israel Post (2020)