Israel Stamp Reviews

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 ...

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...