Israel Stamp Reviews

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 relat...

The Sehrane Festival | חג הסהרנה The Kurdish-Jewish Sehrane Festival, more commonly known as the Saharana , was the subject of a stamp issued by Israel Post on September 18th, 2019. Designed by Mario Sermoneta and Meir Eshel, it was the second in an Ethnic Festivals in Israel series after a Mimouna Festival stamp issued on May 1st. The Sehrane stamp depicts two men standing in the foreground, each playing a traditional Kurdish musical instrument and dressed in festive clothing, while behind them seven dancers in a field are swinging their legs to the pair's music. Blue, gold and green are the prominent colors of the stamp, and the attached tab features a Kurdish Torah scroll case. In the pamphlet issued as an accompaniment to the stamp, this is the explanation given in English for the Sehrane festival's origin: The Sehrane Festival stems from the Jewish community in Kurdistan, where it was celebrated annually in the springtime, on the day after the last day of Passover....