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Showing posts with the label Ronen Goldberg

Spotlight: Krakow-Jerusalem (incoming mail)

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Hobby , identity and community are distinct but closely related concepts. The distinction is one of experience: a hobby is a thing we do, an identity is a thing we have, and a community is a thing of which we are a part. The relationship, meanwhile, is one of progression: engaging in a hobby can form part of a person's identity, and people with common identities tend to cling to one another and form communities. Not everyone who collects stamps will identify as a stamp collector, and not everyone who identifies as a stamp collector will join a philatelic community; however, the distance from point A to point B and from point B to point C is shorter now than at any time in the past. What has shortened the distance has been the rise of social media, because social media has increased the visibility of identities and made accessing communities virtually effortless. Case in point: Had it not been for social media -- specifically YouTube, and more specifically Graham Beck's Ex...

Stamp review: Israel-Brazil joint issue (2020-09-08)

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The " From Jaffa to Tel-Aviv and from Olinda to Recife " (henceforth: " Israel-Brazil ") stamp was jointly issued by Israel Post and Brazil's Correios on 8 September 2020. Face valued at ₪11.80, corresponding to the postage rate for a domestic registered 0-50g letter, the stamp depicts two stretches of coastline, one on either side of a palm tree that splits the stamp down the middle: the coastline on the left starts at Olinda in Brazil and extends south to Recife, and the coastline on the right starts from Jaffa in Israel and extends north to Tel Aviv . The tab below the stamp proper features the flags of Brazil and Israel. Green and blue are the stamp's prominent colors. It was designed by Ronen Goldberg (רונן גולדברג) and Lidia Marina Hurovich Neiva , with input from Laís Botler of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. ככר אוסוולדו ארניה, ירושלים צילום: אמיר אפסאי PRACA OSWALDO ARANHA DEDICADA AO NOBRE POVO BRASILEIRO CONFEDERAÇÃO ISRAELITA DO BRASIL...

Commentary: Top 10 controversial Israeli stamps

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The idea that stamps are a window into a nation's culture and history presupposes that culture and history are matters of national consensus. In reality, culture and history are abstractions. Culture is an abstraction of values, and history is an abstraction of narratives. Values and narratives are never static; they exist in states of perpetual internal tension. Most of the time these tensions are minor, even healthy -- the stuff of dinner table discussions -- which is what allows societies to function and develop as stable systems. Controversy is what ensues when values or narratives clash. When controversy rises above a certain pitch or when there is too much of it for too long, it starts to undermine the society's stability. It signals that values or narratives have moved so far apart from each other that they can no longer peacefully coexist. Controversy offers observers the most penetrating insight into a nation's culture and history, because it exposes the fissu...