Israel Stamp Reviews

Nicole Mowbray, The Guardian Is the popularity of stamp collecting in decline or on the rise? This was the question explored in a recent article by Nicole Mowbray in The Guardian ( "Post modern: why millennials have fallen in love with stamp collecting," 11 April 2020). Mowbray's conclusion, based on interviews with five individuals between the ages of 29 and 37 active in the United Kingdom's philatelic scene, was that the popularity of stamp collecting is on the rise. Is her analysis an accurate reflection of reality or does closer scrutiny reveal it to be a product of wishful thinking? "Year of the Ox" stamp ( China Post , 2009) Among stamp collectors there are two attitudes regarding philately's future. To frame the debate in Wall Street terms, the bulls believe stamp collecting experienced a decline in popularity for an extended period but has bottomed out and is now in a definite uptrend; the bears , on the other hand, believe that eve...

יום הזיכרון התש"ף: 100 שנה לארגון ההגנה Memorial Day 2020: Haganah Organization Centennial The "Haganah Organization Centennial / Memorial Day 2020" souvenir minisheet was issued by Israel Post on 21 April 2020. It consists of three stamps, each with a face value of ₪4.10, corresponding to the postage rate for an unregistered domestic 50-200g letter. Depicted on each stamp is a scene representing an area in which the Haganah was active: the "Security" stamp (right) shows four armed men in uniform on a training exercise in Israel's Jezreel Valley; the "Settlement" stamp (center) shows a group of men erecting a guard tower at Kibbutz Masada; and the "Immigration" stamp (left) shows a ship transporting Jews being moored off the coast of Nahariya. The minisheet was designed by David Ben-Hador , who has been a designer of Israeli stamps since 1980. The Haganah -- Haganah is Hebrew for "defense" -- was founded in June 1920...

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...

2010 "Malta and Gozo" stamp | בול איי מלטה January is a tricky month of the year to travel. While there are astonishingly cheap flights out of Israel, the real bargains are to high-latitude European countries where the days are short and the weather is bone-chillingly cold -- which largely defeats the purpose of the vacation. My original plan for January 2020 was to shell out a little extra on airfare and spend eleven days in relatively warm Morocco, including a few days in Fes to run the international marathon there. However, various circumstances conspired against that idea. When a $100 round-trip ticket to Malta appeared on the radar, serendipitously overlapping a 10K race in the town of Ħ'Attard, the matter was settled: Malta would be the first travel destination of 2020. Ben Gurion Airport, 10 January 2020 The sudden change of plans, which coincided with a period of mounting pressure at work, meant there wasn't time to properly research the country I was...