A new postal museum provides a window to the social and political changes that have taken place in Israel since the mid-19th century.
by Daniella Ashkenazy
The newly-opened Postal and Philatelic Museum in Tel Aviv a joint project of Israels Postal Authority, the Tel Aviv Foundation and the Eretz Israel Museum was recently inaugurated as part of Israels 50th anniversary events. Housed in a special pavilion in the Eretz Israel Museum complex in north Tel Aviv, it comprises 1000 sq. meters of exhibits. It shows all of the countrys stamps over the last 50 years; presents the broad range of services provided by the Israel Postal Authority today, using state-of-the-art hands-on museum gadgetry; and provides a historic profile of the development of postal services in Israel.
Based on memorabilia envelopes and letters, photographs and posters of each period the history gallery is arranged chronologically, tracing the development of postal services from the Ottoman period, through the British Mandate period (1918-1947), and the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948.
The first post offices were established in Palestine were run by foreign consulates, not by the ruling Ottoman government. Granting the right to operate postal services to foreign states was part of the "capitulations" special dispensations granted to European powers in the Holy Land by a weak Turkish government. The capitulations allowed diplomatic missions to establish a strong political and cultural presence in the Holy Land. One of these "power bases" was postal services. The first post office was established by France in 1852, followed by Austria, Germany, Italy and Russia each with its own ornate specially-designed mail boxes placed in central locations. The postal services competed with one another in the price and quality of the service. Today, they all "share" the same wall display in the museum. Subsequently, the Ottoman Empire established a postal service of its own to compete with the foreign ones. In 1896, they appointed a Jewish postmaster in Jerusalem, hoping to attract the Jewish clientele. As a literate community with close family and cultural ties abroad, the Jews constituted the primary local customers of postal services.
The improvements in public administration in the country which occurred after the arrival of the British in 1918 also included the postal services. These became the government's responsibility, run according to strict rules and regulations, with uniformed mailmen and telegram messengers on bicycles.
A poignant display item in the museum is a postcard sent by a young Jewish women from Europe during the Holocaust filled with laconic descriptions of life, while the real message of despair was hidden under the stamp.
Another episode in local postal history occurred at the end of the British mandate. In mid-April 1948, a month before their withdrawal, the British suspended postal services. The Jewish state-in-the-making chose to keep the mail flowing by issuing stamps of a local and provisional nature. Noteworthy among these, and sought after by philatelists, were Jewish National Fund labels, overprinted with the word Doar (post). The first stamps issued by the newly-established Jewish State bore the name "Hebrew Post," not "Israel," because they were printed before the name of the new state had been decided. The stamps show coins minted during the Bar Kochba Revolt (132-135) the last time Jews had been independent in their country. They were printed on a press borrowed from a local newspaper pressed into service, so to speak.
One section of the museum exhibits all the stamps issued by the State of Israel, of interest mainly to serious stamp collectors. A more general exhibition, in the form of a giant "stamp album," displays a representative selection of stamps from 1948 to the present. The exhibit reflects not only historic events but also the spirit of times gone by including prevailing social values and even the way Israelis perceive themselves. Changes in design styles and topics are also evident: For instance, stamps from the early years after independence are more "serious," portraying figures in heroic stances including one from 1952 with a muscle-bound pioneer holding up a huge relief map of Israel. More recent stamps are less bombastic, more cheerful and even frivolous such as red hearts saying "LOVE". The stamp released to celebrate Israels jubilee year displays a boy dubbed Srulik (a diminutive of Israel) created by cartoonist, Dosh, in the 1950s.
The museum also traces of written dispatches throughout history in an animated and humorous video geared for young visitors, with "authentic" historic dispatches from the ancient Egyptians, King David and Queen Esther of the Purim story, through Israels War of Independence.
In another section of the museum, the designers have constructed a display that underscores the relationship between historic events and commemorative stamps. Visitors can view historic film footage and stamp designs each portraying a historic landmark event of the State of Israel. The events include the laying of the cornerstone for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1925; the building of wall-and-watchtower settlements in the 1930s; the liberation of the concentration camps in 1945; the declaration of the State of Israel by David Ben-Gurion in 1948; the 1967 Six-Day War; the peace treaties with Egypt and with Jordan; the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin; and Israels 50th Independence Day.