COVER N. 418 - ISRAEL

Postmark: Tel Aviv - Yafo 11.02.2024 

Posted on the 11th February; Received on the 4th March 2024

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A cover from Israel, as usual from Yair whom I thank for  having again used large interesting stamps on it.

Israel..., 

I don't really want to sound disrespectful, especially to Yair, who sent me this cover as  a token of  civility and understanding, as all exchanges between people who don't know each other but share a common interest inherently are. But, these days, I cannot mention Israel, without stating how deeply appalled I am for what is happening and has been happening in Gaza for months, now, with the world Olympically turning  its back on the sufferance of millions of people who are incarcerated in a no escape cage, being constantly told to move somewhere else, without access to the most basic humanitarian assistance or support,  due to the outrageous behaviour of the Israeli Government.

Those people, those defenceless women and children have rights! Please respect them as any of the rights of Israeli children should also be fully respected.

I may be quite wrong, but I do fear that what is happening now will be paid in blood when many of those children reach youth and adulthood....give them schools, education, hope, not martyrdom as a role model...

Make no mistake. I think that Hamas is but a bloody terrorist group  and what their mililitants did on the 7th October last year  bears no place in the definition of human, or mankind. For that, all the perpetrators should be brought to justice and punished.  But what the government of Israel is doing right now stands on the same level of absurdity and disrespect for human rights, and that should not go without consequences too, for those who knowingly and intentionally continue to order it.

This again is but my opinion and let me stress that I have no intention whatsoever of responding to an act of courtesy and civility with a disrespectful rant. It is not the case, and my words should not be read as such.

Stamps left to right:

- Gerberas are very beautiful members of the Asteraceae family. Being native to South America, Africa, Madagascar and Tropical Asia, they are today cultivated as cut flowers in many countries, mine included, cultivars now exceeding 80 varieties, I believe.

On 05FEB2013 Israel post issued a souvenir sheet with 10 stamps (2 strips of 5) featuring images of gerberas, from which the .30 shekel on my cover was taken. Other denominations included are .20; .40; .50;.60 and 1 Shekel. 

- Cacti of Israel was the theme for a 5 se-tenant 2.5 Shekel stamp strip issued on 15FEB2022. The stamp on the cover illustrated with an image of an  Opuntia ficus-indica is part of that set.

- As far as I could read in Wikipedia and other sources, Sukkot is a Jewish  religious festival that is celebrated every year in the beginning of the autumn season in remembrance of the 40 years of desert exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt. It is one of the three Pilgrim Festivals, during which male adult Israelites were required to go to the Temple in Jerusalem to make offerings  of their field produces, the other two being Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana.

On these festivals, animals would be offered in sacrifice, namely bulls, goats and lambs. This, I think, is the reason why the set of three stamps (2.6; 7.4 and 12  Shekels) issued on 13SET2022 dedicated to the three above mentioned  Israeli Festivals is illustrated with images of those particular animals. 

The 2,6 Shekel stamp, dedicated to the Sukkot Festival can be seen on the cover.

The postmark indicates postage at Tel-Aviv. 

COVER N. 270 - ISRAEL

Postmark: Tel Aviv - Yafo 23.05.2023 

Posted on the 23 May; Received on the  22 June 2023

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Another cover with nice stamps from Israel. Thank you so much Yair!

 

The 2,6 new shekel stamp issued on 26APR2022, is the year's issue for the celebration of  Israel's Memorial Day, a national remembrance day for the fallen soldiers of the wars of Israel and the victims of actions of terrorism.

Terrorism is indeed a plague.... as is occupation, walls,....  If only reason would speak louder than guns, not only here but everywhere....

Cacti of Israel was the theme of the 5 se-tenant 2.5 Shekel stamp strip issued on 15FEB2022 from which the cactus stamp on the cover was taken. The stamp is illustrated with a cactus of the genus Echinopsis, which are  characterised by the fact that they are usually covered with plenty of spines, thus resembling an hedgehog or a sea urchin - hence the radical Echinos on its designation, and beautiful flowers, much larger than one would expect.

Other stamps from this same set had been previously used by Yair, and these can be seen here.

The postmark indicates that the letter was sent from Tel-Aviv.

COVER N.141 - ISRAEL.

Postmark: Tel-Aviv Yafo 06.07.22
Posted on the 6th July; received on the 14th July 2022
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On a hot day (much like the rest of western Europe, we've been experiencing an horrible heat wave that not only has been making life very hard for quite a number of people living in places not usually associated with this kind of phenomenon,  but has also been  fuelling forest fires everywhere,...) I open my  letterbox to find a letter stamped with beautiful cactus stamps... Quite adequate, I should say, so Thanks a lot Yair, you aced it this time 😀!

Cacti are strange creations, surviving in the harshest of conditions, they bring a touch of green to places that would otherwise  be quite devoid of  any other colour than yellow of brown, and most of the times they exhibit  gorgeous flowers that, contrary to them are almost ephemeral.

Still they also adapt to humid and not so hot climates and so much so that one of the cacti in the stamps on the envelope - Opuntia ficus-indica,  is cultivated in Portugal, not only for its fruit, but also for applications in the area of cosmetics and health, I believe.

Stamps left to right:

Gerberas are very beautiful members of the Asteraceae family. Being native to South America, Africa, Madagascar and Tropical Asia, they are today cultivated as cut flowers in many countries, mine included, cultivars now exceeding 80 varieties, I believe.

On 05FEB2013 Israel post issued a souvenir sheet with 10 stamps (2 strips of 5) featuring images of gerberas, from which the .20 shekel on my cover was taken. other denominations include are .30; .40; .50;.60 and 1 Shekel. Strangely enough, the date on the margin of the stamp reads 22.10.2012, which is probably the date of printing?

Cacti of Israel was the theme of the 5 se-tenant 2.5 Shekel stamp strip issued on 15FEB2022 from which the two cacti stamps on my cover were part. Illustrated on these two stamps are a Ferocactus (a gender that comprises more than 30 species) and the already mentioned Opuntia ficus-indica. The nice photos in the stamps highlight not only the general aspect of the cactus itself but also the beautiful flowers they produce.

The difficult to read postmark confirms that the letter was mailed in Tel-Aviv.

COVER N.80 - Israel

Postmark: Illegible 13FEB2022
Posted on the 13th February; received on the 4th March
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80. Another round number...I look back at when I started this blog (and i'm not far from the one year mark) and I think of what I have learned, of what knowledge I have acquired just by looking at tiny squares (well, ...for ease of expression, I'm not that geometrically challenged...) of paper glued onto an envelope by other so inclined persons scattered all around the globe. It is like reading a book, I guess,  each page or small set of pages being a full chapter that can motivate the reader to go deeper in the quest for the story, the facts, the curiosity, the personality, the whatever subject that is presented on that tiny square of paper.

Israel, four stamps on an envelope... Thank you so much Yair, let the quest begin again...😀

Stamps left to right:

two 10 new agora stamps from a 10  even priced stamp minisheet dedicated to the Hebrew Alphabet, issued on 13FEB2001. On the same date, another minisheet was also issued with the full 22 letter alphabet. I could not find any information on why this particular 10 characters were also issued in a separate minisheet.

2,5 new shekel stamp issued on 06APR2021,  celebrating The Israel Memorial Day, a remembrance day for the fallen soldiers of the wars of Israel and the victims of actions of terrorism.

2,5 new shekel stamp issued on 08MAY2019 as part of a two stamp  joint emission with Singapore.

The illustrations on these beautiful stamps feature a garland made of flowers butterflies and the national birds of each of the two countries. Each stamp has a mirrored illustration of the garland, the stamp on my cover highlighting the "Singapore" side of it while the other, conversely, highlights the Israeli side.

As such, my stamp showcases Singapore's national bird, the Crimson sunbird - Aethopyga siparaja, (see? What did I tell you about learning things from stamps....?), while the other stamp on the set gives the rostrum to the lovely Hoophoe - Upupa epops.

The postmark, although  used several times on the cover is always, unfortunately, undecipherable, but for the date in one of them, that indicates that the letter was mailed on the 13th February.

COVER N.31 - Israel

Postmark:  - 29JUN2021, Tel Aviv - Yafo
Posted on the  the  29th June; received on the 12th August.
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Being a member of the London Cover Circuit Club made it possible to inscribe another nation in my growing philatelic atlas, with the addition of a cover sent from Israel. Thanks you so much Yair.

Counting the days between the posting date and my receiving it, I compute 45, and I guess that this is still the pernicious effect of the disruption in postal services brought about by the pandemic showing its teeth. Anyway, what really maters is that a cover kindly and carefully posted on the far east corner of the mediterranean has found its way home to the westernmost country of Europe.

With my postal items collection being still in its infancy, every new cover that I get, especially if  hailing from a country previously  unknown to my letterbox,  fills me up with a joy that I admit to be a bit puerile, as if I was finally  taking revenge from those primary school days when I'd  envy the trading card albums of colleagues that I so much wanted also to have but could not, because choices had to be made (what little coins I managed to amass would end up traded at the barber's shop by a second hand comics book).

Back then trading cards were also quite different from nowadays. Agência Portuguesa de Revistas - a Portuguese publisher who had the rights for Portugal for really significant stuff like the comic strips from King features Syndicate, for instance - also published trading card collections and yes, there were soccer players collections, but there were also far nicer collections on various other general knowledge themes like the history of Portugal, with cards that were themselves a genial exercise of comics book design style,  or the wonders of the natural world...

Anyway my cards are now different, but the pleasure I get from them is the same I used to get from that saturday morning trip to the barber's shop to trade the 25 tostões coin (two and a half escudos, the then official Portuguese monetary unit) by  the latest adventure of Cisco Kid or The Phantom, the ghost who walks... 

but, I digress again... and all this because of a cover I got from Israel...

Stamps, left to right:

10 new agora auto-adhesive stamp issued on 28AUG2014, with the same design and face value  of a normal gummed stamp issued earlier in february of the same year. The flower illustrated in the stamp is the gerbera.

The 2,5 new shekel stamp is part of a 3 stamp set complemented by a souvenir sheet on "Meetings of Peace".  These stamps, issued on 15DEC2020, illustrated with biblical episodes, bear witness to the need for understanding and covivence between different cultures that is central to the Israely history of yore and today.

The Israel post website was the source for the biblical citation this stamp refers to:

“At that time Abimelech and Phicol, chief of his troops, said to Abraham… swear to me here by God… deal with me… loyally as I have dealt with you… and Abraham said I swear it… and they concluded the pact at Beer-sheba” (Genesis 21:22-32).

The other 2,5 new shekel stamp was issued on 09APR2018,  on the occasion of the year's celebrations of the Israel Memorial Day, a remembrance day for the fallen soldiers of the wars of Israel and the victims of actions of terrorism.

My complete ignorance of the Hebrew alphabet only allows me to read the part of the postmark with the name of the place where the cover was mailed: Tel Aviv - Yafo