In the wake of the War of Independence in which the nascent State of Israel asserted its right to exist, Arab neighbors licked their wounds, embittered and vengeful. During that war, Egypt had occupied the Gaza Strip and would hold on to it until October 1956, when Israel took it in the course of the Suez War.
El-Arish on the Mediterranean coast, and the largest city in modern Sinai, was under military occupation by Israel briefly in 1956 during the Sinai War and again from 1967 to 1979 after the Six Day War. In 1979 the city was returned to Egypt along with the rest of Sinai after the signing of a peace treaty that year. The cover illustrated bears Egyptian postage stamps cancelled in El-Arish on 6 June 1967, the last day of Egyptian cancellations, and an Israeli stamp cancelled in El-Arish on 9 August 1967, the first day of Israeli postal cancellations in the city and under military administration (Moascar is close to Ismailia on the west side of the Suez Canal and in earlier years had been connected to El-Arish by the Haifa to Cairo railway). The Israeli stamp is the 0.12 Israeli Pounds stamp in the town (Tiberias) coat-of-arms definitive series issued on 2 February 1966 and designed by the Shamir Brothers. The Egyptian stamps are a 3 Egyptian Pounds issue celebrating the Pharaonic calcite boat issued on 6 January 1964, and a 15 Egyptian Pounds issue celebrating a window in Cairo’s Ibn Toulon mosque
The Suez War had arisen out of the tense relations between the western powers and Egypt’s president, Gamel Abdel Nasser (1918-1970) and the western over his non-aligned stance in the Cold War. The West had withdrawn funding for the planned Aswan Dam, and Nasser retaliated by nationalizing the Suez Canal Company in 1956.
From 1919, and prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, post offices were operated first under allied British military control of the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration and then, after 1920, the civil administration of the British Mandate authorities. The cover shown above bears an Israeli 50 Prutot stamp, designed by Miriam Karoly, issued on 14 August 1956, and cancelled in Gaza on 10 December 1956. The special cover marks the re-opening of the Gaza post office on 10 December 1956 after its closure in 1948 when the Gaza Strip fell under Egyptian control. Gaza remained under Israeli administration until its disengagement from the territory in 2005
Assuming control of the waterway, Egypt also blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba at the Straits of Tiran, blocking Israeli shipping. The latter threatened the trade of the new Israeli state , and the former violated the Suez Canal Convention (1888). On 29 October 1956, Israel, France, and the UK, invaded the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula starting the Suez War, known in Israel as ‘Operation Kadesh’ and the ‘Sinai War’.
Marking the opening of the Israeli post office in El-Arish on 9 August 1967, this cover is illustrated with historical franking for registered mail, one cancellation of which is the town of Der al-Balah in central Gaza, location of a UNWRA refugee camp. Under Egyptian control the town experienced an increase in its population because of refugees settling there after the War of Independence. The Israeli stamps franked in El-Arish on 9 August 1967 are the 0.08 Israeli Pounds stamp in the town (Beersheba) coat-of-arms definitive series designed by the Shamir Brothers and issued on 14 March 1966, and the 0.05 Israeli Pounds stamp from the birds of Israel airmail set designed by Miriam Karoly issued on 25 April 1963 and showing the Sinai rose finch (Erythrina sinoica)
The intervention in Suez had angered the US president Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), and world opinion especially that of the USA, and the threat of Soviet intervention, forced the France, the UK, and Israel, to withdraw. In the UK too there had been widespread outrage. A UN peacekeeping force was sent in to supervise the ceasefire and to restore order. Anglo-French forces withdrew before the end of the year and Nasser lifted his blockade of the Straits of Tiran, but Israeli forces remained inside Sinai until March 1957, prolonging the crisis. The UK in particular found its standing with the US weakened by the Suez War and its influence ‘east of Suez’ had been diminished by the adventure.
Gabalya, or Jabalia, is a town north of Gaza City, and location of the largest of UNWRA’s refugee camps in Gaza. Its Israeli post office was opened on 20 November 1967. The stamp shown on the cover is the 0.15 Israeli Pounds issue released on 16 August 1967 and designed by R. Errell to celebrate the victory of the IDF over the combined Arab armies during the Six Day War
After the Israeli withdrawal withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza in March 1957, Egypt again occupied the territory, although the Strip was officially administered by an All-Palestine Government until its dissolution by the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, in 1959.
The community based on the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp lies just to the northeast of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Under military administration after the 1967 war, its post office opened on 18 May 1969. This cover celebrates the opening of the post office, and the 0.15 Israeli Pounds stamp it bears was designed by Yitzhak Yoresh for Israel’s 21st Independence Day. One of in a set of two stamps, it shows a tank in honor of the Armoured Corps, and it was issued on 16 April 1969
After the dissolution, Egypt did not annex Gaza, but subjected it to military rule until a wider solution to the ‘Palestine question’ could be found. Egyptian military rule of course ended in June 1967 when Israel again occupied the territory.
Rafah in Gaza was captured by Israel in the Six Day War in 1967, and Israeli forces had been present there too during the Suez War in 1956. Israel held control over Gaza until March 1957, and a post office had been opened on 21 January 1957. The cover illustrated here has been cancelled with a 1956 New Year (Joyous Festivals) stamp on that date. The 50 Prutot stamp, one of a set of three was designed by Miriam Karoly and issued on 14 August 1956
Anglo-French forces withdrew before the end of the year, but Israeli forces remained until March 1957, prolonging the crisis.
Today, Rafah is the only border crossing from Gaza into Egypt – Rafah Border Crossing. This celebratory cover is illustrated with a map showing the location of the town, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip. The cover marks the opening of the Israeli Post Office on 21 January 1957, and the 50 Prutot stamp it bears had been one of three issued on 14 August 1956 to mark New Year
BEZALEL ACADEMY OF ARTS AND DESIGN, JERUSALEM, ISRAEL – FIRST ESTABLISHED ON ABYSSINIA (ETHIOPIA) STREET, JERUSALEM, IN 1906
Historical building today housing the Architecture Department of the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design, Jerusalem… featured on a 1957 Israeli postage stamp
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design was first established as an arts and craft school in Jerusalem in 1906 by the Lithuanian Jewish painter and sculptor, Boris Schatz (1866-1932). Schatz had been one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Art in Sofia, Bulgaria, and in 1905 he had presented a proposal to Theodor Herzl and the Fifth Zionist Congress for the establishment of an art institution in Ottoman Palestine (the Land of Israel).
1.90 NIS and 2.30 NIS stamps designed by Asher Kalderon and issued in 2001 celebrating the ceramic tile landscapes of Israel that decorate the facade of the Ahad Ha’am Municipal Boys School, built in 1924 in Tel Aviv. The ceramic tile landscapes were created at the Bezalel in Jerusalem and the two stamps here depict the lakeside at Tiberias and the coast at Haifa
Schatz who had been born in Varniai, Kovno – which was then part of the Russian Empire – studied art at the School of Drawing in Vilna (now Vilnius, capital of Lithuania). He then taught art in Warsaw, before moving to France and later to Bulgaria.
Bezalel ceramic landscape of Jerusalem, by the artist Ze’ev Raban (1925), decorating the Laderberg House in Tel Aviv. The ceramic landscape appeared on the 10.00 NIS souvenir sheet designed by Igal Gabai that was issued on 18 March 2001 for the Jerusalem Multinational Stamp Exhibition ‘Jerusalem 2001’
The art institution that Schatz envisaged for the nascent Israel would create a national style, blending European artistic traditions and the Jewish design traditions of the East and West, and integrating the style with local culture. The new institution would be named after Bezalel Ben Uri, the chief artisan of the biblical Tabernacle in charge of building the Ark of the Covenant.
[KFF – LABEL – BEZALEL Old Bezalel building shown on a KKL Keren Keyamet label]
The school was underwritten by a board of Jews in Berlin, and steered from there by an executive committee. Also on the establishing committee sat illustrator and printmaker Efraim Moshe Lilien (1874-1925) – called the first Zionist artist – who accompanied Schatz to Jerusalem.
Detail on the 1.90 NIS and 2.30 NIS stamps showing: lakeside at Tiberias (left) focussing on a motorboat, named after the well-known Zionist leader, Dr. Max Nordau, and used to transport Kurdish immigrants to Zemah (Samakh) from Tiberias; and, the Technion building, Haifa (right)
Bezalel opened in rented premises on Abyssinia (Ethiopia) Street, Jerusalem, and in 1908 it moved to buildings on what has since become Jerusalem’s Shmuel Hanagid Street. The Bezalel site, surrounded by a crenelated stone wall, had been constructed in the 1880s and had been purchased from its wealthy Arab owner by the Jewish National Fund.
1.20 NIS and 1.40 NIS stamps designed by Asher Kalderon and issued in 2001 celebrating the ceramic tile landscapes 0n the facade of the Ahad Ha’am Municipal Boys School, Tel Aviv. The ceramic tiles created at the Bezalel in Jerusalem depict the coast at Jaffa, and a scene in Hebron
Bezalel’s first class consisted of 30 young art students from Europe. Because they had come from various different countries, with no common language, the students were taught Hebrew by Eliezer Ben Yehuda (1858-1922) the newspaper editor and Hebrew lexicographer who had become the driving force of the revival of the language for the emerging nation. As well as the traditional subjects of sculpture and painting, the school offered workshops for the production of decorative art objects in silver, leather, wood, brass, and fabric.
Detail from the Ze’ev Raban ceramic landscape – Jerusalem
Schatz believed that concentration on weaving, silversmithing, ceramics and applied arts, and focussing on the value of manual work conformed to the basic principle among the Yishuv (the Jewish community of pre-State Israel) i.e. the ideal of halutziut (pioneering). Students were trained less in fine arts than in crafts. On graduation, students worked in bare, simple workshops, a reflection of the economic situation of the time.
Detail on the 1.20 NIS and 1.40 NIS stamps showing: the Cave of the Patriarchs, Hebron (right); and, a view of the old city, Jaffa (left)
The output and style of art emerging from Bezalel in these early years – its fusion of oriental art and art nouveau – became known as the ‘Bezalel school’ .
400 Prutot stamp designed by Gabriel and Maxim Shamir issued on 29 April 1957 to mark the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Bezalel Art School. The stamp is illustrated with an ancient menorah with the Bezalel building in the background
Bezalel was very successful until the outbreak of World War I when it had to sever connections with the executive committee in Berlin and with its patrons and supporters across Europe. From 1914, the institution faced enormous political, financial and management difficulties, and then in 1917 it closed down before the Allies entered Jerusalem. That year, Schatz himself had been deported by the Turks.
1.85 Israeli Pound stamp designed by A. Hecht issued 17 February 1976 to mark the 70th Anniversary of the establishment of the Bezalel institution. The colored shapes featured on the symbolic motif are reminiscent of the characteristic Bauhaus assignment of the three primary colours red, yellow and blue to the square, triangle and circle (in that order). The assigment of the primary colours to basic geometrical forms derived from the colour and form theory of Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)… the colours assigned to the shapes on the stamp do not conform to the assignment given by Bauhaus however!!!
At the end of the war, Schatz returned from exile in Damascus, Tiberias and Safed, and Bezalel re-opened. Ten years later however, in 1929, it had to close down temporarily due to financial difficulties. Schatz travelled abroad to raise funds for the school, but died penniless while fund-raising in the USA – passing away in Denver, Colorado, on 23 March 1932. On the return of his body to Jerusalem, he was buried on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem.
2.00 NIS stamp designed by Osnat Eshel and issued to mark New Year (Festivals) on 26 August 2013. The stamp features a 20th century Etrog Box created at the Bezalel. It is made in silver, using the repoussé technique, and etched, and also with filigree work and semi-precious stones. The side panels of the box feature verses from the Torah relating to the festival mitzvah and to the return to Zion. The front panel is ornamented with the figure of a Jewish man plowing his fields, as a symbol of the Zionist concept of bringing the Jewish people back to its country and land
On the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany, the Bezalel executive board again raised funds for the institution and selected book illustrator Josef Budko (1888-1940) to re-open the school as its director. Budko, who had been born in Plonsk, Poland, had, like Schatz, studied art in Vilna (Vilnius) before going to Berlin in 1910 to study at the city’s School of Arts and Crafts, had fled Germany in 1933.
Detail of the Etrog Box showing the semi-precious stones and filigree work. An Etrog Box holds the yellow citron or Citrus medica used by Jews during the week-long holiday of Sukkot. Etrog is one of the ‘four species”, the others being ‘lulav’ (closed frond of the date palm), ‘hadass’ (branch of the myrtle tree) and ‘aravah’ (leafy branch of the willow tree)
At Bezalel, Budko placed an emphasis on graphics and the ornamental use of the Hebrew alphabet.
From the mid-1930s, the school attracted many teachers and students from Germany, many of them from the Bauhaus school shut down by the Nazis. Among the artists and teachers were Jakob Steinhardt (1887-1968) and Mordecai Bronstein-Ardon (1896-1992), who would both succeed Budko as directors of the school – Bronstein-Ardon, 1940-52, and Steinhardt, 1954-57. Budko’s tenure would last until 1940.
2.50 NIS stamp designed by Talya Stein and issued on 12 September 2006 to mark the 100th Anniversary of the Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design. It was chosen from works by students in the Visual Communication Department at Bezalel. The stamp shows a man and a machine in movement, suggesting work on the land, and symbolizing the creative artistic process that blends tradition and knowledge with pioneering and innovation
On the establishment of the State of Israel and after the the War of Independence, the task of integrating the school into the national cause was regarded as an important contribution to the fledgling state. The teaching of arts and crafts – as a subject in schools generally – began to be highly regarded in the new country, and Bezalel saw its role as one of expanding the teaching of fine arts in Israel and of becoming Israel’s premier academy of arts.
The Bezalel centenary was the first time that the Philatelic Service had issued a sheet of stamps containing three color variations for the same stamp. The design reflected the style of stamps in pre-State Israel and in the early period of statehood, and of the early designers of Israeli stamps. Illustrated here are the tabs to the three colour varieties, with the Bezalel centenary logo and Academy of Art & Design in the three official languages of Israel
Bezalel became the first organization to be awarded the Israel Prize, winning in 1958 – the 10th Anniversary of Israel’s Independence – for painting and sculpture.
In 1969, the school became an academy, thanks to the efforts of Dan Hofner, director 1965-79, and from then on Bezalel would then be known as the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.
0.25 Agorot stamp designed by Zvi Narkis (1921-2010) and Paul Kor (1926-2001) and issued on 26 December 1961 to celebrate afforestation in Israel. The 0.25 stamp illustrates a cone from a conifer. Narkis had been a Bezalel alumnus
In 1982, Bezalel entered into an agreement with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Council for Higher Education for the construction of a building within the Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus. This led to the beginning of a detailed planning process, and by 1986 three departments – Environmental Design, Jewelry Design and Photography – had started teaching programs at the Mount Scopus campus, and the Bezalel academic secretariat, the Dean’s office and student union office had moved there too, along with Theoretical Studies.
By 1990, all of Bezalel’s departments and administrative offices had moved to the new campus on Mount Scopus.
Friedel Stern (1917-2006) had also been a Bezalel alumnus, designing this 3.oo Israeli Pounds airmail stamp issued 21 February 1961. The stamp in a multivalue series shows Eilat
In 1993, Bezalel’s historic building in central Jerusalem became the Architecture department, and in order to meet the needs of the department the first phase of the renovation of the building began in 2000.
Yitzhak Yoresh had been a Bezalel graduate as well and he designed the 1969 Independence Day set of stamps issued on 16 April that year. The stamps honoured the Armored Corps (showing a tank on the 15 Agorot value) and the Navy, showing a ship on the 0.80 Agorot value
Today, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design teaches: policy and theory of the arts; architecture; fine arts; screen-based arts (animation, video); ceramic and glass design; industrial design; urban design; fashion and jewellery design; photography; visual communication; and, visual and material culture.
Since its inauguration in 2001, here has been a Bezalel extension in Tel Aviv.
The Ahad Ha’am Municipal Boys School (Beit Ha-Sefer Ha-Ironi) built In 1924 by Architect Dov Hershkovitz, Tel Aviv, was featured on the First Day Cover for stamps issued in 2001 showing the Bezalel Ceramics… stamps designed by Asher Kalderon, himself a graduate of Bezalel
Bezalel alumni include: Ya’akov Ben-Dov (1882-1968), born in Ukraine, photographer and a pioneer of Jewish cinematography; sculptor Ze’ev Ben-Zvi (1904-52), born in Poland, and director of Bezalel in 1952 just prior to his death; sculptor Yitzhak Danziger (1916-77), born in Berlin; Jacob Eisenberg (1897-1965) , an artist born in Pinsk; and painter and industrial designer Ze’ev Raban (1890-1970), born in Łódź, Poland.
Yaakov Zim, another Bezalel alumnus, designed this 0.55 Agorot stamp, one of two issued to honour Heroes and Martyrs of the Holocaust on 30 April 1962
Numerous Bezalel alumni have gone on to contribute to the design and production of some of Israel’s postage stamp issue. These have included: Zvi Narkis (1921-2010), Friedel Stern (1917-2006), Asher Kalderon, Dan Reisinger, Aharon Shevo, Eliezer Weishoff, Yitzhak Yoresh, and Yaakov Zim, some of the designs of whom have been shown above.
If you have enjoyed this exploration of Israeli art cultural heritage through the country’s postage stamps, you may like to take a look at past November blog posts (our art cultural month). They offered descriptions of the work of Abram Games (November 2018) and Efraim Moshe Lilien (November 2017).
Israeli postage stamps בולי דואר ישראליים 