British Mandate
Philatelic
Covers
December 9,1917 – May 15, 1948
Postal Stationary
Registered Letter
Postal Stationery – Registered Entire
#133 Jewish History Overview of Palestine and Israel through Holy Land Stamps (Slide Show). Society of Israel Philatelists (www.israelstamps.com). 2010. Slide 35.
A World of Knowledge in 15 Minues
With Google and an empty envelope, I had learned how Blanche Horton was related to Stephen Trowbridge who was connected to General Allenby and Lawrence of Arabia. All in under 15 minutes.
A World Of Knowledge In 15 Minutes. The Israel Philatelist. Spring 2018, p. 10.
Serendipity
SMALL WORLD
So those are the facts of this rather mundane cover, but why did I title the article “SERENDIPITY.” It turns out that I worked at Paradise Valley Hospital, National City for a number of years. So a rather common cover with an interesting cachet, machine slogan cancel from Jerusalem has found its way many, many years later to a collector of Holy Land philately who worked at the hospital. SERENDIPITY indeed.
Serendipity. The Israel Philatelist, Winter 2016. pp. 28-29.
What About Neutrality?
What About Neutrality?
Post card sent in 1942 from Petach Tikwa to Basle (Switzerland) stamped with British censorship P.63 hand stamp and unexpected Nazi Germany red censorship. Evidence is clear: the Nazis checked correspondence sent to Switzerland. Foreign post card rate was 10 mils as of July1, 1940.
Wasn’t Switzerland supposed to be a neutral country? Wasn’t Switzerland the one to ask Nazi Germany to introduce the shameful “J” for Jude in the German Jews’ passports to prevent them from crossing the border”.
In the 90s the Switzerland’s Ex-Federal Finance Minister Kaspar Villiger publicly apologized for the behavior of the government in the decades of the 30sand 40s. It should also be recalled that in 1943, when they learned of the situation of the Jews in Nazi Germany, the Swiss people did protest against the government policy and opened the border to save hundreds of Jews.
Ein Harod
A Postal History Study
THE QUESTION
Recently I purchased a registered envelope from the British Mandate of Palestine period. The envelope was mailed from Ein Harod to Tel Aviv on May 21,1939. The registered envelope has an Ein Harod post mark. However, it has a mute blue mandate registry label with the hand written name Kefar Yehezkel (Figure 1). The return address on the reverse side of the envelope is Kefar Yehezkel. This anomaly of community names between the registration label and the cancellation stimulated investigate it since officially Kefar Yehezkel opened a post office only on January 15, 1940 and closed it on April 30, 1948. So, how come there is an Ein Harod postmark on a letter mailed from Kefar Yehezkel?
Figure 1
Figure 2
THE ANSWER
In order to have a better appreciation this phenomena I consulted a few references. Among them was David Dorfman’s Postmarks Of The Palestine Mandate1,2,3. Under the entry Kefar Yehezkel he explains how this seemingly anomaly occurred. It is actually a fascinating picture of Palestine postal history.
