The British mandate was due to expire at midnight on May 15th, the following day, so why did Ben-Gurion hurry to declare independence the day before? And why at 16:00? The answer is simple: May 15th was Saturday and Ben-Gurion wanted to declare independence before the sabbath: both to avoid desecration of Shabbat and so that religious people could be present at the proclamation and return home before Shabbat. It should be remembered that there was a religious party in the People's Administration (Minhelet Ha'am) . Thirteen members of the People's Administration did not sign the Declaration of Independence that day because the siege in Jerusalem prevented them from arriving.
The first stamps of the State of Israel were sent to most post offices before the declaration of independence. It is written on them, "Hebrew Post" and not Israel. Do you know why?
The Jewish leaders knew that the British would leave the country on 15th May, but the official name of the country at the time was "British Mandate for Palestine" or "Palestine" for short. Why Palestine? Because this is the name that the Romans gave to the Judean area after the expulsion of the Jews at the end of the Second Revolt. It's a name that belongs to the whole area. The official name was "Syria Palestine". The historian of the time, Flavius, who was also a Jew himself, said that the reason for calling the area Palestine was to insult the Jews, since Palestine came from the Philistines, the great enemy of the Jews at the time who invaded our area from their home in Crete. The Jews became the Palestinian refugees. The word Jew comes from the word Judea.
Naturally, the Jewish leaders did not want to continue with the name Palestine, which evoked bad associations and memories and did not show our 4000 year to the country, but how to call our country? Several proposals were made, including the name "Judah", which was disqualified because of Judea, which is a small area in the country, and the name "Eretz Israel" was also disqualified. (By the way, I do not have the Judean stamp - it is too expensive for me - I have to pay a mortgage).
Who could have known in advance which name would be chosen? The pressure was at its peak. Things had to be done secretly because the British opposed any move and even supported the Arabs and defended them against the Mandate imposed on them. In the mandate agreement signed by the British, they were duty bound to help the Jews establish a Jewish state including building infrastructure and preparing the state for the transition to Jewish sovereignty. History has shown that they did not live up to their part in many cases but that is another story.
So again what do you do? An artist was approached to design the stamp. And it was decided to draw coins of the first and second revolts against the oppressive Roman occupation . The reason was to connect the current period to our history.
But who would understand the message from the design? All you see is a coin, so they decided to attach a tab to the stamp - a practice that continues to this day. By the way, stamps of the series with a full tab in good condition, cost thousands of dollars today, and people still want to buy them, despite popular opinion which claim that stamps are a thing of the past.
But there are still three problems left: First, what country name to display on the stamp? After all, you have to print the stamps in advance so that they are ready for 16th May, the first official day of the stamps (remember that 15th May was a Shabbat and there are no Jewish post offices open on Shabbat). The second problem, which is no less important - where to print them? They could not use the printing presses of the British authorities nor of the Arab ones. The third problem, how to separate the stamps?
It is important to remember that everything was done in secret because if the British had discovered what was going on, they would have confiscated everything and arrested the criminals. Therefore they outsourced the work to anyone who could do it: Jewish publishing houses, seamstresses, etc. As a result, there are large differences in the color of the paper, the number of perforations (teeth) around the stamp, the separation method and more.
There are entire books just about this stamp. The pair on the right is not an error, this separation method is called roulette and is used to separate labels, even today.
By the way, because of the pressure, a lot of mistakes were also made, such as the one on the right.
And what about the name? Decided to simply call the stamp "Dar Ivri". They took the idea from the Germans and went with it.
Today, we laugh at the subject of stamp collecting, but it is closely related to our history. It is important to remember and internalize - on Holocaust Remembrance and Heroism Day there is a siren designed to remind all of us what happened when we did not have a Jewish state. On the eve of Memorial Day and Memorial Day there are sirens designed to remind us of the price of maintaining a Jewish state, so that there will be no siren on another Memorial Day.
