Jerusalem is under siege

Today I have a surprise for you. A very good friend has volunteered to write something for us. So thank you Yoram Lubianiker for joining us.

On November 29th 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution (#181) for the termination of the British mandate. Palestine was to be divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem as a Special International Regime. The resolution was accepted by the Jewish side with great enthusiasm.

One of the manifestations of this reaction was a label issued by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), entitled “The Jewish State” which shows the map of the partition plan. The Jerusalem area is marked in red, and is completely surrounded by Arab territory. 

A full sheet of the JNF label

While the Jewish side rejoiced the upcoming Jewish state, the Arabs completely rejected the partition plan, both before and after the UN resolution. In fact, Arab riots began on November 30th, the day after the UN resolution was reached, and those riots gradually escalated into war.

Alexander Lustig

A prominent feature of the Arab war plan was to target Jewish settlements whose supply lines were under Arab control. One example was Gush Etzion – a group of four Jewish settlements which were located a few kilometers south of Jerusalem. On January 16th a platoon of 35 Jewish soldiers who were sent by foot to reinforce Gush Etzion was attacked by superior Arab forces. All the members of the platoon were killed and their bodies were viciously mutilated. Among them was 24 years old Alexander Lustig, a holocaust survivor who worked as a graphic designer for the JNF. As a JNF employee, Lustig was exempt from military service, but he felt the need to take part in the battle for an independent Jewish state and volunteered to serve. Just before he was drafted Lustig completed the design of the JNF label shown above.

Jerusalem was a city with a large Jewish population, located in an Arab dominated vicinity, as the map above shows. From December 1947, Jewish Jerusalem was under a de-facto siege. Transportation to the city from the west (i.e., from the Jewish area) was limited to the only road in existence, and that road was under constant attack. Therefore supplies were brought in by convoys, many of which were unable to break through. Things went from bad to worse as the British mandate came to an end.

On May 2nd, 1948 the Mandate postal services were terminated. Throughout the country, the Jewish population started operating its own mail service, using JNF labels that were converted into postage stamps using the overprint “דאר” (Doar = post), see the post When is a label not a label. These overprints were produced in Tel Aviv and in Haifa, and exist on numerous different JNF labels. Since Jerusalem was under siege, the overprinted stamps could be delivered to Jerusalem. Instead, “The Jewish State” labels were overprinted locally in Jerusalem for intracity postal usage, as well as for a handful of letters that were flown from the city to Tel Aviv.

On May 16th, after the State of Israel was founded, the Israeli post issued its first stamps, a set of stamps  known as “Doar Ivri”. Of course they could not be delivered to Jerusalem due to the siege, so the usage of the overprinted JNF labels of “The Jewish State” continued there for a while.

The letter seen below was sent from besieged Jerusalem to Ra’anana via Tel Aviv. It is franked with JNF “The Jewish State” labels overprinted with the word “דאר” and a face value of 10 mils – the postal rate for letters within the country at the time. There were 3 different overprints, and the one shown here belongs to the second issue.

 At that point in time, there were no regular postal connections between Jerusalem and the rest of the country, and letters submitted to the post offices in Jerusalem were held in the post office until the siege was partially lifted (the so-called first and second convoys of the ceasefire). The sender of this letter either had some postage privileges due to his position or (which is more likely) knew someone who was in a position to help. Therefore, this letter was one of the very few that were taken by the very few airplanes that flew between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The letter thus arrived at Army Post Office “Base A” in Tel Aviv, where it was cancelled on June 9th. It was subsequently forwarded to its destination in Ra’anana, either by courier or by the Israeli post.

Despite toning that developed over the years in different places this is a very rare cover, that commemorates the siege imposed by the Arabs on Jerusalem.