We learned from a previous post Jerusalem is under siege that from December 1947, Jewish Jerusalemwas under a de-facto siege. At this time there were about 100,000 Jews and about 65,000 Arabs living in Jerusalem, but the vast majority of those Arabs lived in the old city. (Jerusalem is the small red blob on the middle right edge of the stamp).

Transportation to the city from the Jewish area was limited to the only road in existence, and that road was under constant attack. Supplies were in short supply.

The British had enough problems. They had had enough. It was just three short years after the end of World War II; India had their independence and they were already out of there and the Palestine mandate was drawing to an end, so why would they want to get involved and help Jews; despite their requirement under the mandate.

The British had announced that they were closing down their postal services in Jerusalem as of May 5th. However on April 20th, Arabs ambushed a huge 350-strong vehicle convoy on its way to Jerusalem. Many soldiers and passengers were killed. What was the British answer? To close the postal services! As of April 25th there were no more postal services to and from Jerusalem.

Now from other posts in this blog we know that the Jewish community created their own postal system. Read here. This was supposed to take effect as of May 2nd. Houston we have a problem, there is no way to get the stamps to Jerusalem, the roads are closed!

There was heavy fighting between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem and it wasn't exactly safe to get to a post office anyway. May 8th the Jewish forces seemed to overcome the Arab forces in the Jerusalem area and a semblance of peace evolved. So what do we do now? Let's call our family and let them know. Problem is that this is 1948 and there were very few phone lines and the only method was writing.

Now there is a new problem, they had no stamps as supplies were not coming through. There were also no JNF stamps on hand to use and overprint. So what were they to do?

You know the Partition Plan JNF labels? Well the printer of those stamps, Haoman Press, still had the printing plates. Problem solved, let us add the word Postage and the face value of the stamp. OK then, they decided to issue three values, a 5mil for the printed letter rate, a 10mil for the regular rate and 25 mil for registered.

So Haoman Press printed the stamps and to speed up the process, they had Lipshitz Press add the overprint. This went on sale on May 9th. Amazing, from idea to store within 24 hours! Looks like they really wanted to send mail.

There were long queues of people who wanted to buy these stamps, many of them as souvenirs, and supplies ran out within a few hours. But as it turns out, Haomnan was still printing sheets, but this time they were adding the overprints themselves, in the same process. However they added the overprints in a different way. In the first issue, the word Postage was added at the top and in this issue, they were added at the bottom. This issue was put on sale on May 10th. Collectors know these as First Issue and Second Issue, I wonder why.

May 14th Israeli statehood was declared and on May 16th the Doar Ivri stamps went on sale, except in Jerusalem. A war? A siege? Both.

Pressure was on to open the main post office in Jerusalem and because they were running out of the 5mil stamp, they ordered a reprint. The post office was opened on May 21st and the new overprints were delivered on May 24th. Problem was that the 5 of the 5mils was slightly different. So what name do we give this issue? Third Issue, right? Actually the also became known as Jerusalem Locals I, II and III to differentiate them from the Palestine Mandate overprints.

The history of Jerusalem is always exciting, but the study of stamps in the framework of the struggle makes it more enjoyable.

I promised Graham Beck that I would provide more information about labels being used as regular postage.

It is no secret that in 1920, Great Britain was given the Mandate to govern an area that the League of Nations called Palestine. This area became known as the British Mandate for Palestine. The specific instructions by the League of Nations was for the British to prepare the territory for future Jewish Statehood. I am not going to go into the politics here as some will agree and others will not, so I will stick to the interesting side, the philatelic side.

After the end of WWII, the British, having had enough of wars, India and their Palestine Mandate, informed the United Nations that they were terminating their mandate as of 15th May 1948. Everyone knew that the Jews were going to declare statehood. Here starts our story of the day.

British Mandate for Palestine, the official body in charge of the postal system, requested that the U.N. accept all responsibility for the continuation of mail services, both inland and abroad. But they apparently received no answer.

Instead of arranging a gradual orderly take over of the postal services by the new Jewish State, the Postmaster General decided to notify everyone of their suspension of all postal services, and the closing down of all post offices between 15th April and 5th May. They notified the UPU that the British Mandate Administration would no longer be responsible for parcels arriving after March 15, and surface mail arriving after April 15, 1948. 

When there is a void, someone steps in. The Jewish community of Palestine, known as the Yishuv, sent an invitation to thirteen Yishuv leaders for an April 18 meeting and to form a body for the purpose of administering the interests of the future Jewish State. They proposed to call this body the Minhelet Ha’am, People’s Administration.

The Minhelet Ha’am took it upon themselves to step in when the British Mandate postal services were discontinued. They agreed to adopt an emergency measure and authorized the use of Jewish National Fund (JNF or Keren Kayemet L’Ysrael) labels, to be validated for postal use by over printing them with the Hebrew word “DOAR” (post) and to be cancelled with a new all-Hebrew canceller, or basically a Minhelet Ha’am postmark.

What is the JNF you ask? Good question. The JNF was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine and later the British Mandate for Palestine for Jewish settlement. It was a national land purchasing fund that anyone could donate money to help the purchase and development of land. The JNF also issued labels to show their aims. The first stamp, the Zion Stamp, was issued in Vienna in 1902. It depicted a blue Star of David on a white background. At the heart of the Star of David, was the word "Zion". Often their labels looked like postage stamps, including face values.

Back to our story. The JNF labels were validated for postal use by one of the Doar markings which basically turned them into postage stamps. There are three distinct types of postal cancels: Tel Aviv, Haifa and Kiryat Motzkin.

These became known as the Interim issues and were first placed on sale on May 2, 1948 and remained on sale until May 14, 1948. The State of Israel was declared late afternoon on the May 14th and May 15th was a Saturday and there were no postal services. The legitimate use of the labels was supposed end on May 23rd, but as there was a war going on, some leeway was given. The Mandate's postal rates remained unchanged during this period.

JNF stamp without overprint	JNF stamp with Haifa overprint	JNF stamp with Tel Aviv overprint

Note: Not only JNF labels were used.

As the overprints on the JNF labels were made by students and older people with small rubber stamps, many varieties exist and they don't add to the value of the stamp. The ink used was mostly black in Haifa, and purple and red in Tel-Aviv.

British Mandate stamps were still valid at this time and covers can be found with a mixture of Mandate and Minhelet Ha'am stamps or even Minhelet Ha'am stamps and Israeli Doar Ivri stamps and even a mixture of stamps and cancellers.

The interim period, with the use of labels as postage and different cancellers makes up a very interesting period. There is the special case of Jerusalem, maybe I will discuss this next.

Registered letter from Tiberias, 7th May 1948,10 mills letter rate + 15 mills registry fee.

References: "The Interim Period Postage Stamps of Israel MARCH TO JULY 1948. Bruno Forsher