Haifa and Thessaloniki Ports
The issue date is February 9, 2016.

This year, 2015, marks the 25th anniversary of full diplomatic relations between Israel and Greece. Both are modern democratic states, Mediterranean neighbors, with common values representing the proud independence of two ancient nations. The two countries have forged a multidimensional partnership with wide-ranging cooperation in all fields reflecting our peoples’ shared history, close cultural ties and common interests. This historic commemorative stamp symbolizes the close friendship between Israel and Greece as they strive to build a better future, working together to promote the progress and prosperity of our nations and our region.

— Irit Ben Abba
Israeli Ambassador to Greece

The Jews of Thessaloniki stood facing the sea, while other Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora and in Eretz Israel lived with their backs to it.

Yitzhak Ben Zvi, one of the forefathers of the Zionist movement and later President of Israel, visited Thessaloniki in 1914 and was amazed by the Jewish command of the port: “On the eve of the Sabbath, even before sunset, all transport halts at the port. At once, all the Jewish sailors fill the port with their rowboats, dinghies and ships, all sailing to shore… Sabbath!”

Due to the deep economic ties between Thessaloniki and the sea, which reflected the Jewish power on the docks and beyond, the “pearl of the Aegean” became known as “Jerusalem of the Balkans”, in other words – like a city in Israel whose Jewish residents were linked to nature and to physical labor.

The “Jewish muscle” exhibited on the docks of Thessaloniki led the Zionist leadership to include the Thessalonikians in the conquest of the sea in Eretz Israel. Between 1933 and1935 hundreds of Jewish dockworkers from Thessaloniki immigrated to Eretz Israel and helped to realize the national vision of Hebrew labor with their own hands in the key sea ports of Haifa and Jaffa. The routine daily work on the docks was both tedious and dangerous. During the Arab strike that broke out in 1936, Arab workers failed in their attempts to lock the gates of the Haifa and Jaffa ports. Haifa Port remained open thanks to the Thessalonikian dockworkers who continued to come to work despite the atmosphere of terror, and in Tel Aviv the Thessalonikians built the first Hebrew port, as an alternative to the striking Jaffa port. These heroic actions destroyed the Arab blockade of the transfer of goods, passengers and immigrants through the ports of Eretz Israel and garnered the Thessalonikians a place in the national pantheon for their key role in the realization of the Zionist vision during the period of the Jewish Yishuv as it moved toward statehood.

— Dr. Shai Srougo
Researcher of Jewish Communities of the Mediterranean Region
Lecturer, Department of Jewish History, Haifa University

Description of the stamp
The stamp features Haifa Port as represented by a typical freighter and cranes, with the Baha’i Gardens on the slopes of Mt. Carmel in the background; and the Port of Thessaloniki as represented by a typical cruise ship and cranes, with the ancient white tower on the beach in the background.

The stamp tab features the 25 Years of Diplomatic Relations between Israel and Greece logo, designed by graphic artist and illustrator Kelly Matathia Covo.

Marine Turtles are the largest reptiles in Israel. They live mostly in the sea, but the females come ashore on summer nights to lay dozens of eggs in cavities they dig in the sand. The offspring hatch in about two months.

In some turtle species, the offspring’s gender is determined by the temperature in the nest. In the 1920’s and 1930’s sea turtle populations suffered greatly, with some 2000 green turtles being hunted each year along Israel’s coast. Despite that, in the 1950’s 15 nests per kilometer were reported on Israel’s northern beaches. The fact that in 2011 only one nest per kilometer was found on average in those areas highlights the sharp decline in the marine turtle populations, despite conservation efforts and legal protections.

Marine Turtles are endangered for various reasons: adults are injured by ship propellers, by ingesting waste and plastic bags, by fishing nets and hooks; nests are harmed by vehicles driving on the beaches, by human activity on the beaches at night and by animal predators; reduced numbers of beach sites available for nesting and artificial lighting along the beaches deters females from laying their eggs, as well as causing the offspring to lose their innate sense of direction, which guides them to the sea upon hatching.

Israel Nature and Parks Authority rangers and volunteers operate a national center that rescues and rehabilitates injured marine turtles. They also work to protect nests and when necessary, transfer eggs to protected incubation farms. The general public assists the Authority by reporting sightings of egg laying and injured turtles. (For urgent reports regarding injured turtles call: *6911).

Hawksbill Turtle Eretmochelys imbricate
The Hawksbill Turtle is the smallest of the marine turtles and is considered to be the most beautiful, thanks to the brown, black and yellow scutes tiled on its shell. This species is endangered mainly due to hunting in Southeast Asia. The turtle’s narrow head allows it to extract prey from among the coral. The Hawksbill Turtle occasionally frequents the Gulf of Eilat. The background of the stamp features the seabed and sea creatures typical to the Gulf of Eilat. The stamp tab features a schematic sketch of the Hawksbill Turtle’s scutes and scales, and clearly shows its narrow head.

Green Turtle Chelonia mydas
The Green Turtle is the only marine turtle that is mainly herbivorous in adulthood. Only 15 nests on average belonging to this species are found along Israel’s beaches. However, 63 of the 192 turtles, dead or injured, that wash onto the shore on average each year are Green Turtles.

The stamp features the underbelly of the Green Turtle, with the surface of the sea as seen from underwater shown in the background. The stamp tab features the scutes and scales of the Green Turtle’s back shell.

Loggerhead Turtle Caretta caretta
The Loggerhead Turtle is the most prevalent marine turtle in the Mediterranean Sea and it lays the largest numbers of eggs along Israel’s beaches (some 135 nests per year in recent years). It is mostly carnivorous, eating jellyfish, fish and crabs.

The stamp features the Loggerhead Turtle near the sandy seabed, with barnacles clearly shown attached to its shell. The stamp tab features the unique scutes and scales pattern that differentiates this species from the Green Turtle, clearly showing the fifth scute in rows along the sides.

Leatherback Turtle Dermochelys coriacea
The Leatherback Turtle is the largest and heaviest turtle species in the world, measuring up to 3 meters in length and weighing up to 930 kgs. As opposed to other marine turtles, its shell is covered with hard skin rather than scutes. The Leatherback Turtle migrates great distances across the oceans, swims faster than all other marine turtles (up to 35 km/h) and can dive to a depth of 1280 meters. This species feeds mainly on jellyfish and only rarely appears along Israel’s shores, in the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Eilat. The background of the stamp features jellyfish, which are the Leatherback Turtle’s main food source. The ridges on the turtle’s back are prominent. The stamp tab highlights this species’ hydrodynamic body.

—Prof. Amos Bouskila
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Description of the First Day Cover
A marine turtle hatching from an egg is in the foreground.

A newly hatched turtle making its way toward the sea, leaving typical tracks in the sand, is featured in the background.

The issue date is February 9, 2016.

Our calendar consists of twelve months – the amount of time it takes the Earth to complete one full cycle around the Sun.

The 365 days of the year are divided into four different seasons, each of which complements another: winter and summer, spring and autumn. Each season is characterized by its own typical weather, changes in the animals and plants and by its designated songs. Every season creates a certain type of atmosphere. In Israel the transitional seasons – autumn and spring – are short and often bring surprising weather changes.

Winter
“The chill of morning, the shriek of the crow, awakened me. And I know not why holiday joy suddenly came upon me” wrote poet Haim Nachman Bialik (from Songs of Winter).

Winter is the coldest season, and it brings the rain. Each year we wait and hope for abundant winter rains and look forward to using our warm blankets, boots, umbrellas and coats. “Come rain!” sang the IDF Nachal entertainment troupe, lyrics by Tirza Atar and melody by Alona Turel.

Snow falls in Jerusalem and on the high mountain peaks. Water gushes in the rivers and even in the previously dry riverbeds. The Israeli landscape turns from dry grey to bright green. The green orchards are dotted with orange and yellow citrus fruit.

The days grow shorter as the nights lengthen. But we still enjoy clear warm days, as opposed to countries far to the north where the sun barely shines at all during the winter months. Good visibility, clear crisp air, the “smell of rain” – and the green landscape fills with flowers: Shoshana Damari sang “Anemones, anemones, reddish red-haired anemones,graceful anemones” in the wonderful song by Natan Alterman and Moshe Wilensky.

From the theme song for the children’s television program “Carousel,” which described the seasons of the year:

“So come whirl round on the carousel
Down and up and all around,
So come whirl round on the carousel
In summer, winter, autumn and spring…”

—Leah Naor
Author, translator and poet

* All songs have been loosely translated from the original Hebrew.

Nehama Pohatchevsky, Zelda

The issue date is February 9, 2016.

Early signs of women’s aspirations for gender equality in Eretz Israel were apparent as far back as the First Aliyah, as some women chose to take part in public affairs or nonconventional professions. Although the pages of history have not granted them their proper place – they operated in a world of preconceptions and discrimination against women, their fight for self-realization and equal opportunity cleared a path and inspired others.

The State of Israel embraced equality as a core principle early on, and just three years after the establishment of the State the Knesset passed the Women’s Equal Rights Law of 1951, guaranteeing equal treatment of women and men.

Women have yet to be fully included in society’s most influential bodies, but the efforts of these pioneering women set a quiet social revolution in motion, furthering gender equality and changing our society.

Nehama Pohatchevsky
1869, Brest, White Russia – 1934, Rishon LeZion, Israel
Author Nehama Pohatchevsky, known as Nefesh (“soul” in Hebrew, based on her maiden name, Nehama Feinstein) wrote articles in Hebrew as a youth in Russia and corresponded with poet and scholar Yehuda Leib Gordon (Yalag,Y.L.G). Her desire to immigrate to Eretz Israel was realized in 1889, following her marriage to Michel Pohatchevsky of Rishon LeZion.

Writing was in her blood. Nehama Pohatchevsky wrote about the lives of the pioneers and about building the national Jewish homeland in Eretz Israel, focusing on the struggles of the “new woman” in the newly developing Jewish community in the ancient homeland and her position in the family and in society. Thus she is known as the first female Hebrew author of Eretz Israel.

Life in the agricultural community was difficult during the First Aliyah and she worked hard raising her children, on the family farm and in the community. Although her two eldest sons passed away in infancy, she raised her son and daughter Asahel and Efrat. Nefesh was a pioneer and a woman ahead of her time. While working as a farmer and an author, she was also a public activist who fought for Hebrew labor and for instilling the Hebrew language, and also promoted equal rights and voting rights for women. She founded and was active in the Bikur Cholim Association, served as a mediator in the Rishon LeZion Magistrates Court, assisted new immigrants from Yemen and was a member of the Moshava Committee and the National Committee. She published articles and stories. Her collections of stories BeYehuda HaHadasha (In the New Yehuda) (1911) and BaKfar UbaAvoda (In the Village and at Work) (1930) were published in her lifetime, while her novel BaMidron (On the Decline) was published 70 years after her death, in 2004.

—Dr. Ora Asahel Silverstein

Zelda
1914, Ukraine – 1984, Jerusalem
Zelda Schneerson-Mishkovsky is one of the most significant and beloved Hebrew poets of our generation. Tens of thousands of copies of her collected poems from the six books published in her lifetime have been printed to date. Her poems are read and adored by an extremely broad audience: young and old, religious and secular, people from different places and from varying spiritual worlds.

Zelda was a direct descendant of the Lubavitcher Rebbes. She immigrated to Israel as an only child with her parents and grandfather in 1925. Several months later, her grandfather and father both passed away in Jerusalem. Although Zelda published poems and articles in newspapers and magazines over the years, her first collection of poems P’nai (Leisure) did not appear until 1967, when she was 53 years old. The book achieved immediate success among critics as well as a broad section of the reading public.

Thirty years after Zelda’s death in Jerusalem, her friends published a book of her unpublished writings and drawings, Tzipor Ahuzat Kesem (An Enchanted Bird). As writer and critic Dror Burstein remarked in his review of the book (Haaretz, July 2014): “These pages confirm Zelda’s place as one of the most important spiritual figures in Israeli poetry of the 1960’s and 1970’s and far beyond.”

Description of the Stamps and First Day CoversNehama Pohatchevsky
Stamp: portrait adapted from a photo, courtesy of Ora Asahel; photo of Hacarmel St. in Rishon LeZion, 1912, photo by Leon Kahan / Rishon LeZion Museum

Tab: quote from a letter written by Nehama Pohatchevsky, from the Michel and Nehama Pohatchevsky Collection, Rishon LeZion Museum.

First Day Cover: Quote from “On the Decline”, 1920. Published by Sifrei Iton 77, 2004.

Zelda
Stamp: portrait adapted from a photo by Yisrael Simionski / Israel Sun; photo of the young Zelda, 1932, from a class photo – Mizrahi Teachers College for Women.

Tab: Zelda’s poem “Everyone has a Name” in her own handwriting.

First Day Cover: quote from Zelda’s poem “Shlomi”, from the collection P’nai, Hakibbutz Hameuhad Publishing House, 1967.

With thanks to Dr. Rivka Goldberg.

Budapest, Hungary – Tel-Aviv, Israel, 1924–2005

The issue date is February 9, 2016.

Ephraim Kishon was an author, satirist, journalist, playwright, screenwriter, film and theater director and 2002 Israel Prize recipient. He is considered to be one of the greatest Israeli satirists of all time.

Kishon, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, immigrated to Israel in 1949 and within just a few months learned to speak Hebrew fluently. His first play in Hebrew, “Shmo Holech Lefanav” (His Reputation Precedes Him) was staged by Habima three years after his arrival.

Kishon wrote more than 50 books in Hebrew, which were translated into 37 different languages. Over 45 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide and he is considered to be the most widely sold and translated Israeli author in the world.

Kishon wrote about simple people and their ordinary problems, but also addressed social and political issues. He exposed the tangled web of the bureaucracy and focused on the gaps between different sectors of the population, all from a perspective of love for the country and involvement in the national experience.

Kishon wrote some 20 plays, which achieved global success. Among some of the most renowned were “HaKetubbah” (The Jewish Marriage Certificate), ”Hu VeHi” (Him and Her), ”Ho, Ho Yulia” (Oh, oh Juliet) and more. His plays have been translated into many languages and continue to be performed today on stages around the world.

Kishon was also among the leading figures in Israeli cinema. His films, including ”Sallah Shabati”, ”HaShoter Azoulay” (The Policeman), ”Ta’alat Blaumlich” (The Big Dig) and more, were nominated for Oscars and won three Golden Globe awards as well as many other international awards.

Kishon elevated humor to an art form. His diverse and astute works reflect the diversity of Israeli society and successfully get across Israeli viewpoints to a wide audience of readers throughout the world.

New generations continue to be brought up on Kishon’s works, which remain just as relevant and sharp today as when they were written. These works are an Israeli cultural asset and millions of readers around the world continue to both laugh and cry as they enjoy them.

Description of the Stamp and the First Day Cover
The stamp was designed by Renana Kishon and Pini Hamou based on a photograph by Isolde Ohlbaum ©.

The stamp features the titles of articles, books, plays and screenplays by Ephraim Kishon. The stamp tab features Ephraim Kishon’s handwriting and signature.

The First Day Cover displays 12 of the numerous Hebrew phrases coined by Ephraim Kishon. With thanks to Ephraim Kishon’s cultural estate.