Prepared But Never Issued
by Moshe Spitzer
from the Palestine Post, March 20, 1949
The siege of Jerusalem almost presented philatelists with a set of unique postal stamps issued by the authorities of the city isolated from the rest of the country. Preparations for the printing of the stamps—the designs for which are published here for the first time—were practically complete when the siege was lifted and Israel postal stamps were sent to Jerusalem.
A set of revenue stamps, however, was actually printed and in use during the siege. Their production was more urgent than that of postal stamps, for while postal services with the rest of the country were interrupted during the siege and almost non-existent in Jerusalem itself, business continued as usual, though on a reduced scale, and the lack of revenue stamps would have meant a serious loss of income to the Ozar Ha’am or People’s Treasury, as the provisional financial authority was called.
On May 6, 1948 , only nine days before the State of Israel was to come into existence with the end of the Mandate, the publishing department of the Jewish Agency commissioned this writer to provide new revenue stamps with greatest dispatch. Within 24 hours the designs by the graphic artist Mr. I. David, who also designed the postal stamps, were ready for blockmaking, and after another three days and nights’ work, the Jerusalem revenue stamps were ready for issue to the public.
Rush Job
This rush job was done under extremely difficult conditions. The fight for Jerusalem was then at its height; Katamon had been occupied by Jewish forces only a few days earlier. Jerusalem’s manpower was fully mobilized, and all facilities for work extremely restricted. No really suitable coloured inks for the printing of stamps were available, and the perforation had to be done by hand. In spite of all these difficulties, Jerusalem’s revenue stamps were ready for issue in time, and turned out satisfactorily from both the technical and aesthetical point of view, owing to the untiring efforts both of the managements and the workers of the zincographer Mr. M. Pikowsky and the Hashiloah printing press, which cooperated in the job.
Postage Stamps
Encouraged by the success of the revenue stamps, the Jewish Agency ordered a set of Jerusalem postage stamps. By this time working conditions had become quite hopeless. It was almost impossible to get workers released from military service even for a few nights. There was no electric current most of the time, and kerosene was worth almost its weight in gold. A special cable had to be laid from a private electric plant to the zincography workshops to enable it to continue the work. Even so, much of the work of the artist in connection with the blockmaking had to be done by the light of a kitchen lamp.
Siege Lifted
The issue of the postal stamps was scheduled for Independence—May 15. But fate intervened, the battle of Jerusalem entered its climax, civilian work in the beleaguered city almost ceased with available men called for defence duties—and together with other affairs the postage stamps were shelved for the time being. When the battle was over and the new road to the coast opened, ending Jerusalem’s isolation from the rest of the country, it was ruled that the stamps issued by them in the meantime should also be used in Jerusalem. So the “Jerusalem Siege Stamps” were never printed, to the disappointment of those who had worked so hard to produce them and, it can be presumed, to the regret of philatelists the world over.
Since then, the battle of the road has been commemorated with a special Jerusalem stamp in two colours issued on the occasion of the first meeting of the Assembly in Jerusalem on February 16.