Post Script and Eilat Fish

Post Script and Eilat Fish


In the autumn of 2007, there was a philatelic convention in Hartford, Connecticut. I went because I use to collect stamps as a kid. Both my parents collected stamps and got me interested. My mom would save postcards of friends traveling the world over, and my dad once had a valuable stamp collection in Europe, but German soldiers took it away from him when they invaded his home in Poland. Since moving to the USA, he continued his stamp-collecting hobby and purchased many stamps from around the world. He liked to collect stamps from Europe, especially from countries that did not exist anymore. He probably thought that would make them rare. My mom, on the other hand, collected the American commemoratives. Going over their collection, I learned about history, languages, coin of the realm, and geography. Both my mom and dad collected Israeli stamps and already I was struck by how beautiful they were, for a small country. I also remember seeing Israeli stamps at Hebrew school because some of my classmates collected them and traded them like baseball cards. The ones that stood out the most to me were the stamps of the tropical Eilat fish of the Red Sea coral reef. Maybe because they were exotic for someone use to swimming in Long Island Sound. I even received Israeli stamps as a gift from a Jewish neighbor whose home I was invited to for Sabbath meals. A square block made of four triangular stamps commemorated an archaeological find from biblical times in Tzipori, northern Israel. Known as the Mona Lisa of the Galilee, the image was of a Roman woman’s face on a mosaic floor, and it became even more famous once a line of beauty products in Israel used this mosaic as a logo. Of course, when I lived in Israel I got to visit the mosaic at its location.

At the entrance to the convention was an Israeli blue and white flag advertising an Israeli stamp dealer. I went there first. The dealer dealt with Judaica stamps as well as Israeli stamps. I brought some of my parent’s stamps with me to appraise and possibly sell a few, and I knew there were some old Israeli stamps mixed in. Sitting at the table before me was an elderly couple who wanted to purchase Israeli stamps for their grandson who was going to have a bar- mitzvah. Nice idea for a gift, I chuckled. The stamps I had with me I brought with me from Israel, and others were sent to me from my father by mail before he passed away. I left about half the collection with my daughters in the hopes that they would learn about the world through stamps as I did.

Oddly enough, I was almost arrested once because of my dad's stamps. When I returned to the USA from Israel, I made a stop at Budapest, Hungary for a three-day tour. At the airport, the customs officer asked me if I had anything to declare. I said I had nothing, yet he inspected my luggage anyway and saw the stamps I kept in a waterproof pouch. He pulled me over to the side and interrogated me about the contents of the pouch, and I told him it was just my father’s stamp collection. Bristling, he asks why I did not declare them, and I told him I am on the way to America and am just passing through. That only seemed to rattle him more, and he retorted, "So what? You are still entering Hungary!” I wondered if he resented that I was an American, thought I was smuggling, or just wanted a bribe. Hungary was once a communist country, and I began to sense I just might have a problem, but I knew better than to show any fear. He pressed me further, demanding to know how much the stamps are worth and if I plotted to sell any in Hungary. I supposed they actually were worth some money, but had no accurate idea of what that money that could be since I never had them appraised. Regardless, I calmly stated back to the guard that they are not worth much and that they had sentimental value, being that they were from my late father’s collection. He waits a long moment looking at me, and I suspected once more that he was perhaps merely waiting for a bribe, but I had no experience in handling bribes so I did not offer one. I did once witness something like this when I went to another previous Russian satellite country of Bulgaria, and the airport police wanted a tourist to surrender his Marlboro cigarettes. Just like in the corny TV shows about the Cold War, I put some conviction in my voice and repeat, "I am a tourist, and I am going to America." He finally opted then to let me pass, maybe at last figuring I was just a small fry. Hey, I was coming from Israel, after all.

At the convention, I show the stamps to the dealer, still in that same rainproof pouch, and told him they are from 40-50 years ago. Many from countries heralded from the old British Empire and no longer existed and a collection from Ethiopia. I have no idea why my father collected stamps from Ethiopia. The stamp dealer zipped through them, shrugged, and muttered how they weren’t anything special or worth his money. My jaw dropped. I almost was arrested for these! Taking note of my reaction, the dealer left me with some words of wisdom that I heard once before from a coin collector: "If you did not pay a significant sum of money for them to begin with, they are probably not worth much.”

Discouraged, I hunted for a second opinion and found an international stamp dealer trading in stamps from both Israel and from the Palestine Authority (PA). I ask if I can see the Palestinian stamps, and he cheered me on, noting how they were selling fast since they were going out of print. No kidding, I thought, considering how the PA had splintered since the Hamas revolt. Here was the first time I laid eyes on stamps from the PA, which offices were only about two hours away from where I once lived, and I was taken aback by their beauty. We were neighbors in a sense, yet we lived in very different worlds apart. I wondered, being neighbors and in a technical peace agreement, if any of the Palestinian stamps had acknowledged their Israeli neighbors. Some of the stamps commemorated Yassir Arafat, the late PA chairman, visiting different dignitaries. He was always visiting a dignitary to try and gain support for a Palestinian state. The more pleasing stamps commemorated Christian holy sites like Bethlehem and the Christian holidays. I then considered to whom were the mostly Moslem Palestinians trying to sell their wares, bearing in mind that Christians made up the majority in many parts of the world. The prettiest stamps were of the flowers, trees, fruits, and birds of the area, of what they called Palestine, and I was struck by how strange I felt looking at them. These were the same flowers, trees, fruits and birds of Israel – my Israel – I felt cheated in some way. Were these two different nations living on the same land, one trying to usurp the other or commit identity theft? Or, were these two interrelated peoples sharing the same land and glorifying her common bounty? The answer came with the last stamp I saw from the batch. It bore both the Israeli and Palestine flags poised behind the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin alongside Yassir Arafat and shaking hands. That famous handshake took place in front of President Bill Clinton on the White House lawn following the Oslo peace agreement. For me, this stamp answered another question most Israelis have: do the Palestinians recognize Israel? I would have to assume that if the Israeli flag is on one of the PA stamps, then they do, or they at least intended to back when the stamp was issued.

I went ahead and bought some of those Palestinian stamps, although I could not get any first issues since they had sold out. These stamps inspired me to make a collection in which Arab stamps commemorate – or at least recognize in some fashion – Israeli culture, and vice versa. I already had purchased Israeli stamps commemorating Arab culture that I knew existed before coming to the convention, so it seemed like the perfect idea. At the basic level, every Israeli stamp has the words “Israel Post” in three official languages: Hebrew, English and Arabic. I went back to the first Israeli stamp dealer and asked if he had Israeli stamps with an Arab motif and was disappointed to hear him say an emphatic “no!” I then asked him if he by any chance had Palestine Authority stamps, thinking maybe I could get a first issue from him. He glared at me and sharply shook his head, and I realized perhaps I hit a nerve. In that I noticed another change that came over me by living in Israel. I had experienced living and working with Arabs as neighbors and respected them as people, even if they had a different and conflicting political agenda than mine.

When I returned home, I searched for Israeli-Arab stamps online and found that Israel did commemorate Arab culture with a stamp in 1971 of the historic El Jazzar Mosque in Acre. There was also a “land of three religions” stamp with a picture of a mosque and also a Dome of the Rock stamp in 1981. In addition, there was a stamp commemorating the late King Hussein of Jordan who signed a peace treaty with Israel. But then, my surfing for stamps came across this bothersome warning: “Beware, if you want to visit an Arab country, make sure you don't have an Israeli stamp in your passport.”