יִשְרָאֵל

Another cover from Israel, not much philatelic value here, but I just felt like showing it since the stamp on the upper right hand corner is quite curious. It's part of a 4v set issued on 17 Dec 06 to celebrate Philately Day, but what is the connection between fashion and philately? Sure, you can probably think one up, but it doesn't really exist, does it?

Anyhow, the stamps celebrate the evolution of fashion in Eretz Israel/Yisrael from 1882 to 2005. The stamp here is the last chronologically.

A factual tidbit here: The phrase Eretz Israel refers to the Land of Israel, which in modern times is the Jewish homeland to be established in the general area of Palestine. In Ottoman Turkish times, Eretz Yisrael and Eretz Hakodesh (the Holy Land) were used to designate the area surrounding Jerusalem and including areas from the Litani river in the north to modern Eilat. Under the British mandate, Eretz Yisrael came to designate the area of the Mandate.

יִשְרָאֵל

The designs of Israeli stamps have always been a delight and those of the stamps on this cover are no exception. Here we have a 50-a stamp on which perches a Palestinian Sunbird. This stamp was issued on 16 Feb 1993. Next to this stamp are two Hebrew alphabet stamps, which are part of the set of 22 that was issued on 13 Feb 2001. I am not familiar with the Hebrew alphabet, so unfortunately, I cannot determine which letters these are and what sounds they make. Maybe someone can help?

The stamp on the very right is one of my favorites as it celebrates culture, cinema to be more exact. The design is again very beautiful and the description on the bottom indicates that it was issued to commemmorate Phiately Day. It is one of two in the set entitled "Cinema Theaters in Israel" and was issued 05 Dec 2007.

The postmark is difficult to discern as the stamps design are quite noisy, but noisy in a good way.