Otte Wallish - Israel's First Doar Ivri Stamps

Israel's First Doar Ivri Stamps

In 1948, too, Wallish took the lead in designing Israel's first postage stamps. He chose a design based on ancient coins, found in archaeological research on the First Jewish-Roman War and the Bar Kochba Revolt. He also designed the first day cover for the stamps' first usage on the first business day after Independence was declared, Sunday, May 16, 1948. Since the name of the state had not yet been determined during the design and secretive printing of the stamps, they were designed with the name Doar Ivri ("Hebrew mail") rather than Israel, the name found on all subsequent postage issues.

In 2007, several original pieces of Wallish artwork for the Doar Ivri stamp were sold at auction. In one preliminary essay, the stamp is designed as a triangle. Furthermore, in another Wallish essay, the stamps on the first day cover were prepared with the "wrong" name of the state: Yehudah (Hebrew: יהודה‎, cf. Judah or Judea), as shown here. He had also proposed to put Eretz Yisrael on the stamps, which Minhelet ha-Am leaders turned down as well. After speaking privately with German stamp dealers, who recommended a Hebrew equivalent to Deutsche Post ("German mail"), Wallish proposed the phrase Doar Ivri, which was accepted.