ÒA Jewish PhilatelistÕs Voyage on the Seven SeasÓ
(16 September 2011)
Peter
Keeda
University
of Sydney, Australia
Narrative
It was a triangulated genesis.
In a second-hand bookstore I found They
Took to the Sea by Samuel Tokolowsky and I was fascinated as to why we hear
so little about Jews involvement in the sea. As it happened I was working in
Israel in marketing of bulk products and so I was involved in shipping –
ÔJewish shippingÕ – on a daily basis. The hypotenuse of the idea came from my hobby of collecting stamps
which had become so large and unwieldy that I decided that I had to do
something about it and what better way, than to specialize. This I soon learnt
is called Ôthematic collectingÕ and what better theme could I choose than to
join three of my interests: Jewish history, Jewish involvement in commerce and
migration, and philately? Over the last thirty-five years this Collection has
grown into a seven volume Collection which I have named ÒA Jewish PhilatelistÕs
Voyage on the Seven SeasÓ. As of July 2011 the Collection contains about 550
items which fill seven albums totalling 550 pages. The Collection has been
fully indexed.
Eventually I hope to scan
the complete Collection and make it available on-line. This endeavour may take
some time as a complete revision of the texts is deemed necessary to ensure
that this is a unique and original piece of research.
Attached is a bibliography
of most of the references used, although in the early days of the Collection
references were not accurately recorded and so it is possible that there are
some omissions. The Harvard referencing style has been used in the
bibliography.
In mid 2010, while
searching the Internet for more items to add to my Collection I came across
Professor David BlumenthalÕs course, ÔUsing Stamps to Explore Religion and
CultureÕ at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. I also discovered a website
he created to make public the research on Israeli and topical Judaica done at
Emory (http://davidblumenthal.org/Philatlely.html). By this time I was situated in Sydney, Australia, however, through
the miracle of the Internet the barrier of fifteen thousand kilometres soon
dissolved. I was (am) studying
towards a Masters degree in Jewish Studies at the University of Sydney and
there seemed to be a good fit. I contacted Professor Blumenthal who agreed to
supervise my work and, Professor Suzanne Rutland, my professor at the
University of Sydney agreed that it would be a worthwhile research topic. By
coincidence the two professors were at that time both visiting Jerusalem and
soon made contact by way of a local phone call and we all agreed that I would
move forward. Such serendipity augured a successful outcome.
Over the next nine months I
slowly prepared a Stampchart, following the Emory model, which would fulfil the
requirements of Professor BlumenthalÕs course. However, as with any good piece
of research I soon came upon several hurdles: (1) Up to this point in time the
objects of other Stampcharts were stamps but the items of my Collection are a
mixture of stamps, covers, postcards and other philatelic ephemera. Professor
Blumenthal agreed that this would not change the basic nature of the project
and agreed that I should proceed. (2)
All other Stampcharts created at Emory University were based upon the Sol Singer Collection of
Philatelic Judaica and so the exhibits of the charts were available to all who
could access this amazing Collection. My Collection, however, is situated in
Sydney, Australia, so how could staff and students elsewhere (notably in
Atlanta, Georgia) easily identify the items of my Collection? By scanning the
items they would have visual access to them and by embedding the scans in the Stampchart
they would be readily available to anyone who wished to peruse my Stampchart.
Scanning and embedding the items was time consuming but not difficult. The next
hurdle came a bit later (see ÔUsing the StampchartÕ below).
Placing the information into a Stampchart necessitated categorizing all
the items. Two major Categories were chosen, ÔthemeÕ and ÔfunctionÕ and these
were further broken down to a third Category, ÔactivityÕ. Each of these was
sub-divided in into sub-categories, ranging from two to twelve sub-categories.
As the work progressed, these categories were refined and the final structure is
as follows:
A.
Theme
á
Ancient Israeli
History
á
Far-Flung Places
á
Israeli Towns
and Sites on the Sea
á
Jewish Heroes
á
Jewish
Shipowners and Managers
á
Modern Israeli
History
á
Other Jewish
History
B.
Function C.
Activity
á
Biblical –
persona, coastal
á
Civilian
– ancient, archaeology, artists,
cruise,
hero, milestones,
scientific, sport,
training, settlement
á
Commercial --
coastal, fishing, government ,
industry,
pirates. postal, services,
shipping lines,
tourism, trading
á
Confinement –
British, Australian
á
Emigration –
Aliyah, Aliyah Bet, to Americas
á
Exploratory –
explorers, navigation
á
Naval –
arms, invaders, operations, heroes,
submarine, training
Using the Stampchart
The Stampchart for ÒA Jewish PhilatelistÕs
Voyage on the Seven SeasÓ is composed of twenty (20) columns, A-T, as follows:
Columns A-G give the basic
reference information as follows:
¥ Column A
– the Item number has no significance other to easily identify a
particular item.
¥ Columns B and
C give: Country of issue and Date of issue
¥ Columns D,E, F
– give the IPC, Scott, and Stanley Gibbons catalogue numbers but only if
the object of entry is a stamp (or FDC). If there is an incidental stamp such as on a cover or postcard,
but the object is the cover and not the
stamp, the relevant stamp catalogue number is given in column J. For some
recent Israeli issues the catalogue number was not yet available and so the IPC
numbers have been marked ÒxxxxÓ/
¥ Column G
– the Scan of an object can be accessed by clicking on top right hand
corner of cell. This is where MAC users may have some difficulty.
Columns H-N give the content
information as follows:
¥ Columns H and I give: the
Title and the Description as contained in the philatelic material available for
the stamp
¥ Columns J and K give:
Additional information and Internet links.
¥
Column L gives my first Category: Theme
¥
Column M gives my second Category: Function
¥
Column N gives my third Category: Activity
Columns O-Q give the philatelic data: Format,
Denomination, and Colour
Columns R-T give the locator data in my Collection,
ÒJPVSSÓ = A Jewish PhilatelistÕs Voyage on the Seven SeasÓ which is the seven volumes of
the authorÕs philatelic Collection relating to Jews and the Sea.
This chart was prepared using
MSExcel 2007. The incompatibility of MSExcel 2007for MAC users only came to
light after the first draft of the stampchart was completed and submitted.
MAC-users, therefore, may have difficulties in manipulating the jpg scans that
are imbedded in the chart (column G – see above). This is the last
ÔbarrierÕ that I mentioned above, and to date I have not been able to find a
solution. So, I added a folder of pdf scans which can be accessed outside of
the stampchart. Readers interested in seeing the pdf scans should contact me at keedad@gmail.com or Professor Blumenthal at reldrb@emory.edu. For this inconvenience, I apologise and welcome suggestions as
to how to overcome this anomaly.
Further notes: Spelling used is
Australian English spelling. ShipsÕ names are italicised. All columns in the
Stampchart have filter tabs added in line 2. For those using MSExcel, this will
enable easy filtering (see http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/excel-help/filter-data-in-a-range-or-table-HP010073941.aspx). Similarly, for MSExcel users, all columns can be
sorted. To do so, first exclude merged row containing item 125. As an example,
the second tab of Stampchart has been sorted according to country (column B).
A
Few of My Favourite Items
Item #125, Dov Hoz – envelope from Aliyah Bet ship with shipÕs postmark; most
unusual
and quite rare; the envelope contains a short letter written in Yiddish.
Items #295-301, Steinbach envelopes – a series of envelopes sent by Markus
Steinbach from various destinations to Morris Steinbach in New York; by
tracing the postmarks and postal addresses I have surmised that Markus fled
Austria at the outbreak of WWII, made his way to Shanghai where he was in a
refugee camp, managed to get to Israel in 1949 and then went back to
Austria in 1951. I have not been able to verify this information nor trace the
Steinbach family.
item #198, Mauritius – an envelope posted June 1941 from the British internment
camp in Mauritius.
item #88, Civitavecchia – a card relating to the Jewish maritime training school in
Italy prior to WWII.
item #238, Cherbourg – a card relating to the amazing feat of the Israelis ÔsmugglingÕ
five gun boats out of France.
item #237, Dakar – rare souvenir sheet commemorating the tragic loss of the
submarine Dakar; indicative of the high price of IsraelÕs security.
item #44, Ballin – rare ÔessayÕ of stamp design to commemorate the Jewish shipping
magnate Albert Ballin.
item #170, Jaffa – hand painted postcard from 1902.
A Final Word
I am well aware that I have not
covered all possibilities of ÔJews and the SeaÕ in this Collection and I
welcome further information and philatelic items (by way of swap or sale) that
I could include.
Peter Keeda
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