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A new discovery in the August heat.
Earlier this week, David Sela, editor of "70 Years Later" in Israel Today, contacted me and asked if I knew the date of the Israel Post poster "Post your holiday greetings early", designed by the Shamir brothers. I found that the poster was from the 1960s. I knew Sela would be disappointed so I looked for other posters for the postal services.
As part of my search, I came across a poster of the Israel Maritime Authority - a protest against the closure of the gates of the country by the British Mandate authorities. The date 23.11.38 marked the tragedy of thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe who tried to reach Israel. On this day, the British Parliament decided that there was no place for refugees in Palestine and the British Commonwealth.
I turned to the historian Dr. Mordechai Naor to get his opinion. He noted that the II is not November but February according to the Roman numerals (the Hebrew date on the poster, which we both did not pay attention to, confirms the date). It was a historic date - the opening of the Tel Aviv port. The days were the days of the Arab uprising in which the Arabs shut down the port of Jaffa, and the Mandatory government allowed Jews to build a port in Tel Aviv.
The scene designed by Shamir shows an "aliyah" boat carrying passengers from the ship "Mount Zion" moored in the distance. A hand is extended to the woman to help her get up to the pier. I did not find any evidence that "Mount Zion" participated in the inauguration of the port and I guess Studio Shamir was asked by Hevel Yami (the Maritime authority) to include it in their design (the first Hevel Yam conference was held on board the ship in 1937). A study by Naor revealed that there was only one immigrant among the first passengers to arrive at the Tel Aviv port.
David Sela did not give up and presented Shamir's poster "Post early your holiday congratulations" in his "Regards from the past" spot on Channel 13 on television.
Yoram E. Shamir, August 2021