Intensive Arabic Semester

It’s that time of year again – and the search for suitable Rosh Hashana greeting cards well under way. Long gone are the days of sitting down with my children in the kibbutz children’s houses and creatively making cards to distribute to other kibbutz members. It must be at least twenty years since the last time I found myself drawing piles of red apples and honey pots – usually with Winnie the Pooh lurking somewhere in the background.

Present day Israeli Rosh Hashana cards in general lack the warmth they radiated years ago when I first made aliya. But then again in recent years we have been treated to fresh‐off‐the‐press ‘antique’ cards the likes of those that were common in Israel in the 60s and 70s – very Zionistic, very nostalgic, extremely glitzy and unlike in golden olden times, rather expensive.

The cards of yesteryear often featured a smiling Jewish postman delivering good wishes for a happy, healthy and peaceful – little did we know – New Year to the lady of the household, often found popping her head out of the window to receive both her mail with a smile and a few encouraging words to the bearer of her cards. Chirping birds twittered away on the sidelines in most of the greeting cards that featured postmen, policemen and soldiers – many of the cards postcard style, no necessity for envelopes – those were the days when Israel was chugging along on the bare necessities.

Israeli Rosh Hashana cards told the story of Zionism, the building of the State of Israel and showed pioneers physically enduring the hardships draining the swamps in the center and north of the country, toiling the soil, planting trees, guarding their communities and in the south, the struggle to make the desert bloom.

Military and political personalities of the day were often featured and the flag of the State of Israel held a prominent place as did the Magen David and menorah. I remember well visiting Haifa in the mid‐1960s and passing through the stalls selling Rosh Hashana cards an Israeli friend had to explain who those featured on the cards were and as I recall, I’d not heard of any of them.

Nowadays a greeting can be sent off in a jiffy, just a quick click on the mouse and yet another automatic electronic greeting whizzes off into cyberspace ‐ and dozens more whiz back. Here all sorts of animated characters strut their stuff on the computer screen, glitter, twitter, dance and prance with background music ranging from rap to classical and bit of everything in between.

Nothing personal and certainly wouldn’t print off to put on the table with my apples and honey. Always a sucker for creative cards immaterial what they are celebrating I’ve a number of shoe boxes full of the special ones and my grandchildren love to plod through as I tell them stories about what is depicted thereon and who sent it to me.

If it weren’t for folks like me who find it difficult to throw away practically anything, then Yuval Danieli, an Israeli artist and curator of the Kibbutz Movement Art Archives at the Hashomer Hatzair center of Givat Haviva, would not be able to boast a collection of over 7,000 Rosh Hashana cards from Israel and the Diaspora many of those from kibbutzim and featured in a coffee table size book some years ago.

Stored in protective albums the thousands of Rosh Hashana cards make fascinating inspection. The collection also includes cards printed for those serving in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, many of whom members of kibbutzim. One of the cards shows a group of uniformed Jewish soldiers from Palestine standing under the Arch of Titus in Rome and dated 1945 – a scene that generates a great deal of discussion. Will I save any of the cards I get this year – I doubt it.

As quick as the click on the mouse sends, a click on the mouse deletes - but the cards in the Givat Haviva collection will be there to tell their stories year after year even though those who sent them, and those who received them, are long gone.

An article by our very own Lydia Aisenberg about the Intensive Arabic Semester was featured in Esra Magazine. You can find it online HERE.