Tel Aviv, Israel

Another swap card from earlier this year. I don't have too many postcards from Israel so it's always nice to get more. ...and I really like Israeli stamps, they seem to issue a lot of really beautiful stamps!

Tel Aviv is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 414,600 and a land area of 52 square kilometres. Tel Aviv forms part of the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area, also known as Gush Dan, which constitutes Israel's largest metropolitan area and has 3,464,100 residents, 42% of the country's population. Tel Aviv-Yafo is the largest and most populous section of the metropolitan area.

The city is located on the Mediterranean coast in central-west Israel and is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality, headed by Ron Huldai. Tel Aviv is home to many foreign embassies. Residents of Tel Aviv are referred to in Hebrew as Tel Avivim or by the singulars: Tel Avivi (for males) and Tel Avivit (for females).

Tel Aviv was founded by the Jewish community on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa in 1909. Immigration by mostly Jewish refugees meant that the growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced Jaffa's, which had a majority Arab population at the time. Tel Aviv and Jaffa were merged into a single municipality in 1950, two years after the establishment of the State of Israel. Tel Aviv's White City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, comprises the world's largest concentration of Bauhaus buildings.

With over a million international visitors annually, Tel Aviv is a global city, a technological and economic hub, home to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, corporate offices and research and development centers. It is the country's financial capital and a major performing arts and business center. Tel Aviv has the second-largest economy of any city in the Middle East after Abu Dhabi, and has the 31st highest cost of living in the world. Tel Aviv is the fifth-most-visited city in the Middle East and Africa. Known as "The City that Never Sleeps" and a "party capital", it has a lively nightlife, dynamic atmosphere and a famous 24-hour culture.

Israel map

Another postcard that arrived in an envelope... but this one is a lot older - I received this one over seven years ago! This is one of my older official Postcrossing cards, and the sender wrote a lovely letter to go with it, too.

  IL-2542   Israel is a country in Western Asia, situated at the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It shares land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories comprising the West Bank and Gaza Strip on the east and southwest, respectively, and Egypt and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south. It contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel's financial center is Tel Aviv, while Jerusalem is both its designated capital and the most populous individual city under the country's governmental administration. Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem is internationally disputed.

The population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2014 to be 8,146,300 people. It is the world's only Jewish-majority state; 6,212,000 citizens, or 74.9% of Israelis, are designated as Jewish. The country's second largest group of citizens are denoted as Arabs, with 1,718,400 people (including the Druze and most East Jerusalem Arabs). The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Muslims; the rest are Christians and Druze. Other minorities include Maronites, Samaritans, Dom people, Black Hebrew Israelites, other Sub-Saharan Africans, Armenians, Circassians, Roma, Vietnamese boat people, and others. Israel also hosts a significant population of non-citizen foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia.

 In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish and Democratic State. Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The Prime Minister serves as head of government and the Knesset serves as Israel's legislative body. Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 43rd-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2012. The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the fifth highest in Asia, and has the one of the highest life expectancies in the world.

Falafel - Israel's national snack

Another postcard from 2009. I'm not sure why I don't post more food and drink related postcards in this blog as I really like them and have a rather large collection of them. Hmm....

I really like falafels but don't have them very often as the fast-food places around here don't really do them and there are no restaurants like that around, either. Maybe I should just make them myself - and NOT use the mixes where you only need to add water and possibly a bit of something else. :P There's a recipe on the back of this postcard which sounds pretty tasty. :P

Old City of Jaffa, Israel

Another one of the many wonderful 'winner of the month' cards that I received last September (has it really been that long ago?!). This one was (and still is :P) one of my favourites, I just love the atmosphere in it.

Jaffa is the southern, oldest part of Tel Aviv-Jaffa (since 1950), an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Solomon, Jonah, and Saint Peter. Tel Yafo (Jaffa Hill) rises to a height of 40 meters and it offers a commanding view of the coastline. Hence it had a strategic importance in military history. The accumulation of debris and landfill over the centuries made the hill even higher. Archaeological evidence shows that Jaffa was inhabited some 7,500 years BCE. The natural harbor of Jaffa has been in use since the Bronze Age.

From the 1990s onwards, efforts have been made to restore Arab and Islamic landmarks, such as the Mosque of the Sea and Hassan Bek Mosque, and document the history of Jaffa's Arab population. Parts of the Old City have been renovated, turning Jaffa into a tourist attraction featuring old restored buildings, art galleries, theaters, souvenir shops, restaurants, sidewalk cafes and promenades. Many artists have moved their studios from Tel Aviv to the Old City and its surroundings, such as the Jaffa port.

El Jazzar's Mosque, Acre, Israel

I haven't posted any Israeli postcards here for quite a while now so here's one, received back in 2009. ...and I just realised that this card probably counts towards my Unesco collection as well :)

Acre is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. The city occupies an important location, as it sits on the coast of the Mediterranean, linking the waterways and commercial activity with the Levant Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the world.

Historically, it was a strategic coastal link to the Levant. In crusader times it was known as St. John d'Acre after the Knights Hospitaller of St John order who had their headquarters there. Acre is the holiest city of the Bahá'í Faith. In 2011, the population was 46,464. Acre is a mixed city, 72 percent Jewish and 28 percent Arab.

The Old City of Acre is a Unesco World Heritage site. Acre is a historic walled port-city with continuous settlement from the Phoenician period. The present city is characteristic of a fortified town dating from the Ottoman 18th and 19th centuries, with typical urban components such as the citadel, mosques, khans and baths. The remains of the Crusader town, dating from 1104 to 1291, lie almost intact, both above and below today's street level, providing an exceptional picture of the layout and structures of the capital of the medieval Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, Israel

I know I've already posted a very similar card of Jerusalem before, but I couldn't resist posting about this one as well. I really like this view and the full moon on the left is such a cool addition, making the atmosphere here somewhat mysterious.



In the background you can see the Old City wall with Mount of Olives, a mountain ridge in East Jerusalem with three peaks running from north to south. The highest, at-Tur, rises to 818 meters. It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes. The Mount of Olives is associated predominantly with Jewish and Christian traditions but also contains several sites important in Islam. The mount has been used as a Jewish cemetery for over 3,000 years and holds approximately 150,000 graves.



Such a beautiful stamp! It's from a set of 3 stamps issued earlier this year under the theme 'Visit Israel'.

Map of Israel

One more card for today. I did want to do a bigger update but I'm too busy, too many things to do and I'm also trying to get everything sorted and ready for the Postcrossing meet-up in London this Saturday.



This card is from the lovely Debora in Israel. I've received a few postcards from her and it's always a joy to get mail from her. This card is from a tag, isn't it adorable! I love mapcards and it's nice to see some rather different ones such as this one occasionally. The illustrations here remind me of some 80's children's books, the style is pretty similar to some I vaguely remember reading/looking at as a child.



Israeli stamps are so pretty! The one on the left is from a set of 5 stamps issued in 2009, depicting Fruits. This one here is Orange. The other stamp is from a set of 2 stamps issued in 2010, with the theme 'Cinemas in Israel'. The one here shows the Zion Cinema in Jerusalem.

Hebrew alphabet

This very nice Hebrew alphabet card came from a swap a while ago. I love all the little details here!



Debora, who sent me this card, tells me that Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by most people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over two thousand years.



The stamp was issued earlier this year, with the theme 'Festivals'. (I have no idea which festival, though..)

Western Wall, Jerusalem, Israel

It was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, earlier this week, so I thought it would be appropriate to post about this card that I received a few weeks ago from a swap.



Olga who sent me this card was a bit wary of sending me this card at first, as in my postcrossing profile I state that I prefer not to receive any overly religious postcards. We had some discussion over this card - I really like postcards showing people in traditional clothes, but as Olga pointed out, in Israel, religion and traditions are very closely knit together. I have to say it here, too, then, that I don't mind receiving this kind of cards showing religious themes, it's mostly cards explicitly promoting a religion or for example offering to pray for me that I don't like.

This card shows Israel from a slightly different angle. Olga tells me that "except for the Shofar (the big horn) you can see this picture in Jerusalem every day and not only on religious holidays. There are lots of ultra religious people in Jerusalem, and in this way it is very different from all other cities in Israel. They wear heavy black coats all year round, even in +40C!"



The bigger stamp is from a set of 3 stamps issued in 2008 under the theme "Festivals 2008". This one here shows a Turkish Torah Crown. The smaller stamp is from a set of 4 stamps issued in 2003, representing National symbols, this one here being The Menorah (Candlestick).

Sea of Galilee, Israel

Staying by water areas... Isn't this a gorgeous sunrise?!



I find the name of this area quite confusing... In English it's called the Sea of Galilee, but it's not really sea, it's a freshwater area! It's also known as Lake of Gennesaret, Lake Kinneret, Sea of Tiberias or Tiberias Lake. How can 'lake' and 'sea' be used so interchangeably?? I'll use 'Sea of Galilee' here for clarity's sake.

The Sea of Galilee, located near the Golan Heights, is the largest freshwater lake in Israel, and it is approximately 53 km in circumference, about 21 km long, and 13 km wide. The lake has a total area of 166 km², and a maximum depth of approximately 43 m. At 209 metres below sea level, it is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth and the second-lowest lake in the world (after the Dead Sea, a saltwater lake). The lake is fed partly by underground springs although its main source is the Jordan River which flows through it from north to south.



The smaller stamp is from a set of 4 stamps issued in 2003, representing National symbols, this one here being The Menorah (Candlestick). The second stamp is from a set of 2 stamps issued in 2008, commemorating 60 Years of Friendship between Israel and France.

Jerusalem, Israel

This week has been super hot and sunny, it would be lovely to be able to go to the seaside but alas, no such luck. I live in the middle of England so the sea is pretty far away from here. :( One thing I do miss about Finland is all the lakes, there's so much more water there which is lovely. Anyway, I'm mostly stuck at home this summer. I'm going to Finland for two weeks in August but it looks like that's going to be my only holiday this summer.

My postcard pal Hanna in Finland has had a bit more luck; she's recently been to Israel to visit relatives, and sent me a postcard from there. :) I think Israel would be a bit too hot for me at the moment, though... Hanna told me it was +38 C at the time of writing the card!



The Old City is a 0.9 square kilometre walled area within the modern city of Jerusalem; it lies within East Jerusalem. Until the 1860s this area constituted the entire city of Jerusalem. The Old City is home to several sites of key religious importance: the Temple Mount and its Western Wall for Jews, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians, and the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims.



The stamps is so beautiful (and has a lighthouse on it!)! It does seem like they have lots of very nice stamps in Israel. This one is from a set of 3 stamps issued in 2009, representing Lighthouses in Israel. This one shows the lighthouse in Jaffa.