‘Good year’ greetings from good years past
A selection of Rosh Hashana greeting cards that tell the story of Zionism and the establishment of Israel
In this modern age when one can send holiday greetings around the world with a single mouse-click, it is especially pleasurable to look back on the “good old years” when a Rosh Hashana card was something you held in your two hands.
The Shomer Hatzair Archive at Givat Haviva holds a collection of over 7,000 Rosh Hashana greeting cards from all over, painstakingly gathered and compiled by Yuval Danieli.
These cards tell the story of Zionism and the establishment of the state. We present to you a select assortment of greetings from the vast collection, and wish you a happy new year!
Greeting card from Youth Day in Nitra, Czechoslovakia, 1924. The first printed by the Zionist youth group abroad
Farming settlement, Kibbutz Lenir
Laborer’s library, 1950
Building the country, 1950
Second regiment of Negev Division, the Palmah, 1949
From Sarah Habshush, 1945
Zelig Attinger, serving in Hebrew Brigade in Holland wishes for “The return of sons to their borders,” 1946
From refugee camp in Cyprus, illustration by Shmulik Katz
From Knesset chairman Yosef Sprinzak and his wife, 1953
Drawn by Ruth Shloss, 1959
