Fine TIN GILT BLUE BOX Judaica JNF Tzedakah ISRAEL Jewish PUSHKE Saving BANK KKL
Item History & Price
Reference Number: Avaluer:4449977 | Country/Region of Manufacture: Israel |
Country of Manufacture: Israel |
SHIPPMENT : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $18 . Will be shipped in a special rigid protective box. Will be sent within 3-5 days after payment . Kindly note that duration of Int'l registered airmail is around 14 days.
The Blue Box For dozens of years, the Blue Box served as afund raiser in every Diaspora home and every Jewish institution in Israel andabroad: A cherished, popular means to realize the Zionist vision ofestablishing a state for the Jewish people. Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (KKL) was establishedon December 29, 1901 (9 Tevet 5562) at the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basel. Toraise funds for it, Haim Kleinman, a bank clerk from Nadvorna, Galicia, soonplaced a box in his office and sent off a letter to Die Welt, the Zionistnewspaper in Vienna, notifying it accordingly: "In keeping with the saying, 'bit andbitty fill the kitty' and following the Congress resolution on KKL's founding, I put together an 'Erez Israel box', stuck the words 'National Fund' on it andplaced it in a prominent spot in my office. The results, given the extent ofthe experiment so far, have been astonishing. I suggest that like-mindedpeople, and particularly all Zionist officials, collect contributions to KKL inthis way." The BlueBox: More Than a Fundraising Device The funds raised through the Blue Box (the"pushke, " as it was widely known) were an instrument to redeeming theland in Eretz Israel on which the Jewish home was to arise. But the Blue Boxwas more than just a fundraising device. From the beginning, it was animportant educational vehicle spreading the Zionist word and forging the bondbetween the Jewish People and their ancient homeland. The Blue Box has changedform many times over the years, and often wasn't even blue. It is a symbol. Asymbol of KKL-JNF and its efforts to develop the land of Israel, plant forests, create parks, prepare soil for agriculture and settlement, carve out new roadsand build water reservoirs – A symbol of connectedness with the land. For manypeople, KKL-JNF's Blue Box is inseparable from their childhood memories. BlueBoxes were placed in every classroom, into which every Friday small coins weredropped. For several decades the Blue Box raised funds for environmental goals, though over time its status whittled away until it disappeared from the Israeliscene. The Blue Box was reinstated after the Second Lebanon War. Giant BlueBoxes designed by the finest Israeli artists were exhibited on Tel Aviv'sRothschild Boulevard where the public was invited to contribute torehabilitating Israel's northern forests which had been destroyed in the war. IsrotelHotels also took part in the effort with a large donation and awarded a treeplanting certificate to every guest in each of its hotels. The blue charitycollection boxes have been distributed by the JNF almost from its beginning.Once found in many Jewish homes, the boxes became one of the most familiarsymbols of Zionism. A children's song about the boxes, written by Dr. YehoshuaFrizman, Headmaster of the Real Gymnasium for Girls in Kovno, ran The box was inventedwhen a bank clerk named Haim Kleinman in Nadvorna, Galicia placed a blue boxlabeled "Keren Le'umit" in his office, and suggested that similarboxes be distributed by the Fund. The first mass-produced boxes weredistributed in 1904. Kleinman visited Mandate Palestine in the 1930s andplanned to make aliyah, but perished in the Holocaust. Menahem Ussishkin wrotethat "The coin the child contributes or collects for the redemption of theland is not important in itself; it is not the child that gives to the KerenKayemeth, but rather the Fund that gives to the child, a foothold and loftyideal for all the days of his life."The boxes could take a variety ofshapes and sizes. Some were paper made to fold flat like envelopes and able tocontain only a small number of coins, some early American boxes werecylindrical, some German boxes were made of tin stamped into the shape of boundbooks. Israel issued postage stamps bearing the image of the blue box in 1983, 1991, and 1993 for the JNF's 90th anniversary. ebay3962
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