Memorial Day 2003, Armoured Vehicles on Road to Jerusalem Stamp

The stamp issued for Memorial Day, April 2003, shows a burnt out vehicle on the side of the road leading to Jerusalem. On 29th November 1947, the United Nations declared the establishment of a Jewish State subject to partition into Jewish and Arab State with internationalization of Jerusalem. The day after the announcement Arabs attacked two buses on their way to Jerusalem. The Old City, including its Jewish population, was cut off from the New City, while the areas outside the walls were divided between hostile camps of Jews and Arabs warring against each other. Jewish Jerusalem was virtually put under siege by Arab attacks on convoys travelling from the coast to Jerusalem, on the one vital road connecting the two. To maintian communication between settlers and towns, the “Yishuv” (Jewish Settlers Organization) arranged for transport in guarded convoys and later in armoured vehicles.

These armoured vehicles were called “sandwiches” because they were constructed with a wooden board between two metal plates in order to protect the driver and passengers. Maintaining an open road to the besieged Old City was the crucial point in the “battle of the roads” that took place from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Some vehicles managed to reach their destination, but others did not and drivers and passengers paid with their lives. Today the burnt-out skeletons of armoured vehicles, each with its name and date, can still be seen on the side of the road as monuments of the battle for safe passage to Jerusalem.

The stamp with an information sheet are enclosed in a plastic protection sheet.