Joseph Trumpeldor

November 13, 1979

A commemorative postage stamp on Dr. Joseph Trumpeldor, a Jewish national hero [part of the series ‘Historical Personalities (VI)‘] :

Issued by Israel

Issued on 13 Nov, 1979

Designer : The stamps were designed by Z. Narkiss, Tel Aviv

Type : Stamp, Mint Condition

Colour : Pale Green & Prussian Blue

Denomination : 9 Pound

Name : Joseph Vladimirovich Trumpeldor

Born on 21 Nov, 1880 at Pyatigorsk, Russian Empire [now in Russia]

Died on 1 Mar, 1920 at Tel Hai, Occupied Enemy Territory Administration [now in Israel]

About :

JOSEPH TRUMPELDOR has become a national symbol of bravery and self-sacrifice. The son of a soldier in the Czarist army, he was born in the Northern Caucasus in 1880, and, as a youngster, became attracted to the Tolstoyan idea of communal living. He soon turned his Zionist-oriented thoughts to the establishment of such communes in the Land of Israel.
Drafted into the army during the Russo-Japanese war, Trumpeldor volunteered for special assignments, losing his left arm during the fighting around Port Arthur in 1904-5. A prisoner of war from 1904 to 1906, he then returned to Russia, studied law and immigrated to Palestine in 1912. As the outbreak of World War I he was deported to Egypt, where he organized the Zion Mule Corps as the forerunner of a Jewish fighting unit. Leading the Zion Mule Corps, Trumpeldor fought for the British at Gallipoli, was demobilised in London and helped Jabotinsky found the Jewish Legion. The year 1917 saw him back in Russia training young Jews in the framework of the He-Halutz movement in preparation for their immigration. Trumpeldor himself came home to Palestine two years later and was asked to organize the defence of Upper Galilee settlements against Arab violence. Trouble soon began. On March 1^st, 1920 Tel Hai was attacked and Trumpeldor fatally wounded. He and his companions who died with him are buried near Tel Hai, where a memorial erected in 1934 is inscribed with Trumpeldor’s last words: “It is good to die for our country”.
Sylvia Mann