"Kofer HaYishuv" – Collection of Documents, Leaflets, Letters, Stamps, Labels and Other Paper Items – Palestine ...

"Kofer HaYishuv" – Collection of Documents, Leaflets, Letters, Stamps, Labels and Other Paper Items – Palestine, 1930s-1940s
Approx. 290 items, including letters and receipts, stamps, labels, leaflets, tickets and other paper items issued within the framework of the "Kofer HaYishuv" (Community Ransom) taxation fund. Palestine, 1938-1948.
A large, varied collection of paper items documenting the "Kofer HaYishuv" (Community Ransom) fund – a taxation fund for financing the defense and security needs of the Jewish settlement in Palestine, founded by the Jewish National Council and active during the last decade of the British Mandate for Palestine. The fund raised money by imposing indirect taxes on imported goods, public transport tickets, and various products; it was in fact a voluntary tax paid by the Jews of Palestine along with the taxes they were obligated to pay to the British Mandate government. The funds collected were used to train soldiers, to establish Tower and Stockade ("Homa u'Migdal") settlements and for additional security and defense needs.
The present collection contains:
• More than 200 receipts, labels, stamps and other paper items documenting the taxes imposed by "Kofer HaYishuv" – "Kofer HaYishuv" labels, including "Coffee shop and restaurant labels", "Kerosene label", "Smoker label" (labels that were attached to cigarette packets and match boxes), and more; a "Chocolate tax for the community ransom" stamp sheet and additional stamps; public transportation tickets ("Egged", "Kesher", "Aviv" and "haMa'avir"), with inked stamps indicating the tax had been paid; stamps, paper labels and receipts for importing agricultural products ("Community ransom – the allocation of agricultural import"); receipts, letters and envelopes with stamps and inked stamps of "Kofer HaYishuv"; a "Kofer HaYishuv" coin and more. Several of the items were issued by other, parallel enterprises – "Mas Herum", "Tav Magen" and "Magbit Hahitgaysut".
• Propaganda booklets and leaflets, including: an "Egged" schedule, with a text about "Kofer HaYishuv"; a small color poster; a rhymed children's story about "Kofer HaYishuv" by Emanuel Harussi, with illustrations by Nachum Gutman (Tel-Aviv, 1940); and more.
• Documents, letters, memorandums and printed leaflets, including: two leaflets of "News, the national secretariat of community ransom" (Hebrew), with a review of the activity for "Kofer HaYishuv" throughout the country; a copy of a letter by the Ramat-Gan branch of the Union of Zionist Revisionists in Palestine, to the management of the local council, in which they object to paying the "Kofer HaYishuv tax for public transportation" (February 1939); a letter on the official stationery of "the Yishuv committee by the national Council, the defense committee – community ransom" (Hebrew), about encouraging consumers to buy from importers who pay the tax; correspondence between the central presidency of the "Kofer HaYishuv" and the Union of Farmers in Palestine, the committee of the Moshava Har Tuv, the Petach-Tikvah municipality, and others; and more.
• A proclamation prohibiting support of "Kofer HaYishuv", signed in print by Rabbi Yosef Zvi Dushinsky and the rabbis of the Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities of Jerusalem.
A total of approx. 290 items. Size and condition vary.
Provenance: The Rimon Family Collection.