Otte Wallish

Otte Wallish (1906–1977) (אוטה וליש) was a Czech emigre to Israel who established himself as a graphic designer and contributed to the symbolic self-representation of the Jewish state.

Otte Wallish was born in Znojmo (today in the Czech Republic).

He was a Czech of Jewish descent.

He attended the Vienna Art Academy.

After serving in the Czech army, he opened a graphic design and advertising office in Prague.

He had jobs with the Jewish National Fund and United Israel Appeal.

In 1929, his own book was published, ABC: Ein Bilderbuch.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Wallish worked on artistic arrangement, statistical graphs and other design aspects for books.

He married and then emigrated by boat to Palestine in 1934, a time of increasing peril for European Jews.

His wife joined him in 1935; a sibling survived the Holocaust and lived in the Czech Republic.

The couple had two children and settled in a Herzliya house with Bauhaus furniture.

He used the German Wallisch and, after moving to Israel, adopted the English Wallish transliteration of his name in Hebrew.

(His first name is often incorrectly cited as Otto. )

In 1936, Wallish set up a design studio in a building in Nahalat Binyamin, Tel Aviv, that had been chosen as a national landmark.

His design studio doubled as a kind of front for SHA'I, the Haganah's secret service.

Wallish was responsible for the calligraphy and design of the scroll for Israel's Declaration of Independence.

Due to drafting debates beyond his control, Wallish had only finished the bottom part of the scroll by the time of the signing and announcement.

In fact, David Ben-Gurion did not read the actual scroll but had to work from handwritten notes for the public declaration on 14 May 1948.

The photograph shown here was taken by Wallish's brother-in-law, Rudi Weissenstein.

Wallish's scroll was prepared in three sections that were bound together.

The original Declaration scroll is located in Israel's National Archives.

He based the calligraphy style on a Torah scroll from the sixteenth century.

In addition, Walisch handled the preparation of the exhibit hall in which the State's Independence was announced.

At the direction of Ben-Gurion and the immediate guidance of Ze'ev Sharef, Secretary of the National Administration, Wallish had the hall cleared of art not related to Jews and Israel.

He had the hall's works exchanged for such works as Marc Chagall's "Jew Holding a Scroll."

In 1948, too, Wallish took the lead in designing Israel's first postage stamps.

He chose a design based on ancient coins, found in archaeological research on the First Jewish-Roman War and the Bar Kochba Revolt.

He also designed the first day cover for the stamps' first usage on the first business day after Independence was declared, Sunday, 16 May 1948.

Since the name of the state had not yet been determined during the design and secretive printing of the stamps, they were designed with the name Doar Ivri ("Hebrew mail") rather than Israel, the name found on all subsequent postage issues.

His doar ivri design was also used for Israel's first provisional postage dues; he then designed the First Festival stamps (the first bearing the name of Israel, featuring an ancient LMLK seal impression), Israel's first postage dues (1949) and the symbol of the Israel Post.

He also prepared the first airmail stamps, a definitive series with motifs from ancient art (1950), the coinage stamps definitives (based on doar ivri but with Israel named), as well as provisional official mail (bul sherut) stamps on the coinage design (1951) stamps.

Wallish also contributed a variety of original designs, including stamps commemorating Petah Tikva's 70th anniversary, Israel Independence Day (1951, 52, 54, 57 and 58), World Refugee Year (1960), the 25th Zionist Congress (1960), and the centennial of the Hebrew press in Israel (with a Halbanon newspaper page in the background, 1963).

Wallish also designed the annual holiday stamp in 1952, stamps for three philatelic exhibitions (the souvenir sheet for Tabul 1949, Taba 1952, Tabim 1954).

He also designed a menorah stamp (1952) and a defense series (1957), with the insignia of the Haganah.

In 2007, several original pieces of Wallish artwork for the Doar Ivri stamp were sold at auction.

In one preliminary essay, the stamp is designed as a triangle.

Furthermore, in another Wallish essay, the stamps on the first day cover were prepared with the "wrong" name of the state: Yehudah (יהודה, cf. Judah or Judea), as shown here.

He had also proposed to put Eretz Yisrael on the stamps, which the provisional government leaders turned down as well.

After speaking privately with German stamp dealers, who recommended a Hebrew equivalent to Deutsche Post ("German Mail"), Wallish proposed the phrase Doar Ivri, which was accepted.

After Doar Ivri, Wallish continued to be a leading designer of Israeli stamps.