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Please, Mr. Postman

Students at the Kadima Hebrew Academy in Woodland Hills, California, had a big idea for the U.S. Postal Service. Why not issue a special stamp for the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, just as it does each year for Christmas?

"All the students from Kadima wrote letters to the post office asking for a Hanukkah stamp," fifth-grader Barry Constantin told TFK. Some even sent drawings of what the stamp could look like.

To their amazement and delight, the campaign worked. "When the post office read our letters, they saw how much it mattered to us," says Michal Erder, 7. Now, just in time for this year's holiday mail season, the Hanukkah stamp is here. The traditional symbol of the Festival of Lights, nine candles on a menorah, appears on 104 million stamps in the U.S. And for the first time ever, postage stamps in Israel will have an identical design.

The stamp is the first in a series of U.S. stamps honoring different cultural or ethnic holidays. "The menorah's flames symbolize tolerance, diversity, strength, perseverance and reverence," said Israeli Ambassador Eliahu Ben-Elissar at the stamp's unveiling in Washington, D.C.

Kadima students held a celebration to welcome the stamp. "We had cookies and sang Hanukkah songs," said Simone Zimmerman, 5. Hanukkah doesn't begin until December 6, but the kids at Kadima were too excited about their stamp to wait until then.

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