Yeshiva University Museum

My name is Alyson Katz. I am a student at SUNY University at Buffalo studying Studio Art, Art History, and Anthropology.

This summer I had the amazing opportunity to intern at the Yeshiva University Museum. My main job while volunteering was to catalogue part of the museum’s collection of First Day Covers into the database and to do research on how they can be used in the museum. Going into this project I had no idea what a first day cover is, so for those who do not know what it is, it’s an envelope, usually with a picture relating to the stamp, with one or multiple stamps that is postmarked on the same day that the stamp is issued. Usually these are released to commemorate a special occasion, the birthday/death of a prominent figure, or annually for certain holidays. While cataloguing these envelopes I had to do a bit of background information for each in order to know more information about what the stamp was released for and any history behind the event. All of the envelopes I was working with are from Israel released from 1948-1986, so I was able to learn a lot about Israeli history and how they celebrate different holidays just by doing a bit of research about stamps.