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Hanna Rovina (1889 - 1980)
Hanna Rovina came from a Hassidic family. In her youth, while on a course for Hebrew kindergarten school teachers in Warsaw. she met Nachum Zemach, who at the time was a young Hebrew teacher. In Warsaw he founded the "Habimah Ha'ivrit" ("The Hebrew Stagel Company and suggested to Rovina that she act in Mark Arenstein's "The Eternal Song". Later Rovina also played in Chekhov's "Marriages". During the First World War, she left Warsaw and her theatrical activities and returned to being a kindergarten teacher. Towards the end of the war, in 1917, she joined a company of young Hebrew-speaking actors which Zemach had got together in Moscow. Zemach approached Stanislavski, the greatest Russian director of the time, and asked him if he would take the new company - Habimah" - under his patronage. Stanislavuki was encited by the idea and suggested that one of his protégés, an actor and producer, Vakhtangov, be the new company's instructor. Under Vakhtangov's direction, Rovina reached one of her artistic peaks - playing the part of Leah in An-ski's "The Dybbuk" (then entitled "Between Two Worlds"). The atmosphere at rehearsals is recalled by Haim Nachman Bialik, who had translated the play into Hebrew. "Habimah's acting overwhelmed everyone who came within its orbit... perhaps it was the ecstasy stemming from some spring of invisible fire..." In 1928. Hanna Rovina emigrated to Palestine with the rest of the Habinia company. and became the First Lady of the Hebrew Theatre. She played many roles, including the young Jewess in Gutzkow's "Uriel da Costa", Mrs. Elving in Ibsen's "Ghosts", the mother in Yigal Mossensohn's "Be-Arvot ha-Negev ("In the Negev Desert"). Jokasta, in Sophocles's "Oedipus Rev" and Tzrua in Nissim Aloni's "Most Cruel - the King". Rovina played all these roles to perfection. Her performances eucelled in their grandeur. their nobility of spirit and their sincerity. In 1956. Rovina was awarded the Israel Prize for Theatrical Arts.
On the stamp appear three portraits of Hanna Rovina from different periods in her life. On the tab of the stamp we see a drawing of the "Habimah" Theatre and at the bottom of the tab a quotation taken from An-ski's "The Dybbuk".
Rivka Guber (1902 - 1981)
Rivka Guber was born in 1902 to a family of Jewish farmers who for generations had lived in the village of Vilaszashatanovo Witbesc in the Charuson county in the Ukraine. From early childhood she was accustomed to hard work n the fields and the cowshed. Nevertheless, she completed elementary school in the village, and since she showed a promising spark of ability, she was sent to continue her studies at the school in the county's central district of Waktrinoslav. There she finished high school and two years of university. She experienced the terror of the Bolshevik revolution when her father, along with all the adults of the village, was recruited into the war and the village was controlled in turn by the various forces which were fighting each other.
In 1921 she married Mordechai Guber, a yeshiva graduate and a Hebrew teacher who later became an agricultural instructor in Israel and headed the regional councils of Beer Tuvia and Lachish. In 1925 they settled in Rehovot where Rivka worked as a teacher. They later left Rehovot n order to help establish Moshav Kfar Bilu.
During World Wafli Rivka left her husband and three small children to join the British Army. In 1939 the Cuber family was among the founders of Kfar Warburg a moshav in the south. It was while living there that, in the War of Independence, she lost her two children, Ephraim and Zvi, in whose memory the moshav Kfar Achim" was named. During those years Rivka served as an educator and principal at the Achim School in Kiryat Malachi. She dedicated all her energy to immigrant absorption and to the education of ohm (new immigrants) Irving in the Kastina maabara or transit camp. During those grey days, the children took refuge in her home.
In 1956 the Guber family donated their house and flourishing farm to the Magen Fund, and moved with their daughter, Chaya, to a remote area of the Lachish region where they helped establish a string of moshavim and the city of Qiryat Gat. After the couple retired they lived for two years in Kfar Achim; however due to Mordechais poor health they moved to a senior citizens home in Tel-Aviv.
Even towards the end of her life Rivka continued to help those in need. She travelled everywhere - even as far as Dahab near the southern tip of Sinai where a former pupil from the Kastina transit camp had established the settlement of Di Zahav.
Rivka wrote many books including The Brother, To the Torches of Lachish, The Tradition to Bequeath, Only a Path, and These Are the Legends of Kfar Achim, which were distributed throughout the world and were translated into many languages, including Japanese. In 1979 she was part of the official Israeli entourage accompanying the then Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the United States to sign the Camp David Peace Treaty.
In the year 1981 she met her tragic death. Such was the bitter end to "The Mother of Sons", a title bestowed upon her by her admirer, David Ben-Gurion.