Content area
Full text
ABSTRACT
The Allegoric Figures Series was the first Israeli banknotes series carefully designed by a special committee, namely, the Bank of Israel Banknotes and Coinage Planning Committee. Analyzing the committee's discussions and its discourse with its superiors-the governor of the Bank of Israel, the minister of finance, and the prime minister-this paper reveals a consistent attempt to design the series in the spirit of the desired Zionist-Israeli society. Influenced by the banknotes of the French Revolution, the committee introduced symbols of a pioneering, productive society. Their aim was to create a common denominator during the peak of the Great Aliya and a tool for the benefit of the melting pot ideal-an ideal that Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion himself encouraged to be expressed through the banknote illustrations. This article, based on documents of the Bank of Israel Banknotes and Coinage Planning Committee made public for the first time, examines the deliberations of the committee and the reasons for its choices.
INTRODUCTION
THE EXIGENT AND HASTY TRANSITION FROM THE STERLING POUND bloc to the Israeli Pound in May 1948 forced the leaders of the Eretz-Israeli economy to devise instant solutions for the national currency situation from scratch. Eliezer Hoofien, director general of the Anglo-Palestine Bank- which was founded to provide banking services to the Yishuv years before the establishment of the state of Israel-was the first to comprehend the monetary vacuum left by the disintegrating British Mandate administration. Anticipating the difficulties involved, Hoofien placed an order for State of Israel banknotes with a specialized printing company in the United States, and at the same time ordered similar banknotes from a local printer, fearing that the notes would not arrive from the United States in time. The first banknotes arrived in Israel three months after the establishment of the state in mid-August 1948 and the local backup prints were never circulated.
Although it was clear to all that the new government must set up a central bank as soon as possible, separate from the commercial banking system, it was decided in the meantime to adopt the model of the Bank of England, in which there was strict separation between the bank's business transactions and its role of state currency issuer. Once the State of Israel's central bank-the...