|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Chapter III |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Sheqel series |
|||||||||
|
In June 1969 the Knesset (Israel's parliament) passed a law providing for the Sheqel to become the currency of Israel at a date to be determined on the recommendation of the Governor of the Bank of Israel. In November 1977 conditions were considered ripe for implementing this law, and in May 1978 Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Finance Minister Simcha Ehrlich approved the Governor's proposal to introduce a series of Sheqel banknotes identical to the Lira notes except for the denominations, which were to be determined by dropping one zero from the denominations of the Lira series. The notes were prepared in the same color and size and with the same portraits as the Series IV of the Lira, in order to make it easier for the public to become familiar with the new denominations. |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
1 Sheqel |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Cat. |
Date |
Varieties |
Value USD |
||||||
|
Heb. |
Civil |
F |
VF |
XF |
AU |
Unc. |
|||
|
43ZZ |
5738 |
1978 |
000.30 |
000.30 |
000.40 |
000.60 |
001.20 |
||
|
Images on 1 Sheqel banknote: |
|||||||||
|
The 1 Sheqel banknote depicts Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, one of the most famous British Jews in the 19th century. Born in 1784 in Livorno, Italy, Montefiore was a financier, stockbroker and banker, but primarily a philanthropist. Jewish philanthropy and the Holy Land were at the center of Montefiore's interests. He traveled to Palestine seven times, first in 1827, and made his last trip at the age of 91. Montefiore donated large sums of money to promote industry, education and health. He left an indelible mark on the Jerusalem landscape with the windmill in Yemin Moshe, named after him, which was the first Jewish neighborhood built outside the Old City walls. These activities were part of a broader program to enable the Jews of Palestine to become self-supporting in anticipation of the establishment of a Jewish homeland. In addition to the windmill (to provide cheap flour to poor Jews), he built a printing press and textile factory, and helped to finance several agricultural colonies. He also attempted to acquire land for Jewish cultivation, but was hampered by Ottoman restrictions on land sale to non-Muslims. Following an outbreak of cholera in 1861 due to overcrowding, Montefiore built Mishkenot Sha'ananim outside the Old City. A major source of information about the Jewish community in Palestine during the 19th century is a sequence of five censuses commissioned by Montefiore, attempting to list every Jew individually, together with some biographical and social information. In 1839, during his second visit to Eretz Israel, Montefiore first raised the subject of connecting Jaffa and Jerusalem by rail, a project which he actively propagated during his fifth trip in 1857. The railway project was finally postponed until the late 1880s, because of disinterest by the Ottoman rulers. Although Montefiore only spent a few days in Jerusalem, the 1827 visit changed his life, when he resolved to live a life of piety and Jewish observance. Sir Moses Montefiore died in 1885 at the age of 100. The obverse of the banknote shows in the background the Montefiore windmill against the ramparts of the Old City of Jerusalem. On the reverse appear the Jaffa Gate and David's Tower. |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
5 Sheqalim |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Cat. |
Date |
Varieties |
Value USD |
||||||
|
Heb. |
Civil |
F |
VF |
XF |
AU |
Unc. |
|||
|
44 |
5738 |
1978 |
|
0.40 |
0.40 |
0.60 |
0.90 |
2.00 |
|
|
Images on 5 Sheqalim banknote: |
|||||||||
|
The 5 Sheqalim banknote shows an effigy of Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952), chemist, Zionist leader, president of the World Zionist Organization and the first president of Israel from 1949 until his death in 1952. Weizmann is noted for major chemical inventions which helped the British war effort in World War I. These, and his close relations with British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour, are considered crucial reasons for the issuance of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which "...His Majesty's Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people..." Weizmann founded the scientific research institute in Rehovot, later renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science. Both Chaim Weizmann and his wife Vera are buried on the grounds of the Weizmann Institute. On the banknote's reverse, behind the portrait of Chaim Weizmann, appears the central library building of the Weizmann Institute. The reverse depicts the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
10 Sheqalim Date of issue: 24 February 1980 |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Cat. |
Date |
Varieties |
Value USD |
||||||
|
Heb. |
Civil |
F |
VF |
XF |
AU |
Unc. |
|||
|
45 |
5738 |
1978 |
0.40 |
0.40 |
0.60 |
1.00 |
2.50 |
||
|
Images on 10 Sheqalim banknote: |
|||||||||
|
The 10 Sheqalim banknote is dedicated to Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), the founder of the modern Zionist movement and visionary of Israel. Theodor (Hebrew: Binyamin Ze'ev) Herzl was born in Budapest in 1860. After his move to Vienna he became a writer, playwright and journalist, working as the Paris correspondent of the influential liberal Vienna newspaper Neue Freie Presse. Having encountered antisemitism from an early age, one single anti-Semitic outrage would shape his life and the fate of the Jews in the twentieth century, the Dreyfus affair. Witnessing mobs shouting "Death to the Jews" in Paris, the cradle of the French Revolution, he came to the conclusion that the Jewish problem is not a social issue, that anti-Semitism is a stable and immutable factor in human society which assimilation cannot solve, and that the only way out of this impasse is the transformation of all Jews worldwide into one nation with a Jewish state of its own. Herzl's ideas were met with enthusiasm by the Jewish masses, especially in Eastern Europe, and the result was the convening of the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, on August 29-31, 1897, where the "Basle Program" of the Zionist Movement was adopted, declaring that "Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine...". At the Congress the World Zionist Organization was established as the political arm of the Jewish people, and Herzl was elected its first president. Herzl convened six Zionist Congresses between 1897 and 1902. It was here that the tools for Zionist activism were forged: the Jewish Colonial Trust and the Jewish National Fund. After the First Zionist Congress, the movement met yearly at an international Zionist Congress. Herzl tried to gain acceptance from the great powers. He traveled to the Land of Israel and Istanbul in 1898 to meet with Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, without success. Thereafter he turned to Great Britain, where he was offered a Jewish autonomous region in Kenya (erroneously referred to as Uganda). At the Sixth Zionist Congress (1903), Herzl proposed the British Uganda Program as a temporary refuge for Jews in immediate danger. While he made it clear that this program would not affect the ultimate aim of Zionism, a Jewish entity in the Land of Israel, the proposal aroused a storm at the Congress and nearly led to a split in the Zionist movement. The Uganda Program was finally rejected by the Zionist movement at the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905. Herzl died in Vienna in 1904, of pneumonia and a weak heart overworked by his incessant efforts on behalf of Zionism. By then the movement had found its place on the world political map. In May 1948 Theodor Herzl's vision became reality with the establishment of the State of Israel, and in 1949 his remains were reinterred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. The obverse of the banknote shows the effigy of Theodor Herzl with the entrance gate to Mount Herzl in the background. Its reverse depicts the Zion Gate in Jerusalem. |
|||||||||
|
50 Sheqel Date of issue: 24 February 1980 |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
4 black squares between BANK OF ISRAEL in English and 50 in Arabic on reverse |
|||||||||
|
Cat. |
Date |
Varieties |
Value USD |
||||||
|
Heb. |
Civil |
F |
VF |
XF |
AU |
Unc. |
|||
|
46a |
5738 |
1978 |
0.30 |
0.30 |
0.40 |
0.70 |
1.50 |
||
|
46b |
bar strip code on reverse |
2.00 |
2.00 |
4.00 |
7.00 |
15.00 |
|||
|
46c |
2 green squares beside bottom serial # on reverse |
20.00 |
40.00 |
70.00 |
130.00 |
280.00 |
|||
|
46d |
4 black squares beside bottom serial # on reverse |
20.00 |
35.00 |
60.00 |
100.00 |
200.00 |
|||
|
Images on 50 Sheqalim banknote: |
|||||||||
|
The 50 Sheqalim banknote is dedicated to David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973), Israel's first prime minister from 1948 until 1963 (except an almost two-year long retirement in 1954-55). Ben-Gurion is regarded as the architect, founder and prime builder of the State of Israel. David Ben-Gurion was born in Plonsk, Poland in 1886 as David Gruen. Prior to his emigration to the Land of Israel in 1906, he had already been an active Zionist in his native Poland. Immediately upon his arrival he became one of the main leaders of the fledgling Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine), was instrumental in the creation of the first agricultural settlements, and the establishment of the self-defense group "Hashomer" (The Watchman). In 1910 he officially adopted the name Ben-Gurion (lion cub). Deported by the Ottoman authorities, he traveled on behalf of the Zionist cause to New York, where he met and married Paula Monbesz. Back in Eretz Israel, Ben-Gurion was a founder of the trade unions, in particular the national federation, the Histadrut, which he dominated from the early 1920s. He also served as its chairman, and from 1935 headed the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency. Having led the struggle to establish the State of Israel in May 1948, Ben-Gurion became prime minister and defense minister. As premier, he oversaw the establishment of the state's institutions. He presided over various national projects aimed at the rapid development of the country and its population, such as absorbing massive waves of immigrants, rapid industrialization including a partially self-supporting national defense industry, construction of the national water carrier, rural development projects, and the establishment of new towns. In particular, he called for pioneering settlement in outlying areas, especially in the Negev. In late 1953, Ben-Gurion left the government, retired to Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev, and returned to political life 1955. Despite bitter opposition, Ben-Gurion supported the establishment of relations with West Germany and the Reparations Agreement, which gave a boost to Israel's development in many fields. In 1963 Ben-Gurion resigned, but remained politically active. After a split with his Mapai party (which soon thereafter became a dominant part of the present-day Labor Party), and a later attempt to re-enter politics independently, Ben-Gurion retired from political life in 1970 and returned to Sde Boker, where he died in 1973. TIME Magazine ranks David Ben-Gurion as one of the "twenty leaders who helped to define the political and social fabric of our times". On the reverse is the Golden Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem. |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
100 Sheqel Date of issue: 11 December 1980 |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Cat. |
Date |
Varieties |
Value USD |
||||||
|
Heb. |
Civil |
F |
VF |
XF |
AU |
Unc. |
|||
|
47a |
5739 |
1979 |
0.80 |
0.80 |
1.40 |
3.00 |
8.00 |
||
|
47b |
2 brown squares beside bottom serial # on reverse |
20.00 |
20.00 |
30.00 |
50.00 |
100.00 |
|||
|
Images on 100 Sheqalim banknote: |
|||||||||
|
On the 100 Sheqalim banknote appears Zeev Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940), soldier, orator, novelist and poet, founder of the Jewish Legion and supreme commander of the Irgun Tzva'i Le'umi (IZL or Etzel). Born in Odessa, Jabotinsky became absorbed in Zionist activities from an early age, advocating settlement in Eretz Israel and political and educational activities in the Diaspora. Together with Joseph Trumpeldor he formed a Jewish Legion, the "First Judean Regiment" (with a Menorah as its insignia), to join the Allies in liberating Eretz Israel from Ottoman rule. Jabotinsky headed the first company to cross the Jordan River, and was decorated for doing so. Anticipating anti-Jewish violence by Arab extremists, in 1920 Jabotinsky organized the Haganah in Jerusalem, openly leading it to confront Arab mobs during the Passover riots. In 1923, after disagreement over Zionist acquiescence in the British role in Palestine, Jabotinsky left the Zionist Organization and in 1935 he founded his own revisionist New Zionist Organization (NZO). Following the Arab uprising of 1936, Jabotinsky became supreme commander of the IZL in 1937. In his book The Jewish War Front (1940), he formulated what he though should be the Jewish attitude to the war and its aftermath. In February 1940 he went to the US to enlist support for a Jewish army, but in August he died of a heart attack near New York. His remains were reinterred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem in 1965. The obverse of the banknote shows Jabotinsky's portrait with in the background the Shuni House near Binyamina, a training camp of the Irgun during the dying days of the British mandate, now a national monument. On the reverse is Herod's Gate (Flower Gate in Hebrew), one of the gates in the wall around the Old City of Jerusalem. |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
500 Sheqalim Date of issue: 1 December 1982 |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Cat. |
Date |
Varieties |
Value USD |
||||||
|
Heb. |
Civil |
F |
VF |
XF |
AU |
Unc. |
|||
|
48 |
5742 |
1982 |
0.80 |
0.80 |
1.20 |
2.00 |
7.00 |
||
|
Image on 500 Sheqalim banknote: |
|||||||||
|
The 500 Sheqalim banknote shows Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (1845-1934), a French philanthropist and activist for Jewish national and humanitarian affairs and a member of the prominent Rothschild family. In 1882, Edmond de Rothschild began to buy land in Palestine, becoming a leading proponent of the Zionist movement, financing the first site at Rishon LeZion. In his goal for the establishment of a Jewish homeland, he promoted industrialization and economic development. In 1924, he established the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA), which acquired 506 km² (125,000 acres) of land and set up business ventures. Edmond de Rothschild also played a pivotal role in the wine industry. Under the supervision of his administrators in Palestine, farm colonies and vineyards were established, and two major wineries were opened in Rishon LeZion and Zichron Yaakov. It is estimated that Edmond de Rothschild spent over 50 million dollars in supporting the settlements, and backed research in electricity by engineers and financed development of an electric generating station. Edmond de Rothschild is buried at Ramat Hanadiv Memorial Gardens near Zichron Yaakov, where his remains were re-interred in 1954. For his Jewish philanthropy Baron Edmond became known as "HaNadiv HaYadu'a", ("The Known Benefactor" or "The Famous Benefactor"). On the banknote's obverse, Edmond de Rothschild's effigy is flanked by agricultural workers and an agricultural settlement. The reverse shows a cluster of ripe grapes, symbolizing Rothschild's pre-eminence in building a thriving wine industry in the Land of Israel. |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
1000 Sheqalim Date of issue: 17 November 1983 |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Cat. # 49b |
|||||||||
|
Cat. |
Date |
Varieties |
Value USD |
||||||
|
Heb. |
Civil |
F |
VF |
XF |
AU |
Unc. |
|||
|
49a |
5743 |
1983 |
'RARAV' error on right side of obverse |
2.50 |
3.50 |
6.00 |
9.00 |
25.00 |
|
|
49b |
'HARAV' corrected on right side of obverse |
2.00 |
2.50 |
3.50 |
6.00 |
15.00 |
|||
|
Images on 1000 Sheqalim banknote: |
|||||||||
|
The 1000 Sheqalim banknote depicts on its obverse an effigy of Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), Rabbi, physician and philosopher. Maimonides is acknowledged to be one of the foremost philosophers in Jewish history, whose works and views are considered a cornerstone of Jewish thought and study. Maimonides' full name was Moshe ben Maimon, and in Israel he is almost always referred to by the Hebrew acronym of his title and name, "Rambam" (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon). Outside Israel he is widely known by his Greek name, Moses Maimonides. A passage from the manuscript of one of his most famous scholarly works, "Mishneh Tora" (Code of Jewish Law), forms the background of the banknote's obverse. |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
5000 Sheqalim |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Cat. |
Date |
Varieties |
Value USD |
||||||
|
Heb. |
Civil |
F |
VF |
XF |
AU |
Unc. |
|||
|
50a |
5744 |
1984 |
2.00 |
2.00 |
3.50 |
6.00 |
25.00 |
||
|
Images on 5000 Sheqalim banknote: |
|||||||||
|
The 5000 Sheqalim banknote shows on its obverse a portrait of Levi Eshkol (1895-1969), third prime minister of Israel from 1963 until his death in February 1969. Eshkol, who was finance minister during the twelve years preceding his premiership, is credited with extensive economic, industrial and infrastructural progress during the first two decades of independence. Also depicted on the banknote's obverse is the Jerusalem skyline, a city reunited during Eshkol's tenure as prime minister. On the reverse, coupled water pipes, flowing water, and the stark contrast between verdant fields and barren wasteland, epitomizes Levi Eshkol's preoccupation with building the fledgling nation's infrastructure, the highlight being the completion in 1964 of the national water conduit project, carrying water through underground pipes and surface canals from the Sea of Galilee to central Israel and the Negev desert. |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
10000 Sheqalim Reverse: Golda Meir crowded by Soviet Jews outside Moscow synagogue, 1948 |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Cat. |
Date |
Varieties |
Value USD |
||||||
|
Heb. |
Civil |
F |
VF |
XF |
AU |
Unc. |
|||
|
51a |
5744 |
1984 |
3.00 |
3.00 |
5.00 |
12.00 |
40.00 |
||
|
Images on 10000 Sheqalim banknote: |
|||||||||
|
The 10000 Sheqalim banknote depicts on its obverse Golda Meir (1898-1978), Israel's fourth prime minister from 1969 until 1974. Born in present-day Ukraine and raised for 15 years in the USA, Golda Meir (affectionately commonly called "Golda" in Israel) was Israel's first - and until now only - woman prime minister, and ranks #3 on the world list (after Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka and Indira Gandhi of India). Before her premiership, Golda was Israel's first ambassador to the USSR, and served as foreign minister for ten years. Golda's preoccupation with the plight of Soviet Jewry, first during her short stint in Moscow, later as foreign minister, but primarily when she was prime minister, is reflected on the banknote's obverse by a stylized tree with intertwining branches forming a Star of David against a background of seven-branched candelabra and the words "Let My People Go" in microprint. During Golda's premiership the Russian authorities were forced to open the exit gates, resulting in a massive outflow of Soviet Jews, many of whom settled in Israel. |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
