Shekelization

Old name for a new currency

Israelis last week got a new currency with a very old name. The shekel, originally a weight used by Jews in biblical times to measure gold and silver, replaced the pound, which has depreciated rapidly because of the country's 111% annual rate of inflation. The monetary rate of exchange: ten old pounds for one shekel, which is worth 25 U.S. cents.

Finance Minister Yigael Hurvitz called the currency changeover a "mere technicality," but it was clearly more than that. Psychologically, the government hoped, the introduction of a new and more valuable currency would curb the profligate habits of Israelis, who are accustomed to spending their pounds freely. Emotionally, the government hoped, naming the new currency after the ancient Jewish coin would appeal to the Israelis' sense of history. According to Genesis 23: 2-19, Abraham paid 400 shekels to buy a burial site in Hebron for his wife Sarah. In Roman times the shekel was not only a coin but a symbol of Jewish sovereignty. In modern times the World Zionist Congress, for example, liked to refer to its annual levy on members as a shekel.

Confusion rather than confidence greeted the changeover, which was actually authorized by the Knesset as far back as 1969. Fearful that the new shekels would depreciate as rapidly as the old pounds, Israelis rejected Hurvitz's pleas not to embark on "a buying spree" and converged on Arab money-changers in Israel to convert the new currency into American dollars, British sterling and even Jordanian dinars.

Chaos is likely to continue for a while. For one thing, the old pounds will continue in circulation for three more months. For another, the new currency is almost indistinguishable from the old. Israelis riding the underground cable car in Haifa immediately took advantage of the similarities. They discovered that the new 1-agora coin (one-hundredth of a shekel) fit into a turnstile slot designed to take 6-pound tokens. They happily rode the cable car at one-sixtieth of the former cost until authorities changed the size of the slot.

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