JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s government approved the famous personalities who will appear on a new series of shekel banknotes.
The approval of the list Sunday, which includes some of Israel’s most beloved national poets, comes after the list was finalized last month by the Bank of Israel following more than a year of heated debate.
The personalities who will grace the new notes are Rachel the Poetess on the 20 shekel note, Shaul Tchernichovsky on the 50 shekel note, Leah Goldberg on the 100 shekel note and Natan Alterman on the 200 shekel note.
Rachel, who died in 1931, is a leading poet in modern Hebrew whose works have been set to music. Tchernichovsky was a two-time winner of the Bialik Prize for Literature.
Goldberg, who died in 1970, was a poet, author, playwright, literary translator and researcher of Hebrew literature who translated "War and Peace" into Hebrew. Alterman, an author, playwright, poet and newspaper columnist who died in 1970, won the 1968 Israel Prize for Literature.
"In order to maintain the public’s trust in the State’s currency, the governor decided to replace the currency series with a new series which will include some of the world’s most advanced security and identification markings in a bid to make counterfeiting more difficult," the Bank of Israel said in a statement.
The current faces on Israeli currency are former Prime Minister Moshe Sharett on the 20 shekel note; S.Y. Agnon on the 50 shekel note; and former presidents Yitzhak Ben- Zvi and Zalman Shazar on the 100 shekel and 200 shekel notes.
