S.Y. Agnon was an Israeli writer and one of the leading Modern Hebrew novelists and short-story writers. In 1966 he was the co-recipient, with Nelly Sachs, of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

His works deal with the conflict between traditional Jewish life and language and the modern world. They also attempt to recapture the fading traditions of the European shtetl (village). In a wider context, he also contributed to broadening the characteristic conception of the narrator's role in literature. Agnon had a distinctive linguistic style mixing modern and Rabbinic Hebrew. Agnon shared the Nobel Prize with the poet Nelly Sachs in 1966.

Agnon featured on the fifty-shekel bill, the second series. This fifty new sheqalim bill features the portrait of Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israeli writer. Text on the purple coloured paper banknote reads ‘Bank of Israel’. The backside features various buildings on a globe. The front side of this Israeli note has Hebrew characters; the backside is in English and Arabic.

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