2017-11-17 Fri

The latest NIS 20 and NIS 100 notes from Israel will feature famous Ashkenazi poetesses Leah Goldberg and Rachel Bluwstein even after PM's pledge to celebrate Sephardic Jews on bills. The new notes will be released in a week as per an official announcement by the Bank of Israel. They will be presented by Bank of Israel Governor Karnit Flug to President Reuven Rivlin at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on Wednesday. The red NIS 20 bill will feature Rachel Bluwstein and the the NIS 100 note will depict Leah Goldberg. They are the first banknotes belonging to a new series celebrating women, currently in circulation and come in denominations of NIS 20, 50, 100 and 200.

The earlier NIS 10 bill was released in 1985 and depicted the former Prime Minister Golda Meir. They were withdrawn from circulation in the 1990s. Meir was also depicted on the 10,000 shekel bill, before hyperinflation. The shekel was replaced with the new Israeli shekel in 1985. Many women were depicted on Israeli pound before it was replaced by the shekel in 1980.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had tried to subdue the protests among Israeli lawmakers when poets of Sephardi descent were replaced by Ashkenazi ones on new NIS 50 and NIS 200 notes, by pledging to celebrate Sephardic Jews on bills.

The NIS 50 note features an image of a Russian-born Hebrew poet Shaul Tchernichovsky and the NIS 200 bill featured a Polish-born playwright, poet, and journalist who wrote in Hebrew - Nathan Alterman.

The new notes come with advanced security features and have a different length to help visually impaired users identify denominations. The old notes will remain legal tender until they are slowly removed from circulation.