Template talk:Historical currencies of Israel

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[edit] Palestine

between 1927 and 1948 there was no Israel there was Palestine

the Palestinian pound is not Israeli currency , its very simple it Palestinian as its name —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mohammed abushaban (talk • contribs) 21:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC).

What about merging this template with {{Historical currencies of Palestine}}? It would not be wrong to say that the Palestinian pound is the predecessor of the Israeli lira. The currencies listed in these two templates are all related and have overlaps. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 05:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

before 1948 there was no country called Israel and there was Palestine before and after 1948 I had changed the Palestinian one as currencies used in Palestine , how you can use currencies before the country was in the world --Mohammed abushaban 06:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you on the following (in the context of the 20th century):

• There was no Israel before 1948
• There was a Palestine before 1948
• There was no Israeli currency before 1948
• There was a Palestine currency before 1948

But what did the users of the Israeli lira use before there was an Israeli lira? The answer is the Palestinian pound. The Israeli lira replaced the Palestinian pound (even though the Palestinian pound continued to be used in the West Bank and Gaza for a few years). Take a look at {{Historical currencies of Hungary}}. Hungary was part of Austria-Hungary before 1918, but the Austro-Hungarian krone is also listed in the navigational box. Just because the state wasn't formed at that time doesn't mean we can't put the predecessor currencies used in the land in the navigational box. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, let me try to straighten this mix-up:

• Palestine is a polysemy refering to a geographical area (a.k.a among Jews: Land of Israel), a political entity under British mandate 1917-1948 and a political entity of Palestinian Arabs a.k.a West Bank and Gaza or The Palestinian Territories.
• Israel continued to use the Palestinian pound until 1952, when it was replaced by the Israeli lira. Since the British Palestine currency board ceased to exist, the new banknotes were issued by the Anglo-Palestine Company (the Zionist movement financial institute). On the new note, the script in Hebrew reads "Land of Israel lira", but the script in Arabic and English remained the same as that on the British banknotes. You could say that the Israeli currency was introduced only in 1952, while the Anglo-Palestine Company filled in for the Palestine currency board between May 1948 and 1952.
• The Palestine pound before 1948 was not an Arab currency, it was a currency issued by the British colonial authorities in cooperation with the Zionist Anglo-Palestine company. It was used throught Palestine and until 1946 in Transjordan, so Palestinian Arabs used it too.

DrorK 15:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm still inclined to merge these two templates since there are much overlap. [1] and [2] are great resources for details on dates. But keep in mind that they sometimes make mistakes. And the Palestine template is used only once.

IMHO, I would call the currency issued by the Anglo-Palestine Company from August 1948 to 1952 "Israeli" since it was a Zionist movement financial institute, and the Hebrew text also says Israeli (according to you). Table of Modern Monetary History agrees with me. May I ask you, where did the date 1946 come from? I thought the Palestine pound was usedin Jordan and West Bank until 1950 and Gaza until 1951..... --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 22:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The Anglo-Palestine Company was indeed Zionist, but until 1952 it was based in London (although it had branches in Palestine/Israel). The banknotes didn't say "Israeli", but "Eretz Yisraeli". The name of the British mandate in Hebrew was "Palestina (E.Y.)" where "E.Y" stands for Eretz Yisrael. The APC used the term "Eretz Yisrael" rather than "Palestina (E.Y.) for the Hebrew text.

So the Anglo-Palestine Company notes, are they Palestine pound or Israeli lira? Consistency must be enforced across different pages (e.g. Palestinian pound, Israeli lira, and the two templates). --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 14:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Jordan (or actually Transjordan as it was once called) adopted its own currency before the end of the British Mandate over Palestine. The West Bank was an integral part of the British mandate, and only in 1949 following the end of the mandate and the 1948 war, was it annexed to Jordan. DrorK 13:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Got reference? Because TMMH says 1950. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 14:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I've got a clearer picture having read this [3]. While (Trans-)Jordan became independant on 1946, it kept using the Palestinian pound exclusively until 1949. In 1949 the first Jordanian coins were minted, but the final transition to an independant currency took place only on September 30, 1950. On that date the West Bank was already annexed to Jordan. Apparently, Jordan also relied on a London-based company, "The Jordanian Currency Board" to administer its currency system, until 1964, when the Cetral Bank of Jordan was established in Jordan itself. The question whether the Anglo Palestine Company Currency notes should be considered Israeli currency is hard to answer. The company was established in London as the Zionist financial institute on 1902, and moved to Tel Aviv only on 1951. Its banknotes didn't bear the name of the State of Israel (as I said, Israel and Eretz Yisrael are not exactly the same), but they were used exclusively in Israel. The APC continued the policy of the Palestine Currency Board without any changes, however this policy continued until December 1st 1954, 2 years after the Palestinian pound was officially replaced by the Israeli lira. Summing it all up - I can't give you a definite answer. There was clearly a long transitional period, but I don't know where to draw the line between the Palestinian pound and the Israeli lira. DrorK 19:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

(unindent)It seems like there are two issues here:

1. What should we call the currency in use in Israel/Palestine/Transjordan in the early 1950's?
2. Should the templates be merged?

I'd have to do more research to really understand the geopolitics of the region. What I can tell from looking at the Standard Catalog of World Coins is that there was a currency which they call the Palestinian pound. The coins were made until 1947 although the last year they were not issued. They said "filistina" in Arabic, "Paleshtina (E. I.)" in Hebrew, and Palestine in English (I don't have the book right in front of me now, so I may have misspelled the transliterations a little). So, it seems clear to me that this currency should be called Palestinian, but this doesn't mean it wasn't used in the area we now call Israel, or even that it wasn't also known as "Land of Israel" at the time. Since there was definitely a time when the names Palestine and (Land of) Israel were both used for the same region (pre-1948), and with the complex situation dealing with occupied territories, I can't see a benefit in trying to make separate templates. This seems like a case where succession boxes (like on East African shilling among other articles) would be the best way to illustrate the situation. That format allows us to clearly specify the names of political entities and transitions between them as well as the transitions of currencies. It seems like an interesting project, and I may play with it a bit, but I should probably be focusing on other things right now, so no promises. Ingrid 23:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Agora and new agora

The subdivision of the Israeli lira was named agora in 1960. In 1980 the lira was replaced with the sheqel and the agora with new agora (agora ħadaša). In 1985 the sheqel was replaced with new sheqel and the new agora with agora. Now, I know it sounds confusing, because the "old sheqel" goes with "new agora" and the "new sheqel" goes with "agora", but then again, had the Bank of Israel named the new sheqel's subdivision "new agora" it would have created confusion with the subdivision of the "old sheqel". DrorK 13:06, 28 September 2007 (UTC)