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Abstract
This article analyzes the significance of Jerusalem in Jewish-Israeli consciousness through the city's representations on banknotes, based on the proceedings of the Bank of Israel's Banknotes and Coinage Planning Committee since its inception in 1955. The Banknotes Committee, as an institutional body that represents the ruling hegemony, has worked to bolster the emblematic status of Jerusalem as the Jewish-Israeli capital in the past as well as the present. When Israel ruled only the west part of the city from 1948 to 1967, banknotes carried images of that part of Jerusalem only. After the 1967 Six-Day War, however, the representations changed dramatically, mainly depicting sites situated in occupied East Jerusalem. Since 1967, the banknotes have presented the city as Israel's ‘eternal capital’, never to be divided again.
Contributor Notes
NA'AMA SHEFFI is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Sapir Academic College, Sderot. Her main fields of research are Israeli culture, the influence and presence of German culture in Hebrew and Israeli culture, and representations of the Holocaust in original Israeli graphic novels. E-mail: naamash@sapir.ac.il
ANAT FIRST is a Full Professor of Media Studies at the School of Communication, Netanya Academic College, serving as Dean and Director of the MA program. Her main fields of research include mediated representations of minority groups and the conflicts, culture values, and nationalism that illuminate the symbolic ways in which banal nationalism is formulated and constructed. E-mail: d_first@netvision.net.il