How was 'Israel' once 'Palestine'? New books and old coins

• Published date: 27 September 2021
• Author: JACOB SIVAK
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Coins for Mandatory Palestine were minted from 1927 until 1946 and were based on the Palestine Pound. One Palestine Pound equaled 1000 Mils. My coin is a bronze two Mils one dated 1946. (Coins for 1947 were minted but not distributed because the Mandate was coming to an end. These were supposed to have been melted down, but a few did get into the hands of collectors and museums and are considered to be very rare.)

Read More...

The side of the coin indicating two Mils, in English Arabic, and Hebrew, is decorated with an olive branch. The obverse side has the date of 1946, as well as the Arabic date, along with the name Palestine in English Arabic, and Hebrew.

The Hebrew lettering, which reads as 'Palestina', from right to left, of course, is followed by the Hebrew letters aleph and yod in parenthesis. The two letters are separated by two Hebrew typographical marks that look like double quotation marks. These are gershayim, and are used to indicate an acronym or abbreviation. For example, a״h (aleph heh) after a man who died, means alav ha-shalom (peace be upon him). If a woman, it is aleha ha-shalom (ayin-heh). Gershayim are also used as cantillation marks to indicate how to vocalize a certain word when chanting the Torah.

The aleph yod abbreviation on the coins stands for Eretz Yisrael, the name used by the Jewish people from biblical times to the present for the geographical area that made up the lands of the ancient kingdoms of Judea and Samaria, and later the British Mandate of Palestine, and still later the State of Israel.

The back story to this unusual aspect of the Hebrew name is provided by Israel Cohen in A Short History of Palestine (1951). While the Jewish representatives to the Mandatory government objected to the transliteration of Palestine into Hebrew and preferred the traditional Hebrew name of Eretz Yisrael, there were Arab objections. The compromise, suggested by Herbert Samuel, the first British High Commissioner to Palestine, who was a Jew and a Zionist, was the addition, in parentheses, of the Hebrew initials for Eretz Yisrael. The aleph yod abbreviation was used on all official documents, stamps, and coins until the end of the Mandate.

During the Mandate the term Palestinian applied both to Jews and to Arabs and Jewish institutions such as today's Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and The Jerusalem Post newspaper were then called the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra and The Palestine Post, respectively. In fact, until the early...