Governor Stanley Fischer of the Bank of Israel said Monday that a picture of the late former chief Sephardic Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu will not grace the new generation of Israeli banknotes. In a letter to Member of Knesset Zevulun Orlev, Fischer wrote that the rabbi was one of a number of worthy people, but not all of them could be among the four to be memorialized on the money. Based on a special commission, headed by retired justice Ya'akov Tuerkel, he will recommend to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, that the new pictures be those of Menachem Begin and Yitzchak Rabin, prime ministers who signed peace treaties, and the poetess Rachel.
Israel's first Nobel Prize winner, author S.Y. Agnon will continue to be represented. There are those at the Bank of Israel who hold out hope that he will be replaced by Rabbi Eliyahu.