The Israeli Economy in the 1980s

In the 1980s Israel suffered spiraling inflation and troublesome economic challenges from bearing the cost of maintaining national security and accepting Jewish immigrants from all over the world. At the beginning of the decade, inflation was at a rate of 131 percent. In an effort to lower inflation and to stabilize the monetary system, the Israeli government changed the form of currency from the lira to the shekel.

When Rutchen gets the idea to go to Switzerland and exchange Israeli coins for valuable Swiss francs, she uses worthless Israeli lira, which had been replaced by the shekel at the time of the story. Even though the lira was an obsolete form of currency, her father has squirreled away stacks of the coins.

By the middle of the decade, Israel's inflation rate had subsided to approximately 20 percent and plans were devised to stimulate economic...