Austerity in Israel

Austerity in Israel (צנע, Tséna) was the policy of austerity imposed in the State of Israel from 1949 to 1959. It included rationing and other emergency measures to weather the economic crisis in the early days of statehood. Soon after its establishment in 1948, the emerging state of Israel found itself lacking in both food and foreign currency. In just three and a half years, the Jewish population of Israel had doubled, increased by nearly 700,000 immigrants (aliyah). (See also Jewish exodus from the Muslim world.) Consequently, the Israeli government instigated measures to control and oversee distribution of necessary resources to ensure equal and ample rations for all Israeli citizens. In addition to the problems with the provision of food, national austerity was also required because the state was lacking in foreign currency reserves. Export revenues covered less than a third of the cost of imports, and less than half of the consequent deficit was covered by the Jewish loan system known as Magbiyot (מגביות, lit. Collections). Most financing was obtained from foreign banks and gas companies, which, as 1951 drew to an end, refused to expand the available credit. In order to supervise the austerity, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered the establishment of the Ministry of Rationing and Supply (משרד הקיצוב והאספקה, Misrad HaKitzuv VeHaAspaka), headed by Dov Yosef. At first, rationing was set for staple foods alone (cooking oil, sugar and margarine, for instance), but it was later expanded to furniture and footwear. Each month, each citizen would get food coupons worth IL6, and each family was allotted a given amount of foodstuffs. The diet chosen, fashioned after that used in the United Kingdom during World War II, allowed a meager 1,600 calories a day for Israeli citizens, with additional calories for children, the elderly, and pregnant women. The enforcement of austerity required the establishment of a bureaucracy of quite some proportions, but it proved ineffective in preventing the emergence of a black market in which rationed products, often smuggled from the countryside, were sold at higher prices.