page_title: Austerity in Israel
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Austerity in Israel / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A Wonder Pot (right) in use on the stovetop.
context_page_description: Austerity in Israel refers to the policy of austerity imposed in the State of Israel from 1949 to 1959 that included rationing and other emergency measures to weather the economic crisis in the early days of statehood.
context_section_description: Soon after 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. (See also Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries). 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 (Hebrew: 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 austerity, the prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, ordered the establishment of the Ministry of Rationing and Supply (Hebrew: משרד הקיצוב והאספקה‎, Misrad HaKitzuv VeHaAspaka), headed by Dov Yosef.
  At first this rationing was set for staple foods alone—oil, sugar and margarine, for instance—but it was later expanded to furniture and footwear. Each month, each citizen would get food coupons worth 6 Israeli pounds, 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, which nonetheless proved ineffective in preventing the emergence of a black market in which rationed products—often smuggled from the countryside—were sold at higher prices. To counter this, the government established in September 1950 the Office for Fighting the Black Market (Hebrew: מטה למלחמה בשוק השחור‎, Mate LeMilhama BaShuk HaShahor), whose goal it was to combat the forming of such a market. Yet despite the increased supervision, and the specially summoned courts, all such attempts at suppression proved ineffective.
caption: A Wonder Pot (right), a top-of-the-stove baking utensil invented during the austerity period to help homemakers bake cakes and casseroles without an oven.
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