For the Labour Party primaries in September 2011, “Am Oved” published a book by Shelly Yehimovitz with the title “We”. On the cover – it shows two pioneers figures that were lifted from the 50 Lira Bank note of the Bank of Israel, designed by Shamir Brothers in 1959. On the inner side of the cover it said: “Book and cover designed by Yehuda Deri”.

I sent an e-mail to Yaron Sadan, CEO of the publisher, protesting about copyright infringement and not giving credit to Shamir brothers. Within two days he replied saying that there was no copyright infringement because he got legal advice that the illustration was in the public domain. He added that the credits listed on the back cover was: “The cover is a detail of the 50 Lira banknote, 1960. designers Shamir Brothers and Yaakov Zim. Cover design: Yehuda Deri.”

I replied to Yaron Sadan that: “there is no information on the actual agreement between Shamir and the Bank in 1959. According to current Bank of Israel policy copyright of Banknote design transfers to the Bank. If the copyrights for the banknotes of 1959 did belong to the Bank it does not mean that they are in the public domain”. With regards to the credits I explained - as I knew on that day and for 50 years prior to that day – that Shamir brothers designed the front side of the banknote and Jacob Zim the reverse side. The pioneers' figures appeared on the front side of the 50 Lira banknote. We ended the correspondence on a friendly note (Had I known that he was going to resign within a week, I would even have wished him success in his next role).

Two weeks later Sheli Barber from the Shenkar Institute sent me a sketch of the reverse side of the one lira banknote - a fisherman, identical to the one on the official banknote. Shamir's signature appeared on the sketch. I sent the sketch to Dr. Rachel Barkai, curaor at the Bank of Israel, and she admitted that there was an error in the printed credits in the bank's catalogue and promised to correct it. A couple of days later she sent me a sketch of the reverse side of the five lira banknote - the workman – and in the bottom left corner - Shamir Brothers. Again I sent this to Rachel Barkai and she replied: Great. Thank you.

It took me 24 hours to remember that I have, in my Shamir Brothers drawer, a set of the printed banknotes of this series (with an overprint – SPECIMEN and sequence number 00000000). I looked at the banknotes and here is what I found:

1/2 lira A girl soldier of the Nahal - J. Zim / Shamir brothers

1 lira Fishing - Shamir Brothers

5 lira Workman - Shamir Brothers

10 lira A scientist - Shamir Brothers / J Zim

50 lira Pioneers - No Credit

Later, I read again Maoz Azaryahu's article "On currency notes" in the catalogue of Shamir exhibition (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 1999). According to him, all archaeological motifs in the 1959 banknotes were designed by Jacob Zim, but they wrer incorporated into the layout of the notes by Shamir Brothers. This probably explains the sketches of the reverse side with the archeologically findings that Shani found in my father's estate.

Yoram Shamir 2011