The Jewish population was agog at the thought of exchanging their Ottoman and Egyptian currency for British Mandate coins stamped with Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic characters. The Arabs, on the other hand, were more inclined to boycott the Palestinian Pound
The money changing went on in town yesterday as well. Outside the banks men and women of all stripes and colors stood in long lines leading up to the tellers’ stalls. … A motley crowd in face and dress – Ashkenazi Jews dressed in European garb, Yemenites in turbans, Georgians in their black skullcaps and so on and so on, hustled and jostled… (Ha’aretz, November 3, 1927).
This was how Palestine’s leading Hebrew daily described the appearance of the
new currency – the Palestinian mil and pound – three days after its official issue. The introduction of the British Mandate currency evoked powerful emotions among the Jews of Mandatory Palestine. Coins symbolize independence, so to see a coin minted with Hebrew lettering, after centuries in which the currency of foreign empires served as the official coinage in the Holy Land, made the realization of the Zionist dream seem closer than ever.
Intense political struggles preceded the coins’ issuance. Jewish and Arab representatives on the committee appointed to approve the design of the coins bickered constantly, only adding to the delays incurred by the pedantic, cumbersome British bureaucracy.