Israeli Shekel Not Just Another Currency

Exactly a month ago, 彭博资讯 wrote "Shekel forecasts show it beating all other emerging currencies"

But even while they were saying what a great investment the shekel is - they were anticipating trouble: "Over the past decade, the shekel is the world’s only major currency to strengthen against the dollar, becoming more correlated with global technology stocks than domestic political or economic drivers. But that relationship began to break down in January as protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial plans swelled, a deviation that’s continued since."? Bloomberg.ca

As you can see, all the experts are analyzing the shekel based on current affairs. And now all our worst fears have been realized, as the anticipated Moody's downgrade has become a reality:

Moody’s downgrades Israel’s credit outlook, citing ‘deterioration of governance’ The Times of Israel

My Commentary

The credit rating cut will impact everyone and everything - across all sectors. There will be a lot of scrambling and reorganizing.

Like everything else related to Israel, the Israeli shekel has special historic and cultural significance. It's not simply another currency in the world.

But like everything else related to Israel, the Israeli shekel has special historic and cultural significance. It's not simply another currency in the world.

Whenever that natural bond between us is weakened, the Israeli shekel loses value.

Throughout history, the value of the shekel was a means to gauge the strength of our connection. When we're united as a nation, the shekel is strong. Whenever that natural bond between us is weakened, the Israeli shekel loses value.

The Other Side of the Coin

Our forefathers have always known that our negative attitude to each other is the root cause of our problems. In every generation they tried to explain to us how only unity and love of others would save us from adversity. They warned that unless we unite, disasters would befall us.

When we tell the world we love our neighbors, yet deride our each other and show each other nothing but disdain, we lose all credibility.

The term “Love your neighbor as yourself” is our brainchild, so is mutual responsibility, leaving part of our crops for the poor, and many other social laws. The whole concept of Tikkun Olam is based on the idea that we have the power to make the world a better place, and that the way to achieve this is through unity.

But here in Israel we tend to forget that to achieve unity, the world needs an example of what that looks like. Our blind spot is that it's not enough to preach about unity and cohesion, we need to be a living model of how that works. When we tell the world we love our neighbors, yet deride each other and show each other nothing but disdain, we lose all credibility.

Since our nation is supposed to be a model nation, the example that the world takes from us is how we treat each other. We're currently giving the world an example of hatred and division. So instead of bringing good to the world, we're causing suffering.

When we stop trying to prove that we're like everyone else, and begin to earn our place in the world through our efforts to unite, the world will give us full credit.

When we stop trying to prove that we're like everyone else, and begin to earn our place in the world through our efforts to unite, the world will give us full credit. When we embrace each other, the world will embrace us. And if we don't, the world will punish us just as it's been doing whenever we abandon our unity.