2 New Shekels Craters in Israel

Israel's crater landscape — the three large erosion cirques of the Negev known locally as "makhteshim" — has been a recurring subject for the Bank of Israel's commemorative series, which has issued topographic and natural heritage themes sporadically since the 1990s. The makhtesh is a geological formation found almost nowhere else on Earth in this form, distinct from impact craters, created instead by differential erosion of uplifted anticlines over millions of years.

KM#589 is a recent addition to a long-running series. The .999 fine specification places it among Israel's higher-purity commemorative issues, departing from the .925 standard used in earlier shekel-era silver programs.