5 Lirot Negev Industrialization

Israel's early statehood period saw the government deliberately use commemorative coinage as soft diplomacy — these issues circulated internationally among diaspora communities and sympathetic collectors as much as domestically. The Negev industrialization program they celebrate was tied directly to the development corridor linking Beersheba to Eilat, a project that consumed a significant portion of the young state's infrastructure budget through the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Struck at the Utrecht Mint in the Netherlands, which handled the majority of Israeli commemorative production during this period before Israel developed sufficient domestic minting capacity.