Israel Discount Bank

Israel Discount Bank
Official Award medal - 5745-1985

Fifty years have pased since the late Leon Recanati, President of the Jewish community of Salonika and a leader of the Zionist movement in Greece, immigrated with his family to the Land of Israel and, in April 1935, opened the first office of the Palestine Discount Bank in Tel Aviv. At that time, more than fifty banks were in operation in the country. At the date of Leon Recanati's death in 1945, the bank was one of the three largest banking institutions in Israel. After the death of its founder, the bank continued to build on the solid foundations he had established, developing over the years into one of the 200 largest and most modern commercial banking institutions in the free world. Today, the Discount Bank Group comprises a thriving banking group of international stature, supplying a full range of domestic and international banking and financial services from a network of 270 branches in Israel and abroad, supported by subsidiary banks and finance companies, agencies and representative offices in Israel, the Western Hemisphere and Europe

Obverse: A likeness of the founder, Leon Recanati (1890-1945).

Reverse: Outlines of the cities of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and New York, exemplifying the domestic and international nature of the Bank's operations; various local coins in use during the fifty years of the Bank's existence, the Bank's logo; the name of the Bank in Hebrew and English; the jubilee years 1935-1985.

Edge: The Corporation's emblem, and its initials: IGCMC and serial number.

Designer: Eliezer Weishof

Engraving: Moshe Hecht