Fat royalty check to Menachem Begin discovered decades later: He used it as bookmark

“It was an emotional surprise which showed how modest he was,” the director of the Begin Heritage Center told Ynet.

By World Israel News Staff 

A check made out to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, dated October 7, 1983 and totaling 102,705 old Israeli shekels, has been found “by chance” inside a book by the director of the Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, Herzl Makov, as reported exclusively by Ynet.

The check, from Steimatzky Publishing, is believed to have been for royalties to Israel’s sixth prime minister for his autobiographical memoir “White Nights: The Story of a Prisoner in Russia,” which had been translated into English by Steimatzky.

The check was being used as a bookmark in a different book, says the Begin Center.

In January 1986, Israel moved to the New Shekel, valued at one for 1,000 of the old currency, as part of an economic plan to fight hyperinflation.

The check was found amid reorganization for renovation work to upgrade the library and marking 20 years since the center was established.

“It was an emotional surprise which showed how modest he was,” Makov told Ynet, speaking of the check which had been tucked away.

The date of the check was just a few days before Begin stepped down as prime minister on October 10, 1983, after he had already started to go into seclusion and announced his intention to resign amid what was said to be a sense of depression over the death of his wife, Aliza, the year before, and over the deadly outcome of the 1982 Operation Peace for Galilee.

In the May 1977 election, he turned the tide of Israeli politics with a victory that gave control of the national government to the right of the political establishment for the first time in the history of Israel, which was established in May 1948.

Begin died on March 9, 1992.