The currency of the State of Israel is the New Israel Shekel (NIS). Bank notes are in denominations of 20, 50, 100, and 200 NIS. They also have Shekel coins for the lower denominations of 1, 5 ,and 10.
In addition to the Shekel, the other currency unit is Agora. It takes 100 Agorot (that's plural for Agora) to equal one Shekel. Agorot are available in 1, 5, and 10 units.
If you think the word "shekel" sounds familiar, it is because it is was an ancient monetary unit that appeared in the Bible. Back then, money was actually measured by it's weight, so one shekel was the equivalent of one ounce.
When the Modern State of Israel was born, they used Pounds as their currency. Most likely this was because of the long rule of the British in Palestine. It wasn't until 1980 that Israel decided to personalize their money and the modern shekels was born. Then in 2003, the "old shekel", which really wasn't that old yet, was replaced with the "new shekel".
While the rate of exchange varies from day to day, essentially here's the value:
1 USA dollar = 3.91 NIS (or you could buy 1 shekel with a US quarter)
One final interesting note about Israel's money is that they actually have Braille printed into it. This allows the blind to correctly identify the amount on each bill. Hmm... makes you wonder why we don't do that in America? Especially since our bills are all the same size.
