thumb|right|300px|[[Tel Aviv residents standing in line to buy food rations, 1954]]
Austerity in Israel (, ) was the policy of austerity imposed in the State of Israel from 1949 to 1959. It included rationing and other emergency measures to weather the economic crisis in the early days of statehood.
History
After its establishment in 1948, the newly formed State of Israel was on the verge of bankruptcy, lacking in food, resources, and foreign currency. This was largely due to the inherited economic framework of the British Mandatory government that was based on a war time economy.
After the Second World War and the 1948 Palestine War, Israel was war-torn and needed to accommodate an increasing number of Jewish immigrants. Consequently, the Israeli government instigated measures to control and oversee distribution of necessary resources to ensure equal and sufficient rations for all Israeli citizens.
In addition to the problems with the provision of food, national austerity was also required because the state was lacking in foreign currency reserves. The resulting influx of foreign capital was a huge boost to the state's struggling economy, and led to the cancellation of most restrictions in 1953. In 1956, the list of rationed goods was narrowed to just fifteen goods, and it shrank to eleven in 1958. Shortly afterwards, it was abolished for all goods except jam, sugar and coffee. In 1959, rationing was abolished altogether.