Yigal the Printer

A stolid, jowly man whose face seems lugubriously appropriate to Israel's dire economic straits, Yigal Hurvitz, 62, who resigned as Finance Minister on Sunday, seems to thrive on political notoriety. Month after month, he had focused attention on himself in the Israeli Cabinet by challenging virtually every discretionary item of the government's planned 1981 budget. His goal: to pare public spending, hold unemployment to a tolerable 41/2% to 5% and, somehow, simultaneously bring the annual 140% inflation rate down to double digits by the end of the year. Understandably, he was not always...

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