Nine-Year-Old Discovers Ancient Coin Near Chalamish

A nine-year-old girl named Hallel discovered a half-shekel coin from the period of Bayis Sheini at an archaeological site near Neve Tzuf-Halamish, where she lives, Arutz Sheva reported on Monday.

She found the coin bearing the inscription “Holy Yerushalayim,” lying on the ground at the obscure site, and showed it to her father, attorney Shimon Halevy. He agreed with his daughter that it did not look like an ordinary coin of contemporary origin, and took it to history expert Prof. Zohar Amar, who lives nearby.

“When I saw the coin, I felt that I was dealing with something I had dealt with in the past – coins from the rebellion and their significance. After 10-15 minutes, I realized that it was a half-shekel piece from 66-70 CE. It has a Hebrew imprint that says ‘Holy Yerushalayim.’ The Jews minted such coins against the coins minted in Tyre in order to stress the symbolism and nationalism, and in the Temple they used only these coins because they are a very high quality of silver,” he said.

“The village of Beit Rima, which appears in a Mishnah in Menachos, is located three kilometers away and from there the libations were brought to the Beis Hamikdash. In the area of Neve Tzuf, there is a unique site in the world where a special wine was produced, which in case of great need was permitted to be transferred to the Mikdash. There is a great deal of data linking the Neve Tzuf area to the subject of the Mikdash and the coin sheds additional light on this issue.”

“After all that we went through recently [referring to the terror attack in Chalamish], the discovery is very interesting because the Romans wanted to kill us, but we came back here, and this year we will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the establishment of Neveh Tzuf,” said Prof. Amar. “Renewed nectar (tzuf).”

Hallel was excited that the coin she found turned out to be something of real historical value. However, she said she also felt sad that for that very reason she would not be allowed to keep it, but must turn it over the state.