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Return to Zion and the Second Temple Period
  • Half Shekel coin. Photo: Ze'ev Radovan. Courtesy of the City of David Archive
    Half Shekel coin. Photo: Ze'ev Radovan. Courtesy of the City of David Archive
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Return to Zion and the Second Temple Period

A Tax from the Time of the Temple: the Half-Shekel Coin

On the first of Adar, proclamations are made for shekalim [head-tax for the Temple] .


MISHNAH, SHEKALIM 1,1

In the early 2000s, a coin was found in the Temple Mount Sifting Project, led by Prof. Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Dvira. The coin bore the words “half shekel.” It had been minted by the rebels in the Great Revolt and was used to pay the head tax to the Temple, as commanded in the Torah. Before these coins were minted, Jews paid the head tax with foreign coins that were minted in the city of Tyre.