About the Maccabean Coins used in our Jewelry

The year was 165 BCE, and a great miracle was about to happen in the Holy Land of Israel.

For more than a century, foreign pagan rulers were increasingly oppressing the Jewish people and the free and open practice of Judaism. They were forcing more and more pagan customs upon them. The breaking point came when the Hellenized Syrian ruler Antiochus IV passed new restrictive laws. He banned observance of the Sabbath, the kosher dietary laws, and circumcision, and ordered the sacrifice of pigs in the Holy Temple.

In the little village of Modi’in, northwest of Jerusalem, Mattathias the Cohen and his five sons could bear no more. They organized a revolt that would forever change the course of Jewish history. As they went into battle to free our people they cried out the rhetorical question “Who is like you, our G-d in heaven!” The Hebrew words for this create the acronym MCBY, and so they forever became know as the “Maccabees”. After several stunning military defeats of the Syrian army, these heroic Jewish defenders reclaimed and purified the Holy Temple.

The holy oil they lit miraculously burned for eight days, and this miracle is remembered each year as the festival of Hannukah. This was the first war in history fought and won for the principle of religious freedom.

I created The Maccabee Collection™ so every Jew can enjoy a special connection to Hanukah and to the miracle of ‘those days in our time’. The centerpiece of each item is an ancient Jewish coin, a prutah, minted in Eretz Yisrael during the reign of the Hasmonean Jewish rulers. Each coin is a storyteller of Maccabee history, a little witness that was there! Each coin is guaranteed authentic, unconditionally, and comes with a certificate of authenticity.

Each of the coins you see here is a small part of that miracle. The meaning of each coin shines through in its beauty, character, and the meaning of its inscription. On every coin you can see parts of the ancient Hebrew inscription proclaiming the name of the Hasmonean Ruler. You will also see Jewish symbols such as the pomegranate, lily, star, cornucopia, and even a ship’s anchor, but you will never see the profile of the Ruler since graven images are forbidden in the Torah.

I hope you learn from and enjoy this ancient artifact from our living history as much as I enjoyed creating it!

—Dr. Leon

Enlarged to show detail
Average diameter size: 12 – 15mm