[GOPJ]

The silver coins from the Great Revolt were the first and the last in ancient times to bear the title 'shekel.' The next time this name was used was in 1980, on Israeli Shekel coins produced by the Bank of Israel."

Interesting...

[SunkenCiv]

It happened under Begin, if memory serves; the old currency was, hmm, Israeli Pound maybe? And inflation (and various boycotts and such) had pulverized the currency's value, so there was a sort of reverse split and name change, and it worked.