Gaya Games: The Art of Thinking

Back to our trip to Israel...

While in Jerusalem, you'll likely find yourself on Ben Yehuda street, the major night-life and shopping district. Off Ben Yehuda on Moshe Solomon Street we found Gaya, a store full of games and puzzles, many of them invented and handcrafted in a Moshav (a cooperative similar to a kibbutz) called Hagor. We stepped inside to find the store full of young adults browsing the hundreds of different interlocking, string, and stacking puzzles and the friendly staff demonstrating some of the original strategy games. My husband played a game called, "The End of the Track," played on a chess board, with blocks that move like Knights but they have ball "heads" that move like Queens.

I bought the interlocking gun puzzle which can be reformed into a dog. Haven't attempted it yet.

Then, of course, I had to purchase the dreidel roulette set...