Last week, two Israeli hikers came across an ancient coin, apparently exposed by recent winter rains. Realizing its likely historical value, they handed it over to the archaeologist Zvika Tzuk, who in turn showed it to his colleague Danny Syon. Tzuk and Syon identified the coin as one minted by followers of the Jewish rebel Shimon Bar Kokhba during the brief period when they managed to liberate parts of Palestine from Roman rule. Michael Bachner writes:

Despite the fact that the coin hadn’t yet undergone professional cleaning yet, Syon succeeded in deciphering the images and inscriptions on the rare coin, determining that it dates back to 133 or 134 CE.

One side of the coin had an image of a palm tree with seven branches and two clusters of grapes above the name “Shimon”—Bar Kokhba’s first name—in ancient Hebrew. The reverse side of the coin had a vine leaf with a twig and around it an inscription meaning “the second year of the freedom of Israel.” Coins of this type were minted during the Bar Kokhba revolt from 132 to 135 CE, during which time Jewish rebels managed to regain some autonomy from Rome. The “second year” is either the year 133 or the year 134 CE. . . .

“The road near where the coin was found connects a number of communities with hiding places from the days of Bar Kokhba,” said Tzuk. “It is possible that one of the residents or fighters who moved from one community to another lost the coin, which waited 1,885 years until it was found.”

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.