Israeli archaeologists digging in the city of Beersheba—located in the Negev desert and many miles from any of the country’s coasts—found a water cistern that they date to the 1st century CE. Amanda Borschel-Dan writes:

A newly discovered water cistern . . . has turned out to be the 2,000-year-old canvas for a series of engravings depicting thirteen sea vessels and even a sailor to steer them. Technical details are included in some of the ship drawings etched into the cistern’s plaster walls, which suggests the graffiti artist had practical knowledge of ship construction, said Davida Eisenberg-Degen, a specialist in rock art and graffiti at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). . . .

The art-covered cistern was uncovered during IAA excavations ahead of the construction of a new Beersheba neighborhood [called] Rakefet. The roughly 39-foot-deep water-storage pit, with an area of roughly 16.5 by 18 feet, is thought to have been used by a nearby 1st-century Roman-era domicile up through recent times. In excavating the sediment fill, archaeologists uncovered World War I-era ceramic shards, ammunition shells, and other weapon parts.

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.