In Tractate Avodah Zarah, the Talmud forbids drinking from water fountains decorated with graven images of deities. Archaeologists recently found just such a faucet near the ancient Galilean town of Tzippori, writes Amanda Borschel-Dan:

The [anthropomorphized] lion spout . . . measures 6 by 5 inches. Its gaping mouth leaves room for a pipe two centimeters in diameter, from which water would have splashed in a drinking fountain or bathhouse. It is formed from marble, likely imported from Turkey. . . . Ornately decorated drain spouts were usually formed into the images of animal heads or characters from mythology. They were in use from the Hellenistic era through the Roman and early Byzantine era as common architectural elements.

The archaeological site Tzippori, also known by its Greek name Sepphoris, is most known for its famous “Mona Lisa of the Galilee” mosaic. The Western Galilee city was a major home to a flourishing mixed pagan, Christian, and Jewish community during the 4th through 7th centuries CE. The settlement’s vast system of aqueducts and cisterns dates to the 1st and 2nd centuries and was in use until the 7th or 8th.

After the Jewish Revolt and destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, many sages moved north and by the 3rd century CE it was the seat of Rabbi Judah the Prince, where he began compiling the Mishnah.

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].