Founded in 1923 by Jewish pioneers as a farming community, Ramat Hasharon has now become part of Tel Aviv’s greater metropolitan area. But a recent accidental discovery has revealed an ancient settlement in the same location. Stuart Winer writes:

Archaeological finds at a construction site indicate there was residential and industrial activity at the location of a Tel Aviv suburb some 1,500 years ago. . . . Among the items uncovered at the site of a new residential neighborhood were a mosaic-floored wine press, a chandelier chain, and a gold coin that appeared to have been hand-signed by its owner.

The coin was minted in 638 or 639 CE by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius. . . . One side shows the emperor with his two sons and the other the hill of Golgotha in Jerusalem, which Christian tradition identifies as the site of the crucifixion of Jesus. Scratched out on the coin in Greek, and possibly also Arabic, is an inscription that experts assess is likely the name of its owner, according to Robert Kool, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Numismatics Department.

“The coin encapsulates fascinating data on the decline of Byzantine rule in the country and on contemporary historical events, such as the Persian invasion and the emergence of Islam, and provides information on Christian and pagan symbolism and the local population who lived here,” Kool said in a statement.

[T]he excavations . . . came as Ramat Hasharon prepares to celebrate its centenary in two years’ time. Avi Gruber, the city’s mayor, said work has already started on incorporating the finds into the future neighborhood.

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.