Last month, a construction project in the southern Polish town of Oświęcim—whose German name, Auschwitz, was given to the nearby death camp—uncovered a four-century-old wooden mikveh, or Jewish ritual bath. Shiryn Ghermezian reports:

“As far as we know, this is the only mikveh of its kind in Europe, in the world most likely,” Tomek Kuncewicz, director of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation’s Jewish Museum in Oświęcim, told the Algemeiner. . . . “The experts we talked to from Poland [and] from other places said they have never heard of such a discovery, ever. So it definitely seems that it’s one-of-a-kind.”

He added that the mikveh, made of oak, is roughly 400 years old and is the “oldest piece of evidence” of a once-thriving Jewish community in Oświęcim.

The mikveh was found a month after another Jewish ritual bath—made of concrete and tile and probably from the 19th century—was discovered in January above the wooden mikveh. Both were . . . found near the Great Synagogue Memorial Park, which is located on the site where the town’s main synagogue once stood before it was destroyed during World War II.

Before World War II, there were about 8,000 Jewish residents in Oświęcim—roughly 50 to 60 percent of the town’s total population—but most of them were killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and after the war only about 200 Jews returned to the town, Kuncewicz said. He added that in subsequent years there was an effort to revive the Jewish community in Oświęcim but gradually most Jewish residents left, mainly for Israel. The last Jewish resident of Oświęcim, the Holocaust survivor Szymon Kluger, died in 2000.

Two weeks ago, a terrorist—most likely working for Hizballah—managed to cross into Israel from Lebanon and plant an explosive device near Megiddo that wounded a civilian. The attack, according to Matthew Levitt, is a sign of the Iran-backed militia’s increasing willingness to challenge the tacit understanding it has had with the IDF for over a decade. Such renewed aggression can also be found in the rhetoric of the group’s leaders:

In the lead-up to the 2006 war, [Hizballah’s] Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah famously miscalculated how Israel would respond to the cross-border abduction of its soldiers. According to Israeli analysts, however, he now believes he can predict the enemy’s behavior more accurately, leading him to sharpen his rhetoric and approve a series of increasingly aggressive actions over the past three years.

Nasrallah’s willingness to risk conflict with Israel was partly driven by domestic economic and political pressures. . . . Yet he also seemed to believe that Israel was unlikely to respond in a serious way to his threats given Hizballah’s enlarged precision-missile arsenal and air-defense systems.

In addition to the bombing, this month has seen increased reports of cross-border harassment against Israelis, such as aiming laser beams at drivers and homes, setting off loud explosions on the Lebanese frontier, and pouring sewage toward Israeli towns. Hizballah has also disrupted Israeli efforts to reinforce the security barrier in several spots along the Blue Line, [which serves as the de-facto border between Lebanon and the Jewish state].

This creeping aggressiveness—coupled with Nasrallah’s sense of having deterred Israel and weakened its military posture—indicate that Hizballah will continue trying to move the goalposts.