The Talmud mentions people washing in the krona in the Galilean city of Tsipori (Sepphoris); the obscure term is thought to refer to a bathhouse of some sort. Now Israeli archaeologists believe they may have found the krona itself, as Rachel Bernstein writes:

The newly discovered pool, which measures nearly 70-by-48 feet and is more than eleven-feet deep, dates to the 3rd century CE. . . . A small bronze statue of a bull was also found at the site, dating to the Roman period. The ancient city, one of the prime examples of the Roman-designed cities preserved in the land of Israel, sprawls on top of a hill in the western lower Galilee, about three miles northwest of Nazareth. . . .

A smaller pool was also found to the west of the large one, dating to the 2nd century CE. During the excavation, workers [also] found coins dating to the late Islamic period (14th and 15th centuries CE) as well as ceramic vessels and other coins dating from the late Roman and Byzantine periods (3rd to 5th centuries CE). . . .

Tsipori was well known in the Roman and Byzantine period as a Jewish city and a hub for Jewish administration, particularly since the 3rd century CE. The Romans also built a number of roads that connected the city to other major cities in the region, including to the port of Acre and to Tiberias, making it a flourishing point of trade for the area [as well as an important Roman] military stronghold.

The city had served as the seat of the Sanhedrin during the time of Rabbi Judah the Prince, [ca. 200 CE], who compiled the Mishnah, [the earlier stratum of the Talmud].

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.