ANSWERS TO TEST YOUR JEWISH IQSM

1. b. On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion read aloud Israel’s declaration of independence. The next day, five Arab armies, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, invaded Israel.

2. d. David and Jonathan were the best of friends. Jonathan helped save David from being killed by King Saul, who was Jonathan’s father.

3. d. Uganda. The most successful and elaborate hostage rescue operation in modern world history was planned and executed in just a few days.

4. c. Onkelos’s translation of the Torah into Aramaic, known as Targum Onkelos, is printed in almost every Chumash.

5. b. Menachem Begin. See The Prime Ministers, by Yehuda Avner.

6. a. Raanana is a city in modern Israel. Yavneh is the site of the first yeshiva, founded by Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, who ensured the continued existence of the Jewish people after the destruction of Jerusalem by Vespasian. Pumbedisa and Sura are the sites of great Talmudic academies in Babylonia, founded eight centuries before the first university in Europe.

7. b. France in 1182. Then England in 1290; Spain in 1492; and Portugal in 1536.

8. a. Sister-in-law. Sarah was Lot’s sister.

9. c. Ezra Pound was an anti-semitic poet.

10. d. 25%, which is about 100 times the representation of Jews in the population.

0 – 2 Talmid/Talmida (Student)

3 – 5 Melamed/Melamedet (Teacher)

6 – 8 Talmid Chacham/Talmida Chachama (Scholar)

9 – 10 Gaon/Gaona (Genius)