Jewish Trivia
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This Jewish trivia quiz has 128 free questions with answers and covers the whole of Jewish life, not just the holidays. Fifty-four questions run through Shabbat, Passover, Hanukkah, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Purim and Sukkot; kosher rules and classic foods from bagels to hamantaschen; the Torah, Talmud, Hebrew alphabet and Yiddish; the bar mitzvah, the chuppah and sitting shiva; and history from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Masada to Herzl, Golda Meir and the founding of Israel, with a few famous Jews from Maimonides to Sandy Koufax. Easy questions ask what a menorah is or where a mezuzah goes; the hard ones want the four dreidel letters, which two biblical books never mention God, and how old the first kibbutz is. It works for a Hebrew school class, a synagogue social, a Hanukkah party or anyone curious about Jewish culture. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the holidays, texts, foods and people involved, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 128 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, falls on which day of the week?
Saturday
Shabbat falls on Saturday. Because Jewish days run from sunset to sunset, it begins at sundown on Friday and ends after nightfall on Saturday.
Q 02How many nights does Hanukkah last?
Eight
Eight nights, starting on the 25th of Kislev: one more light is kindled each evening, so the display grows from a single flame to a full row.
Q 03Passover celebrates the Israelites' escape from slavery in which land?
Egypt
Egypt is where the Israelites were enslaved under Pharaoh; the Exodus story is retold at the Seder from the Haggadah, and leavened food is banned throughout the festival.
Q 04Which unleavened flatbread is eaten during Passover?
Matzah
Matzah is baked fast, before the dough has time to rise, recalling the Israelites who fled in too much haste to let their bread leaven.
Q 05Which is the holiest day of the Jewish year, marked by a full fast?
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is when tradition holds each person's fate for the coming year is sealed, which is why Jews spend its 25-hour fast in prayer and repentance.
Q 06Which instrument is blown on Rosh Hashanah?
Shofar
The shofar, a ram's horn, is sounded in a set series of blasts on Rosh Hashanah, and on weekday mornings through the month before as a call to repent.
Q 07Apples dipped in honey are eaten on Rosh Hashanah to symbolise what?
A sweet new year
A sweet new year is the wish, and it shapes the whole table: the festive loaf is dipped in honey too and is baked round instead of braided, a shape read as an unending cycle.
Q 08Purim celebrates Queen Esther saving the Jews from a plot by which Persian official?
Haman
Haman, chief minister to King Ahasuerus, plotted to kill the Jews of Persia; when the Megillah is read, the crowd drowns out Haman's name with groggers.
Q 09On Purim, the gifts of food sent to friends are known by what name?
Mishloach manot
Mishloach manot, literally 'sending of portions', are the food gifts exchanged on Purim; the Book of Esther instructs sending portions to one another and gifts to the poor.
Q 10During the autumn Feast of Tabernacles, families eat in a temporary hut called what?
A sukkah
The hut is a sukkah, a booth with a roof of cut branches that recalls the Israelites' desert shelters; the Feast of Tabernacles begins on the 15th of Tishrei.
Q 11Simchat Torah celebrates the completion of what yearly cycle?
Public scripture readings
Public scripture readings run on a yearly cycle that ends on Simchat Torah: the last verses of Deuteronomy are chanted and Genesis begun at once, amid dancing circuits with the scrolls.
Q 12Tu BiShvat is known as the new year for what?
Trees
Trees: Tu BiShvat began as the date for reckoning a fruit tree's age for tithes, and in modern Israel it is marked by planting saplings.
Q 13Shavuot marks the giving of the Torah at which mountain?
Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai is where tradition places the giving of the Torah; Shavuot means 'weeks', because it comes seven weeks after the second day of Passover.
Q 21A Jewish couple stands under what during their wedding ceremony?
A chuppah
A chuppah is the wedding canopy: a cloth stretched over four poles and open on all sides to symbolise the couple's new home; sometimes a prayer shawl held up by friends serves as one.
Q 22The Jewish mourning period known as shiva lasts how long?
Seven days
Seven days is what the name means: shiva is Hebrew for seven. Mourners stay at home on low seats for the week while friends and relatives come to them with comfort.
Q 23Which of these animals is forbidden under kosher dietary laws?
Pig
The pig is forbidden: the Torah's food laws in Leviticus permit only land animals that both chew the cud and have split hooves, and the pig has split hooves but does not chew the cud.
Q 14The Torah consists of how many books?
Five
Five books make up the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy; tradition credits them to Moses, hence the name Five Books of Moses.
Q 15According to rabbinic tradition, how many commandments are in the Torah?
613
613 is the count Rabbi Simlai gave: 365 prohibitions, one for each day of the solar year, and 248 positive commands, matched to the parts of the human body.
Q 16The Talmud is made up of the Mishnah and which commentary on it?
The Gemara
The Gemara is the rabbinic commentary on the Mishnah, compiled in the academies of Babylonia and the Land of Israel; the Babylonian version, completed around 500 CE, is the one usually cited.
Q 17A mezuzah is fixed to which part of a Jewish home?
The doorposts
A mezuzah is fixed to the doorposts of the home, on the right side as you enter; the parchment inside carries the Shema verses from Deuteronomy, which command writing them 'on the doorposts of your house'.
Q 18The small brimless cap worn by Jewish men is called a kippah or what?
Yarmulke
Yarmulke is the Yiddish name for the kippah, and no biblical law demands one: covering the head began as a custom, a sign of reverence for God, that observant men now keep all day.
Q 19The Star of David is geometrically what kind of shape?
A hexagram
A hexagram is a six-pointed star made of two overlapping triangles; it decorated synagogues and churches alike for centuries before the Jews of Prague adopted it as their community's emblem.
Q 20At 13, a Jewish boy can first count toward which prayer quorum of ten?
Minyan
Minyan means the ten adults needed before certain prayers can be said, so a boy's thirteenth birthday matters to the whole congregation: from that day he can complete the ten.
Q 24The braided bread eaten on Shabbat and holidays is called what?
Challah
Challah is the braided loaf blessed at Shabbat and festival meals, usually as two loaves that recall the double portion of manna the Israelites gathered in the desert before each day of rest.
Q 25The bagel originated in the Jewish communities of which country?
Poland
The bagel comes from the Jewish communities of Poland, where community regulations of 1610 are the earliest known mention of the beygl, given as a gift to women after childbirth; the ring is boiled before it is baked.
Q 26Hanukkah foods such as latkes and doughnuts recall what?
The miracle of the Temple oil
Latkes are fried in oil to recall the miracle of the Temple oil: after the Maccabees rededicated the Temple, one day's pure oil is said to have burned for the whole festival; sufganiyot are eaten for the same reason.
Q 27The four Hebrew letters on a dreidel are read as an acronym for what phrase?
A great miracle happened there
'A great miracle happened there' is the popular reading of nun, gimel, he and shin; the letters began as playing instructions on an older gambling top (nothing, all, half, put in), and Israeli dreidels swap 'there' for 'here'.
Q 28Which is the first of the 22 Hebrew letters?
Aleph
Aleph heads an alphabet that began with no vowels at all; the small dots called niqqud that mark vowel sounds were devised centuries later.
Q 29Who led the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language in the 19th century?
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda settled in Jerusalem in 1881 and raised his son to hear nothing but Hebrew, even keeping him from other children, so the boy grew up as the first native speaker of the modern language.
Q 30Yiddish, the historic language of Ashkenazi Jews, is based on which language?
German
Yiddish grew out of medieval German dialects, and most of its vocabulary is Germanic; it is written in Hebrew letters and mixes in Hebrew, Aramaic and Slavic words.