Deck 4: Jewish Traditions

Question 1

What is the approximate worldwide Jewish population today?

A) 100,000
B) 100 million
C) 5 million
D) 1.7 million
E) 14 million

Answer 1

E

Question 2

What does the word "rabbi" mean in Judaism?

A) "God"
B) "Master"
C) "Teacher"
D) "Learner"
E) "Priest"

Answer 2

C

Question 3

What are the three sections of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)?

A) The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings
B) The Historical Books, the Prophets, and the Wisdom Books
C) Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus
D) The Torah, the Pentateuch, and the Prophets
E) The Septuagint, the Prophets, and the Psalms

Answer 3

A

Question 4

What is the Pentateuch?

A) The Tent of Covenant
B) The Five Books of Moses
C) A king of the Southern Kingdom (Judea)
D) A king of the Northern Kingdom (Israel)
E) The oral law passed down since the time of Moses

Question 5

What is the acronym for the Hebrew Bible based on the first Hebrew letters of the three main sections?

A) MisNaH
B) GeMaRah
C) ZoPhaR
D) TaNaKh
E) MoSeS

Question 6

One of the meanings for the Hebrew term Torah is which of the following?

A) Law
B) Rules
C) Ethics
D) Prophets
E) Writings

Question 7

The meaning of the Hebrew term Nevi'im is which of the following?

A) Poets
B) Teachers
C) Writers
D) Lawgivers
E) Prophets

Question 8

The meaning of the Hebrew term Ketuvim is which of the following?

A) Wisdom
B) Poetry
C) Songs
D) Literature
E) Writings

Question 9

The biblical narrative is more properly understood as what type of history?

A) political
B) mythological
C) legendary
D) cultural
E) sacred

Question 10

Where can we find the earliest reference to the people of Israel outside the Bible?

A) Carved on the tablets from the ancient city at Ebla
B) Inscriptions on clay pots from China
C) In the archaeological remains of Jericho
D) On the victory stela of an Egyptian pharaoh
E) Carved on ancient Mesopotamian legal texts

Question 11

The word "Jew" originally referred to those belonging to what?

A) A particular ethnicity
B) A particular religion
C) A particular gender
D) A particular territory
E) A particular clan

Question 12

What do traditional Jews believe about the origins of the Torah?

A) It was divinely revealed to Adam.
B) It was written by God and then given to Moses.
C) It was divinely revealed to Moses.
D) It was composed over many centuries by different authors.
E) It was composed by David.

Question 13

Most contemporary scholars conclude what with regards to the composition of the Torah?

A) Composite text written by several authors and edited by Moses
B) Unified text written and edited by Moses
C) Composite texts composed at different times by different authors
D) Unified texts written by Moses and edited by the court of King David
E) Composite texts written by Moses and Joshua then edited by the Levites

Question 14

What was the earliest Jewish material to have been written down?

A) The Mishnah
B) The Ketuvim
C) The Nevi'im
D) The Talmud
E) The Torah

Question 15

What does the Jewish festival of Passover commemorate?

A) The six days of creation
B) The liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt
C) The passage of a boy into adulthood
D) The first Torah translation
E) The victory of the Maccabees

Question 16

What specific term describes the relationship between the Israelites and their God?

A) Wisdom
B) Love
C) Covenant
D) Submission
E) Witness

Question 17

The book of Genesis traces Israelite ancestry to which of the following patriarchs?

A) Joseph
B) Isaac
C) Abraham
D) Moses
E) Noah

Question 18

Who is the earliest biblical figure from whom we have archeological evidence?

A) Moses
B) Noah
C) Abraham
D) David
E) Joshua

Question 19

How many days after birth is circumcision usually performed on the Jewish male?

A) 7
B) 3
C) 8
D) 12
E) 6

Question 20

What title is assigned to the ritual circumciser in the Jewish tradition?

A) Mohel
B) Rabbi
C) Levite
D) Eunuch
E) Judge

Question 21

To commemorate the birth of females, liberal branches hold what type of ceremony?

A) Praying
B) Reciting of the Torah
C) Naming
D) Fasting
E) Baby Shower

Question 22

What is celebrated on the day of Shavuot in the Jewish tradition?

A) Construction of Noah's Ark
B) End of 40 days in the wilderness
C) The birth of Isaac
D) God's revelation of the Torah to Moses
E) Construction of the First Temple in Jerusalem

Question 23

Most scholars understand the Israelite acquisition of Canaan, as described in Joshua, to have been accomplished through which of the following?

A) Military conquest rather than settlement
B) Agrarian land reform and redistribution
C) A combination of both military conquest and settlement
D) Settlement rather than military conquest
E) Exchange of slaves with the locals

Question 24

After the death of King Solomon, when Israel split in two, what name did the southern kingdom use?

A) Judah
B) Samaria
C) Israel
D) Ephraim
E) Palestine

Question 25

The Babylonian Exile marks the beginning of which of the following?

A) Reciting of Psalms of lament
B) Jewish Diaspora
C) Israelite self-rule
D) The Hellenization of Judaism
E) Syncretism between Babylonian and Israelite religions

Question 26

What term refers to the period of Jewish history that followed the Babylonian Exile?

A) Second Temple period
B) Modern period
C) Roman period
D) Classical period
E) Rabbinic period

Question 27

Who liberated the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity in 539 BCE?

A) Cyrus of Persia
B) Moses
C) King David
D) King Solomon
E) Alexander the Great

Question 28

What does the word "Sabbath" mean in Judaism?

A) "Holy day"
B) "Council"
C) "Seventh day"
D) "Prayer"
E) "Rest"

Question 29

The kings of the Hasmonean dynasty in ancient Israel were the descendants of whom?

A) Moses
B) Antiochus
C) King David
D) The Conversos
E) The Maccabees

Question 30

What does the Jewish festival of Hanukkah commemorate?

A) The New Year
B) Christmas
C) The covenant between God and Abraham
D) The rededication of the temple by the Maccabeans
E) The destruction of the temple by the Romans

Question 31

Who were the two major first-century Jewish groups?

A) The Gnostics and Manichaeans
B) The Judeans and Israelites
C) The Sadducees and Pharisees
D) The Orthodox and Reform
E) The Sephardim and Ashkenazim

Question 32

When did the Romans destroy the Second Temple?

A) 220 CE
B) 722 BCE
C) 70 CE
D) 1492 CE
E) 586 BCE

Question 33

According to rabbinic tradition, the Oral Torah originated with whom?

A) The Pharisees
B) Abraham
C) Early Christians
D) King Solomon
E) Moses

Question 34

What is the Hebrew word for "commandment"?

A) Halakhah
B) Aggadah
C) Mitzvah
D) Sephirah
E) Torah

Question 35

What was the result of the Bar Kochba revolt in 132-135 CE?

A) It temporarily restored the kingdom of Judah.
B) It failed miserably.
C) It led to Jews' civil rights in Judea.
D) It led to the creation of the state of Israel.
E) It allowed Jews to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

Question 36

How did rabbinic Halakhah treat the status of women?

A) As having an equal but different role than men
B) As having an equal role to men in the areas of judicial, religious, sexual, and economic matters
C) As capable of holding office only in religious and judicial spheres
D) As subordinate to men
E) As wiser than men in spiritual matters

Question 37

The Jewish Talmud is composed primarily of what?

A) Midrash and Gemarah
B) Nevi'im and Ketuvim
C) Mishnah and Gemarah
D) Torah and Midrash
E) Torah and Mishnah

Question 38

In rabbinic literature, what is Aggadah?

A) Holy things
B) Legal material
C) Procedures
D) Oral Torah
E) Narrative material

Question 39

After the Bar Kochba revolt, where were Judaism's two main rabbinic centres?

A) Mesopotamia and Greece
B) Rome and Palestine
C) Babylonia and Mesopotamia
D) Palestine and Babylonia
E) Greece and Palestine

Question 40

"Sephardim" is a designation for descendants of Jews from where?

A) Spain and Portugal
B) North America
C) France and Germany
D) Russia
E) Israel

Question 41

The Ashkenazic Jewish community uses the what language?

A) Aramaic
B) Yiddish
C) Hebrew
D) German
E) English

Question 42

What did Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides emphasize?

A) Literal interpretation of the Torah
B) Rational philosophy
C) Mysticism
D) Secularism
E) A return to the Holy Land

Question 43

In Kabbalah, what term refers to the ten aspects or emanations of God's power?

A) Sefirot
B) Zaddik
C) Zohar
D) Logos
E) Mitzvoth

Question 44

According to Kabbalah scholar Isaac Luria, Jews can assist with tikkun olam, which is what?

A) Initiation rituals
B) A form of meditation
C) The process of restoring the world
D) Acts of piety
E) The process of contracting the universe

Question 45

Who was the founder of Hasidic Judaism?

A) Samson Raphael Hirsch
B) Sabbatai Zvi
C) Theodor Herzl
D) The Baal Shem Tov
E) Moses Mendelssohn

Question 46

What did the eighteenth-century Haskalah movement in Judaism seek to do?

A) Expel non-Jews from Spain and France
B) Return Jews to the ancient land of Israel
C) Eliminate Jews from parts of Europe
D) Bring Judaism to uneducated Jews
E) Help Jews integrate into European society

Question 47

In the eighteenth century, what did Moses Mendelssohn urge German Jews to do?

A) Devote more time to the Talmud
B) Speak Yiddish or Hebrew rather than German
C) Be a Jew at home and a German on the street
D) Reject Jewish law in favour of secular law
E) Be inward-looking and segregated from the rest of society

Question 48

Which of the following is NOT a modern branch of Judaism?

A) Reconstructionist
B) Reform
C) Pharisaic
D) Orthodox
E) Conservative

Question 49

Which of the following is true of Reform Jews?

A) They discourage interfaith dialogue.
B) They do not generally keep kosher dietary laws.
C) They believe that religious law is fixed and unchanging.
D) They view religion as irrelevant.
E) They forbid women to serve as rabbis.

Question 50

What do Jewish dietary laws (kashrut) stipulate?

A) The foods that are not considered nutritious
B) Which foods are to be eaten during the day
C) How much food one is to consume each day
D) Which foods are to be consumed with which drinks
E) The foods that are acceptable, how they are to be cooked, and the types that may be eaten together in the same meal

Question 51

The Reconstructionist movement in Judaism developed primarily out of which other modern Jewish movement?

A) Reform movement
B) Conservative movement
C) Kabbalistic movement
D) Hasidic movement
E) Orthodox movement

Question 52

In modern synagogues, the Holy Ark (or Ark of the Covenant), where the Torah scrolls are kept, symbolizes what?

A) The place where the wine and loaf of bread are kept
B) The place that stored the tablets given to Moses at Mount Sinai
C) The ark built by Noah to survive the flood
D) The place where the shekinah dwells
E) The place from which the rabbi's sermon is delivered

Question 53

What term refers to a group of ten adult males who make up a quorum for Jewish public prayer?

A) Daven
B) Tallit
C) Tefillin
D) Minyan
E) Siddur

Question 54

What is the name of the celebration of the Jewish New Year?

A) Hanukkah
B) Rosh Hashanah
C) Yom Kippur
D) Yom HaShoah
E) Shavuot

Question 55

What is the Hebrew term used to refer to the Holocaust?

A) Baal Shem Tov
B) Shoah
C) Kaddish
D) Brit Milah
E) Chuppah

Question 56

What act on 15 September 1935 resulted in the revoking of Jews' German citizenship and the deprival of their legal and economic rights?

A) The publication of Mein Kampf
B) The beginning of the Second World War
C) The passage of the Nuremberg Laws
D) Kristallnacht
E) The Final Solution

Question 57

When did the state of Israel come into being?

A) The 27th of the Hebrew month of Nisan, 1953
B) 14 May 1948
C) 1 January 2001
D) 1 September 1939
E) 70 CE

Question 58

In Judaism, what prayer is recited by the children of the deceased after his or her burial?

A) The mezuzah
B) The Ketubah
C) The Shema
D) The Kaddish
E) The seder

Question 59

What ritual happens at the conclusion of Jewish weddings?

A) The breaking of the glass
B) The blowing of the shofar
C) The spraying of confetti
D) The couple singing a Psalm together
E) Two minutes of silence

Question 60

In Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism, when is a child considered Jewish?

A) If either parent is Jewish, as long as the child is raised as a Jew and adopts a Jewish identity.
B) If born of a Jewish father
C) If born inside a Jewish home
D) If born of both a Jewish mother and a Jewish father
E) If born of a Jewish mother

Question 61

The Hebrew Bible is also known as the Tanakh.

Question 62

The Hebrew Bible is an anthology of 48 different books, many of which were initially separate.

Question 63

The earliest figure in the Hebrew Bible for whom we may have archaeological evidence is Moses.

Question 64

The word "Jew" is derived from "Judah," the name of the territory that in ancient times was considered the Jewish homeland.

Question 65

The focal point of the Jewish festival of Passover is the ritual meal called the Seder.

Question 66

During the ritual Passover meal, a text called the Mishnah is read aloud.

Question 67

The Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible traces Israelite ancestry back to a single patriarch, Abraham, a descendant of Noah through his son Shem.

Question 68

Decalogue is another word for the first ten books of the Hebrew Bible.

Question 69

The second book of the Torah, Exodus, describes how David led the Israelites out of Egypt.

Question 70

The Jewish festival of Shavuot celebrates God's revelation of the Torah to Joshua.

Question 71

The Samaritans are an ancient people who still inhabit what is today part of the modern state of Israel.

Question 72

The Jewish festival of Hanukkah is also known as the festival of the snow.

Question 73

The Sadducees usually came from the lower classes of the Jewish people.

Question 74

The Pharisees rejected teachings that espoused the resurrection and future day of judgement.

Question 75

The Essenes are generally believed to have been the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Question 76

The Zealots opposed the Roman authorities.

Question 77

Purim is a major Jewish holiday usually celebrated in early May.

Question 78

The Babylonians destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE.

Question 79

Yeshiva is the Hebrew word for a ritual bath.

Question 80

The Oral Torah was written down and codified by Rabbi Hillel.