{"id":78651,"date":"2026-04-22T18:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T18:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/78651\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T18:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T18:08:16","slug":"an-ode-to-the-bible-quiz-israels-quirky-and-surprisingly-consequential-independence-day-tradition-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/78651\/","title":{"rendered":"An ode to the Bible Quiz, Israel\u2019s quirky and surprisingly consequential Independence Day tradition | Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

(JTA<\/a>) \u2014 We are two Australians in our 30s, and if you asked us what most shaped the way we love and understand Israel, we would both give the same slightly embarrassing answer: the Chidon HaTanach, the International Bible Quiz.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never heard of it, that\u2019s completely fair. The Bible Quiz is, objectively, one of the nerdiest competitions ever created. Jewish teenagers from around the world memorize vast sections of the Hebrew Bible, are tested on details so obscure that they border on the absurd, and, if they survive the rounds in their home countries, are flown to Israel to compete on a global stage against other nerdy Jewish teen Bible quizzers. At the Bible Quiz, you can be asked anything: which prophet said what to whom, how many years someone lived, at what age they died, who their children were, and what order the Jewish people travelled in the desert. We spent years learning lists, family trees and so many numbers.<\/p>\n

The Bible Quiz final is televised live on Israeli TV each year on Yom Haatzmaut, Israel\u2019s Independence Day, and is watched by millions of people with the kind of intensity usually reserved for a major sporting match or national elections. The competition was founded by Israel\u2019s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, which tells you something about how seriously it is taken in Israel. To compete in the Bible Quiz is to step into a version of Israel where knowing the Bible is not just a religious pursuit but something bound up with Israel\u2019s national identity.<\/p>\n

Over the years, while the format has shifted slightly, it still remains an important part of many Israeli families\u2019 Yom Haatzmaut morning tradition \u2014 sitting around in front of the TV and guessing the answers before the contestants. Some have noted that it is now relatively common for a member of the Religious Zionist community to emerge victorious, and yet the event still holds meaning for many communities across Israel \u2014 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s secular son Avner competed and made it to the final 16 in 2010.<\/p>\n

In 2008, when we represented Australia, 63 teenagers from 37 countries arrived in Israel for the international finals. Some came from places we had never associated with Jewish life at all: India, Georgia, Panama, Ireland. It was our first real encounter with the sheer geographic spread of the Jewish world. As 16 year olds, we were guests of the Israeli government, which meant that our particular skill set, memorizing obscure biblical facts, was treated as an important and impressive skill.<\/p>\n

We both made it into the top 16 Bible competitors and represented Australia in the final round of the international competition. To this day, we can still recite the names of Isaiah\u2019s children, trace the genealogy from Adam through to the exile of the Jewish people, and tell you exactly how many sheep Jacob sent to Esau as an appeasement gift. None of this has proved especially useful in our day-to-day adult life, but it has remained stubbornly lodged in our brains, ready to surface if asked!<\/p>\n

The three weeks we spent on the Bible Quiz camp still shapes how we think about Israel. We stood on an IDF base on Yom Hazikaron as the memorial siren sounded, surrounded by soldiers not much older than we were. We visited Masada and heard the story of Jewish resistance and loss. We walked through Mount Herzl, thinking about the people who had sacrificed so much in Israel\u2019s short history. Israel was marking its 60th year, and Shimon Peres, then in his mid-80\u2019s, spoke to us for nearly an hour \u2014 without notes! \u2014 highlighting the connection between the Jewish people and the Bible, about the way the land of Israel is layered with the words we had spent months memorizing. He also listened to a speech given by Nathan in Hebrew, on behalf of our visiting Bible Quiz cohort.<\/p>\n

It has been 18 years since we competed in this nerdy competition, but our commitment to Jewish learning, which once involved memorizing half the Bible, has continued. Until today, we both love studying Jewish history, Jewish texts and of course, the Bible. We still feel a deep connection to the land of Israel, where our forefathers and foremothers tread before us.<\/p>\n

We are also privileged that so many of the friendships we made at the Bible Quiz have endured. We have travelled to weddings of our Bible Quiz friends in Amsterdam, spent Shabbat with friends in Argentina, and remained loosely but meaningfully connected to people we met during those three weeks. From this pivotal experience, we are part of a network that stretches across continents and years, sustained by a love of the Bible, of Israel and Jewish history.<\/p>\n

The People of the Book, studying the Book of Books continues to serve as a way to unite Israelis and Diaspora Jews.<\/p>\n

There are many ways to come to love a country. Ours just happened to involve memorizing how many sheep Jacob sent to his brother. JN<\/p>\n

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(JTA) \u2014 We are two Australians in our 30s, and if you asked us what most shaped the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1160,37,649],"class_list":{"0":"post-78651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-commentary","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-opinion"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116449699560380747","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}