Jewish Holidays Trivia Quiz

Answer: Applying the Heimlich Maneuver to a choking victim

Jews are not supposed to do any work on the Sabbath. This includes driving a car, cooking food, and turning on electrical appliances. However, violating the normal prohibitions in order to save a life is allowed and expected. Thus things like performing CPR, giving a patient dialysis, and riding in an ambulance to get to the hospital in an emergency are all allowed.

Answer: Ram

The shofar is traditionally made from a ram's horn although other animal horns are allowed. According to the biblical story of Abraham, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of faith. At the last minute God told Abraham to stay his hand and provided a ram nearby for Abraham to use as a sacrifice.

Growing up I attended services with my grandparents and the highlight was when they blew an instrument known as the shofar. As a young child it was a fun change from hearing people chanting in a language (Hebrew) that I didn't understand.

Answer: Food

Yom Kippur is a day of fasting. It actually starts at sundown one day and ends at sundown the next. Thus by eating just before sundown before it starts and then again just after it ends, only two meals (breakfast and lunch) are actually missed.

The way the Jewish calendar works, Yom Kippur can never start on a Monday, Thursday, or Saturday night. I'm not sure why it doesn't start on Monday, but avoiding the other two days makes sense in accordance with the rules of Sabbath. If it started on Thursday, it would end on Friday night which would mean that the big meal to end the fast would have to be prepared before Thursday in order to avoid cooking on either Yom Kippur or the Sabbath. Likewise, if it started on Saturday night, it would be difficult to cook a sizable meal to prepare for the fast due to it starting at the end of the Sabbath.

Answer: Harvest

Sukkot, which is celebrated at the end of summer or early in the fall, commemorates the harvest season. It is also known as the feast of booths and is celebrated by building small wooden buildings with a roof made of plant leaves or other vegetation. Meals are eaten inside these booths and it corresponds with the end of the annual reading of the Torah when the Jews were about to leave the desert after forty years of wandering.

Answer: 5

The Torah consists of the first five books of the bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). These are considered especially holy in the Jewish religion as they start at the creation of the world and end with the death of Moses just before the Jews enter the promised land.

A portion of the Torah is read each week during the Sabbath in such portions that it takes a full year to go through all five books. The rabbi's sermon usually provides an interpretation of what was read that week.

Answer: Lights

Hanukkah celebrates a miracle that happened after the Jews recaptured the temple in Jerusalem from the Syrians. Tradition has it that after the Syrians had looted the temple, there was only enough oil to light the temple for one day but that it would take eight days to create more. However, the single day's supply lasted the full eight days which constituted the miracle.

Due to its proximity to Christmas, Hanukkah gets a lot of publicity although it is considered one of the minor holidays in the Jewish religion. The books containing the story of Hanukkah (Maccabees) are not considered part of the Bible in the Jewish religion.

Answer: Esther

The Book of Esther tells the story of Queen Esther who along with her cousin, Mordecai, are able to foil a plot to kill all the Jews in Persia. In the end, Haman, the man responsible for the plot, is hung on the gallows he had originally prepared for Mordecai.

Esther is one of only two Old Testament books where God is not explicitly mentioned (the other being Song of Songs).

Answer: Youngest child

Passover is probably the third most important annual holiday in Judaism after Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. It details the events in the Book of Exodus where the Jews were enslaved in Egypt and subsequently freed after ten plagues were cast down on the Egyptians.

The festive meal that is part of Passover is called the Seder. It begins with the youngest person present (of a teachable age) asking "Why is this night different from all other nights?" They then ask about four specific things that are done differently on Passover compared with the rest of the year (eating only unleavened bread, eating bitter herbs rather than other vegetables, dipping food in salt water, and reclining rather than sitting up while eating).

The rest of the Seder consists of the retelling of the story of Exodus and offers reasons behind these differences.

Answer: Love thy neighbor

In addition to telling the story of the origin of the world and of the Jews through the time of Moses, the Torah also gives laws for the Jews to obey. These include the Ten Commandments as well as instructions as to what foods the Jews are allowed to eat. The Book of Numbers includes a census of the Jewish people as of the time of the Torah.

Answer: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

The Holocaust and World War II are among the great tragedies of the 20th Century. While the allied armies were unaware of the extent to which the European Jews were being slaughtered, conditions for the Jews were horrible, especially in Poland. The ghetto in Warsaw was the most famous of the places where the Jews lived in overcrowded, disease plagued conditions before being sent to the extermination camps.

Although the uprising was unsuccessful and the ghetto was liquidated by the Nazis, the heroism the people showed against overwhelming odds is still remembered over 70 years later.