Judaism

Question 1

The one true divinity, referred to by Jews as Hashem, Adonai, or Elohim

Answer 1

God

Question 2

First biblical characters, exiled from the Garden of Eden after they defied God’s commandment by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge

Answer 2

Adam and Eve

Question 3

Ritual cutting of the male foreskin and sign of the covenant between God and Abraham

Answer 3

Circumcision (bris)

Question 4

Hebrew Bible patriarch and father of the so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Answer 4

Abraham

Question 5

Influential biblical story narrating the escape of Moses and the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land

Answer 5

Exodus

Question 6

The most important figure in the history of Judaism, who led the Exodus of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and received the Torah on Mount Sinai

Answer 6

Moses

Question 7

Jewish dietary laws

Answer 7

Kashrut

Question 8

Coming-of-age ritual for Jewish boys

Answer 8

Bar mitzvah (“son of the commandment”)

Question 9

Coming-of-age ritual for Jewish girls

Answer 9

Bat mitzvah (“daughter of the commandment”)

Question 10

Figure who will come at the end of times, restore the Jews to the promised land, rebuild the temple, and inaugurate a peaceful and just world to come

Answer 10

Messiah

Question 11

Mandate to work to heal what is broken in the world

Answer 11

Tikkun Olam (“repair the world”)

Question 12

Belief that there is only one god

Answer 12

Monotheism

Question 13

Jewish creed, beginning, “Hear, O Israel”

Answer 13

Shema

Question 14

Form of single-god belief that describes God as lawgiver and judge and emphasizes religion’s ethical dimension

Answer 14

Ethical monotheism

Question 15

The written law of the Tanakh and the oral law of the Talmud

Answer 15

Torah (“teaching”)

Question 16

Written Torah; acronym for its three parts: Torah (“Teaching”), Neviim (“Prophets”), and Ketuvim (“Writings”)

Answer 16

Tanakh (also TaNKh)

Question 17

Authoritative collection of Torah interpretations

Answer 17

Talmud (“learning”)

Question 18

Holiday commemorating the Exodus story

Answer 18

Passover (Pesach)

Question 19

Jewish law

Answer 19

Halacha

Question 20

Proto-Jewish religious tradition focused on priestly sacrifice in the Jerusalem Temple

Answer 20

Israelite religion

Question 21

Religious tradition that followed Israelite religion and developed while the Second Temple was standing from 515 B.C. to 70 B.C.; it helped produce rabbinic Judaism

Answer 21

Second Temple Jerusalem

Question 22

Textually oriented religious tradition of Jews today that developed around the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 B.C.

Answer 22

Rabbinic Judaism

Question 23

Early rabbi whose debates with Shammai play a central role in the Talmud

Answer 23

Hillel

Question 24

Jewish mystical tradition rooted in the Zohar

Answer 24

Kabbalah

Question 25

Orthodox school of the “pious”, which emphasizes prayer over study and the heart over the head

Answer 25

Hasidism

Question 26

Movement to create a Jewish nation-state, which resulted in the creation of Israel in 1948

Answer 26

Zionism

Question 27

Systematic persecution and mass murder of Jews in concentration camps by Nazi Germany and its collaborators before and during World War II

Answer 27

Holocaust (also Shoah, or “Catastrophe”)

Question 28

Quorum of ten adult Jews, traditionally men, required for group prayer

Answer 28

Minyan

Question 29

Strictly Orthodox Jews, sometimes referred to as the ultra-Orthodox

Answer 29

Haredim

Question 30

Passover meal

Answer 30

Seder

Question 31

Jewish New Year

Answer 31

Rosh Hashanah

Question 32

Day of Atonement; a major Jewish holiday

Answer 32

Yom Kippur

Question 33

Jewish Festival of Lights, which lasts for 8 days

Answer 33

Hanukkah

Question 34

Religious obligations; good deed; commandment

Answer 34

Mitzvah

Question 35

7 days of mourning after burial

Answer 35

Shiva

Question 36

Capital of Israel; sacred city for Jews, Christians, and Muslims; and the site of the First and Second Temples and the Western Wall

Answer 36

Jerusalem

Question 37

People of God and nation-state founded in 1948

Answer 37

Israel

Question 38

Day of rest observed on the 7th day of the week, between Friday and Saturday at sundown

Answer 38

Shabbat (Sabbath)

Question 39

King who united Israel’s northern and southern kingdoms

Answer 39

David