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RASHI, RAMBAM and CHANUKKAH-MADINGDONG: A Quizbook of Chanukkah Trivia Facts & Fun

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Israel is considering a change to their Basic Laws (similar to a Constitution) to specify that Israel is the “nation-state of the Jewish people” rather than “a Jewish and democratic” state. Another of Israel's Basic Laws is called the Freedom of Occupation law. What does this law guarantee?

A. It guarantees the right of Israel to occupy any land which historically was part of Biblical Israel.

B. It guarantees the right of Israelis to engage in any occupation of his or her choosing.

C. Based upon the Occupy Wall Street movement, this law ensures the right of all Israelis to peacefully protest in public places.

D. It guarantees the right of Israel to occupy and destroy any house inhabited by a person found to have committed a terrorist act.

E. It allows El Al Airlines to provide unisex bathrooms on their airplanes, despite the efforts by the religious community to require men and women to occupy separate bathrooms.

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Which famous person's ancestral path to America included Mexican and Jewish ancestry?

A. Actress/singer Lea Michele’s father, Mark Sarfati, is a Sephardic Jew whose family originally came from Spain, later immigrating to Turkey, and finally to Mexico, where Mark married Lea’s mother, Edith, a Roman Catholic. They moved to the Bronx, where Lea was born in 1986. Though primarily raised Catholic, Michele told Us Magazine, “I’ve always been proud of my body, my Jewish nose and all of that.”

B. Journalist/talk show host Geraldo Rivera is the son of Lillian Friedman, whose ancestry is Ashkenazic Russian, and Cruz Rivera, a Catholic from Mexico. They met while both were working at a restaurant in New York, and moved to Long Island after marrying. Geraldo was raised Jewish and had a bar mitzvah, which took place at the North Lindenhurst Fire Department Hall because there was no nearby synagogue.

C. Magician David Blaine was born in Brooklyn, the son of Patrice White and William Perez. Perez was half Mexican and half Italian, while White was of Russian Jewish descent. They met when White was working with the Peace Corps in the small village in Mexico where Perez lived. Blaine sports several tattoos, including the numbers that were branded on Primo Levi’s arm at Auschwitz.

D. Comedian/actor Louis C.K.’s grandfather, Geza Székely Schweiger, was a Hungarian Jewish surgeon who immigrated to Mexico, where he married a Catholic Mexican woman and raised his son Luis as Catholic. Luis married an Irish Catholic woman, Mary, and they raised their son Louie as Catholic. Luis later divorced Mary and married a Jewish woman, and then he converted to Orthodox Judaism. Louis is now an agnostic.

E. George W. Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, famous for the memo that argued that waterboarding was not torture, was the grandson of Mel Blanc and Friz Frelang, both Jews who came from Vornerbradders in Poland. After they immigrated to Mexico, their daughter Ilana, known as “Looney,” married Arriba “Speedy” Gonzales, a Mexican Olympic runner, and their son Alberto was born in 1955.

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What distinction is held by journalist Maziar Bahari, whose story of captivity in an Iranian prison is told in the movie Rosewater, directed by Jon Stewart?

A. Though Bahari is a non-practicing Muslim, his great-grandfather was Jewish, and he is a relative of Yosef Hamadani Cohen, the Chief Rabbi of Iran from 1994 until his death last March.

B. He was the Sandek (godfather) at the bris of Jon Stewart's son Nathan in 2004.

C. Bahari, who is from Iran, is married to a Jewish Iranian woman whose family fled Iran after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and moved to Canada, where they met when he was a reporter for Newsweek magazine.

D. In Tehran in 1979, he played Tevye in a middle school production of Fiddler on the Roof, the last time this show was produced in Iran. After the overthrow of the Shah, Fiddler was banned as Zionist propaganda by the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini, a ban that remains in effect to this day.

E. In 1995, he directed the documentary film The Voyage of the St. Louis about the Jewish refugee ship that was turned away from American shores in 1939, the first Holocaust movie ever made by a Muslim.

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Lee Zeldin, who defeated incumbent Democratic Congressman Tim Bishop from the East End of Long Island, will be the only Jewish Republican in Congress next year. What did Zeldin say in recognition of that fact?

A. In an interview with the editor of the Jewish Press, he said, “I believe that the Jewish community is beginning to understand that the Democratic Party is no longer a place where they can feel comfortable. I intend to work with other Jewish Republicans in the 2016 election, with a goal of greatly increasing the conservative Jewish voice in Congress.”

B. In a phone call with leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, he said,  "I will make it my highest priority to ensure that the Obama administration changes its tune in regard to Israel, our democratic ally in the Middle East.”

C. With a goal of becoming a bridge between Jews in the Republican and Democratic parties, he told the New York Times, “I’ve had the experience where I would go into a temple, and I may know the secret handshake, I may have been bar mitzvahed down the street, but there would be people who didn’t care about a single word coming out of my mouth because I was a registered Republican.”

D. On a congratulatory phone call that he received from Eric Cantor, the former Congressman who previously was the only Jewish Republican in Congress, he said, “I am proud to share this distinction with you, and together, I am sure that we can ensure that in 2016, no one will be able to make that claim again.”

E. To a reporter for Newsday on election night he said, “Really? There are no other Jews? Does that mean I get to be president of the Republican Jewish Caucus?”

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What problem arose in Israel this year in regard to Daylight Savings Time?

A. Because the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) community does not support the concept of Daylight Savings Time, which impacts the start and end times of Shabbat and holidays, leaders of their community chose to totally ignore the time change. Among other issues, they blocked buses from entering their neighborhoods on Friday afternoon as their Shabbat beginning time was an hour earlier than the official time, and many Haredi Jews showed up late for work, as their scheduled time for morning minyan was later than that of the rest of the religious community.

B. Israel's Daylight Savings Time schedule aligns with the schedule of the European Union. This year, the change came on Yom Kippur, causing the holiday to last an additional hour. Hundreds of Israelis fainted from the lack of food over the extended fast, while others angered their rabbis by breaking the fast an hour early.

C. No problem arose, as Israel does not switch to Daylight Savings Time.

D. For the first time this year, Israel aligned the country's Daylight Savings Time schedule with that of Europe, meaning that the clocks would be turned back an hour on October 25, rather than on a date right after the Fall holidays as in previous years. Golan Telecom failed to implement that change in their system, so their customers’ cellphones all changed time a month ago, causing many people's cell phone alarms to go off an hour late, resulting in missed appointments, late arrival at work, and massive confusion throughout the country.

E. Many Israeli clocks have Hebrew letters rather than Arabic numerals, and these clocks rotate counter-clockwise (like reading Hebrew from right to left). Therefore, many people who were instructed to turn their clocks backward did not know if they should in fact move their clocks forward. Meanwhile, the ultra-Orthodox refused to participate in Daylight Savings Time, the Arab community moved their clocks backward two hours to align with Daylight Time in Egypt, and the Catholic community moved their clocks forward two hours to align with Vatican time, thus leading to total chaos as everyone in the country was on a different time.

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[Note: We will be on vacation Monday, October 27, and will return with our next weekly Jewish trivia quiz on Monday, November 3.]

31 years before Sandy Koufax skipped a World Series game because it conflicted with Yom Kippur, Detroit Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg made a similar decision when the Tigers played a crucial pennant race game against the New York Yankees on Yom Kippur. What was one way in which Greenberg's decision not to play on Yom Kippur was publicly noted?

A. The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit erected a statue on the grounds of the Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit depicting Greenberg wearing a yarmulke and tallit, with a baseball bat lying on the ground beside him.

B. Poet Edgar Guest wrote a poem which read in part:
Came Yom Kippur - holy fast day wide world over to the Jew - 
And Hank Greenberg to his teaching and the old tradition true 
Spent the day among his people and he didn't come to play
Said Murphy to Mulrooney, 'We shall lose the game today!
We shall miss him in the infield and shall miss him at the bat,
But he's true to his religion - and I honor him for that!

C. Poet Dr. Seuss wrote a poem which read in part:
I am Hank.
Hank I am.
I do not eat green eggs and ham.
I’m a Jew,
A Jew for sure.
I will not play on Yom Kippur.

D. The Tigers lost the Yom Kippur game to the Yankees. Some very angry Tiger fans publicly expressed their feelings regarding Greenberg's decision by spray painting the walls of Navin Field (as Tiger Stadium was called at that time) with anti-Semitic graffiti.

E. Because of his professional success and his decision not to play on the holy day of Yom Kippur, Greenberg was the first athlete selected for induction into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Commack, New York.

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In a recent online survey by the Israeli news and entertainment website Mako, what did slightly fewer than half of the Israeli respondents say regarding ebola?

A. 48% of Israeli respondents said that they wished to give President Barack Obama an envelope with the ebola virus for his birthday.

B. 47% of Israeli respondents said that they believed the cure for ebola would come from research at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

C. 49% of Israeli respondents said that to prevent the spread of ebola, all Africans in the country should be deported or quarantined immediately.

D. 46% of Israeli respondents said that they saw the potential spread of the ebola virus by terrorists as a greater threat than the Iranian nuclear program.

E. 45% of Israeli respondents said that they included an extra line in the U-Netaneh Tokef prayer on the High Holidays - "who by ebola and who by enterovirus.”

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The pitom is the extension of an etrog at the opposite end from the stem which connects it to the tree. When is an etrog without a pitom considered kosher?

A. Only if it was accidentally broken off rather than intentionally.

B. Only if the etrog never grew with a pitom in the first place.

C. When (kosher) pigs fly.

D. Only if the etrog is first immersed in the mikvah.

E. Only if it broke off while being carried around the synagogue during the Hakafot processional.

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We end Yom Kippur with Tekiah Gedolah, the final long blast of the shofar. Which of the following animal horns can be used to make a kosher shofar?

A. The branched horn of the pronghorn, and the straight partially ridged horn of the gemsbok.

B. The hollow horn of a cow, and the three-twisted horn of the kudu.

C. The antler of a deer, and the straight horn of the eland.

D. The pointy horn of the unicorn and the short stubby horn of the jackalope.

E. The horn of a giraffe, called an ossicone, and the sharp-tipped horn of the rhinocerous.

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Besides Rosh Hashanah (the 1st of Tishrei), Jewish tradition notes three other New Years. You're probably familiar with the 15th of Shvat (Tu B'Shvat), the New Year of the trees. What are the other two?

A. The 15th of Nisan, which is the first night of Chanukkah, the New Year of miracles, and the 1st of Elul, which is the New Year for animal tithes.

B. The 1st of Nisan, which is the New Year for counting the reign of the kings of ancient Israel, and the 1st of Elul, which is the New Year for animal tithes.

C. The 1st of Nisan, which marks the New Year for counting Pilgrimage holidays, and the 14th of Adar, which is Purim, recognized as the New Year of freedom.

D. The 23rd of Tishrei, which is Simchat Torah, the New Year of the Torah, and the 29th of Tevet, which corresponds with the secular New Year, January 1.

E. The 12th of Nevuh, celebrating the New Year of life after your son finally gets a job and moves out of the basement, and the 16th of Nissan, marking the release of the New Year models.

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