Overview of Jewish History

15 Points Per Correct Answer - No time limit  

1. Who was the first King of Israel? King David King Samuel King Solomon King Saul

2. Who built the Second Temple in Jerusalem? The Samaritans The Romans King Herod Judeans returning from Babylon

3. Alexander the Great liberated Judea from the Persians around 332 BC. After his death, his vast empire split up into several smaller kingdoms. Which of these had the longest period of rule in Judea? The Ptolemaic Empire The Greek Empire The Macedonian Empire The Seleucid Empire

4. The Jewish Diaspora is a term used to describe the dispersal of Jews to other lands, but in particular the result of mass exiles carried out by the Romans in 70 AD and the following centuries. Which of these regions was NOT, until many centuries later, one of the destinations of the Jewish Diaspora? Italy Greece North Africa Poland

5. Sometime in the Dark Ages, around the turn of the 9th century AD, the king of a small nation in Eastern Europe converted to the Jewish religion. What was the name of his nation? The Tatars The Ashkenazi The Teutons The Khazars

6. Where and when did the "Golden Age" of Judaism begin? Palestine, under the Crusaders in the 12th century Germany, under the Holy Roman Empire in the 12th century Spain, under Moorish rule in the 10th century Greece, under the Byzantine Empire in the 7th and 8th centuries

7. Christian religious pressure on the Jews continued to increase as the centuries went by, and was exacerbated considerably when the church created the Inquisition – an organization determined to root out heresy and alien faith in Christian lands. What year saw the mass expulsion of all Jews from unified Spain? 1456 1492 1512 1499

8. While the exact timing of their arrival there is unknown, several Jewish communities were set up as far as China. Which of these cities was home to a considerable Jewish community? Kaifeng Chang'An Shanghai Hong Kong

9. After the foundation of Zionism, the idea of a Jewish state where Jews would be free to manage their own affairs as equals among nations, there were several waves of "Aliyah", the immigration to Palestine. How would you best describe the first wave of immigration? Idealistic, middle class intellectuals Farmers escaping persecution Armed bandits Rich landowners

10. In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a vote on the partition of Palestine into two separate nations – one for Arabs, the other for Jews. By this decree, which of the following regions of the land was NOT allocated to the Jewish State? Judea The Negev Desert The Coastal Plains Eastern Galilee