50 Fun Facts About Judaism

Which five-book collection opens the Hebrew Bible and is also called the Pentateuch?

The five books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, also called the Five Books of Moses.

On which day of the week does Shabbat begin at sunset?

Jewish days run sunset to sunset, so Shabbat ends when three stars appear on Saturday night.

How many nights does Hanukkah last?

It begins on the 25th of Kislev and commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple after the Maccabean Revolt.

Which holiday celebrates Queen Esther saving the Jews from the vizier Haman?

Its name means 'lots', after the lots Haman cast to pick the date of his planned massacre.

What is the common English translation of Yom Kippur?

It falls on the tenth of Tishrei and is marked by a roughly 25-hour fast.

What does the name Rosh Hashanah literally mean?

Despite being the New Year, it falls on the first day of the seventh month, since Jewish months are counted from Nisan.

What is the Hebrew term for the leavened food forbidden during Passover?

Many households sell or burn their remaining leaven the morning before the festival begins.

According to rabbinic tradition, how many commandments does the Torah contain?

Tradition splits them into 248 positive commands and 365 prohibitions.

In Orthodox communities, at what age does a boy become bar mitzvah?

Girls become bat mitzvah at 12 in Orthodox practice; most other movements use 13 for everyone.

Which festival falls fifty days after Passover and was called Pentecost by Greek-speaking Jews?

Rabbinic tradition links the day to the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai, and dairy foods are customary.

A shofar is typically made from the horn of which animal?

It is blown on Rosh Hashanah, at the close of Yom Kippur and on weekday mornings through the month of Elul.

The Temple menorah described in the Hebrew Bible had how many branches?

Exodus describes six branches extending from a central shaft, decorated with almond-flower cups.

Which Roman monument depicts the Temple menorah being carried off as spoils?

The relief from the 70 CE triumph is the most famous ancient image of the menorah and inspired Israel's state emblem.

The Star of David became a distinctive Jewish symbol in the 17th century in which city?

Before that the hexagram was mostly a decorative motif, found on synagogue arches and even the Leningrad Codex.

Geometrically, what shape is the Star of David?

It is two equilateral triangles superimposed, and it appears on the flag of Israel.

A mezuzah is fixed to which part of a Jewish home?

Inside the case is a parchment with passages from Deuteronomy that also form part of the Shema.

The Mourner's Kaddish is recited for how many Hebrew months after a parent's death?

It is also said on the yahrzeit, the anniversary of the death, and traditionally requires a minyan.

Which medieval scholar wrote the Mishneh Torah and served as physician to Saladin?

Born in Córdoba, he ended his life in Egypt, where his thirteen principles of faith were also formulated.

Which ruler is believed to have begun the Western Wall's lowest, largest stone courses?

Above the Herodian blocks sit medium Umayyad stones and small Ottoman ones, a timeline in masonry.

Tisha B'Av mourns both Temples; in which year did Rome destroy the Second Temple?

The First Temple fell to Babylon in 587 BCE; tradition holds both disasters struck on the ninth of Av.

Which biblical book is read in synagogue on Tisha B'Av?

It is followed by kinnot, dirges that have grown to include the Crusades, the Spanish expulsion and the Holocaust.

Purim is celebrated on the 14th day of which Hebrew month?

In leap years it moves to Adar II, and walled cities such as Jerusalem celebrate a day later on Shushan Purim.

Besides the Babylonian Talmud, what is the other, earlier Talmud called?

The Babylonian version, compiled around the sixth century, is longer and treated as the more authoritative.

Who compiled the Mishnah in its current form in the early third century?

He did so in Beit Shearim or Sepphoris, fearing the oral traditions of the Temple era would be forgotten.

How many books make up the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible?

Christian Old Testaments reach 39 by splitting books such as Samuel, Kings and the Twelve Minor Prophets.

Sephardic Jews are associated with the historic Jewish communities of which region?

The 1492 Alhambra Decree expelled them from Spain, and Portugal followed in 1496; many carried Ladino with them.

Ashkenazi Jewish communities consolidated in the 10th century in which region?

They moved there from places such as Italy, and their name comes from a biblical figure later identified with Germany.

Yiddish developed as a vernacular based on which language?

It is written in the Hebrew alphabet and was spoken by over 11 million people before the Holocaust.

Which Yiddish-language writer received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978?

Bellow, who won two years earlier, had translated his story 'Gimpel the Fool' into English.

Who first publicized the Zohar in the 13th century?

He claimed it recorded the teachings of the second-century sage Shimon bar Yochai.

Which 16th-century mystic is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah?

His school in Safed shaped the Kabbalah that Hasidism later popularised.

Who wrote the Shulchan Aruch, the 1565 law code whose name means 'Set Table'?

Isserles added Ashkenazi glosses, the 'Tablecloth', which is why the code serves both traditions.

Rabbi Abraham Geiger formulated the principles of Reform Judaism in which country?

The movement later grew largest in America, where the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform set out its early stance.

The term 'Orthodox Jews' was first recorded in 1795 in which periodical?

The label was coined by outsiders; traditionalists only adopted it as a self-description much later.

Hasidic Judaism began as an 18th-century revival movement in which region?

Its opponents, the Misnagdim, fought it for 150 years before both sides closed ranks against secularisation.

Which Jewish group bases its practice on the written Torah alone, rejecting the oral law?

The Sadducees of the Second Temple era took a similar line; most Jews follow the Rabbinic oral tradition.

Which fringed prayer shawl is worn by Jewish men during services?

The knotted fringes on its four corners are the tzitzit commanded in Numbers.

A brit milah is traditionally performed on which day after a boy's birth?

It is performed by a mohel and followed by a celebratory meal, and goes ahead even if the day is Shabbat.

What is the name of the bath used for ritual immersion?

Immersion is part of conversion and of monthly practice for many married women.

To be kosher, a fish must have fins and what else?

That rule excludes shellfish, eels and sturgeon, which is why true caviar is not kosher.

The Shulchan Aruch recommends waiting how long between eating meat and dairy?

Customs vary; some Dutch communities wait one hour and German Jews traditionally three.

What was the estimated world Jewish population in 2025?

That is only modestly above the 11 million recorded in 1900, a gap the Holocaust explains.

Of the four New Years in the Mishnah, which date is Tu BiShvat?

It is the new year for trees, now marked by eating fruit and planting saplings in Israel.

Which late-14th-century illuminated Haggadah is named after a Balkan capital?

It survived the Nazis and the Bosnian War and is kept in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to the Zohar, which forefather is welcomed on the seventh day of Sukkot?

The seven ushpizin guests run Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and David, one per day.

The Mishneh Torah law code runs to how many volumes?

Its author also wrote the Guide for the Perplexed and was court physician in Ayyubid Egypt.

In the Arab and Islamic world, the Western Wall is named after what?

The name refers to the winged steed said to have carried Muhammad on his Night Journey.

The earlier of the two Talmud compilations was produced in which region?

Work there was finished in the late fourth or early fifth century, before the Babylonian academies completed theirs.

The Shema's first verse, 'Hear, O Israel', comes from which book of the Torah?

The full liturgical Shema adds a second passage from the same book and one from Numbers.

What is the hidden piece eaten as the last morsel of the Seder called?

Children often hide it and ransom it back, which keeps them awake through the long evening.