Q 01/05

Jerusalem sits on a plateau in which upland region, between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea?

A) The Judaean Hills

B) The Golan Heights

C) The Carmel Range

D) The Negev Highlands

Answer · why

A) The Judaean Hills

The Judaean Hills form a watershed: Jerusalem's western slopes catch the Mediterranean rain, while the land just east of the city lies in a rain shado...

Q 02/05

Muslims first prayed facing Jerusalem before turning toward which city?

A) Medina

B) Mecca

C) Damascus

D) Baghdad

Answer · why

B) Mecca

Mecca: tradition says the order to turn came in the middle of a prayer in Medina, more than a year after the move there, and the mosque where it happe...

Q 03/05

Which international contest did Jerusalem host in 1979 and 1999?

A) Miss Universe

B) The Chess Olympiad

C) Eurovision

D) The Davis Cup final

Answer · why

C) Eurovision

Eurovision: Israel won in 1978 and again at home in Jerusalem in 1979, then declined to host twice running, and the next contest fell on a national me...

Q 04/05

Many scholars trace the name Jerusalem to which Canaanite god of dusk?

A) Shahar

B) Shapash

C) Yarikh

D) Shalem

Answer · why

D) Shalem

Shalem, twin of the dawn god Shahar, is widely proposed as the root of Urusalim, the city's name in Egypt's Amarna letters. The same consonants give s...

Q 05/05

Which name, first used for a Jebusite fortress, became a poetic byword for all Jerusalem?

A) Ophel

B) Zion

C) Moriah

D) Scopus

Answer · why

B) Zion

Zion is a name that kept moving: first the fortress on the south-eastern ridge, then the Temple hill, and finally the western hill that is still calle...