12 year-old Israeli wins First International Talmud Quiz
The competition was held for both parents and children at the Jerusalem Theater and was an initiative of the Talmud Israeli project.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFFirst-ever International Talmud Quiz in Jerusalem, Dec. 2019(photo credit: MIKI LANGENTHAL)
Nisim Shriki, 12, from the West Bank settlement of Beit El, won the first-ever International Talmud Quiz at an event marking the end of the Daf Yomi cycle in which people around the world learn a page of day of the Talmud.The competition was held for both parents and children at the Jerusalem Theater and was an initiative of the Talmud Israeli project.The Talmud Israeli provides children around the world with seven books covering the entire Babylonian Talmud with illustrations, stories and a chronological timeline, along with videos and weekly learning aids.15 parents and children from around the world competed in pairs at the finals in Jerusalem out of the 700 participants who took part in earlier stages of the competition.The competition covered a selection of topics from the Talmud and was conducted in the format of the International Bible Quiz.At the event in Jerusalem, four generations of one family marked the completion of the seven books of the Talmud Israeli and the completion of the entire seven-year long cycle in which all 37 tractates of the Babylonian Talmud. Tzvi Eichenweld, a 94 year-old Holocaust survivor, his son Dov, an IDF officer in reserves who was injured in service, Tzvi's grandson Ofir and his great-grandson Tenne all completed the cycle of learning the Talmud in memory of IDF soldiers who fell in service and in honor of soldiers who were injured in service.Tzvi stated before he finished that he was dedicating the learning to the memory of the six million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust and in honor of Holocaust survivors.During the event, Israel Prize laureate Miriam Peretz was granted the Unique Work for Israel's Unity and Intergenerational Connection Award for "being a symbol and exemplary of love for people and the earth, for being an inspiring figure for Israeli society, IDF soldiers and security forces, bereaved families, injured soldiers and victims of terrorism and for her tireless educational, communal, public, Zionist and Jewish activities throughout Israel and the world to join hearts, for intergenerational connections, for social cohesion and mutual guarantee and for the strengthening of the love of Israel."President Reuven Rivlin thanked the organizers of the event saying, "the Talmud is a special work on its own, a work that curates ancient wisdom from Babylon to Jerusalem and is one of our nation's important spiritual assets. The Talmud that connects between the Written Torah and the Oral Law, between generations of students that found through it the way to their Jewish heritage and, among them us, at the end of the chain.""In the Medison Pharmaceutical Company, we placed for ourselves the vision to do everything for the most innovative drugs would get to all the severely ill patients who need them. Within this sense of mission, we at Medison act every day in order to save and lengthen lives. Within this same vision and responsibility not just on the body, but also for the health of the Jewish spirit soul, we decided to take care of the generations, to be partners in the education of the coming generations and to found the Talmud Israeli enterprise, an enterprise with the goal of connecting generations and connecting Judaism to Israeliness," said Meir Yaakovson, the CEO of Medison, the company that founded the Talmud Israeli.
The Talmud is a written record of discussions concerning the Oral Law. The Oral Law includes explanations and further details received through tradition and learned out through exegesis that expand on the written Torah, which includes the five books of Moses and the books of Prophets and Writings.Jews around the world learn a double-sided page of the Talmud each day in a seven-year long cycle that covers all 2,711 pages of the entire Babylonian Talmud. The current cycle, which began on August 3, 2012, will end on January 4.
