Skip to main content

Understanding Israel: A Quiz on Its Culture, History, and Geography

Test your knowledge about Israel's culture, history, and geography with this engaging quiz. Explore various aspects of Israeli society, including its ethnic groups, legal system, significant events, and cultural influences.

#Israel #Culture #History #Geography #Ethnic Groups #Religion #Music #Politics

1 Which of the following is an officially recognised ethnic group in Israel?

2 At the lowest level are ________ courts, situated in most cities across the country.

3 In contrast, the West Bank has remained under military occupation, and it and the ________ are seen by the Palestinians and most of the international community as the site of a future Palestinian state.

4 Which of the following titles did Israel have?

5 Other landmarks of religious importance are located in the West Bank, among them Joseph's tomb in Shechem, the birthplace of Jesus and Rachel's Tomb in ________, and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

6 Israeli music contains musical influences from all over the world; Sephardic music, Hasidic melodies, ________ music, Greek music, jazz, and pop rock are all part of the music scene.

7 [164] Since 1995, Israel has been a member of the Mediterranean Dialogue, which fosters cooperation between seven countries in the ________ and the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

8 When was Israel established?

9 In 1967, as a result of the Six-Day War, Israel gained control of the West Bank, ________, the Gaza strip and the Golan Heights.

10 The first large wave of "modern" immigration, known as the First Aliyah (Hebrew: עלייה), began in 1881, as Jews fled pogroms in ________.

💡 Interesting Facts

  • the Gashash HaHiver trio, which included Shaike Levi, was awarded the Israel Prize in 2000 for lifetime achievement and contribution to Israeli entertainment and society.
  • the Israeli documentary Paper Dolls followed the lives of five health care providers from the Philippines who perform as drag queens.
  • the 2006 film Strawberry Fields is a documentary about Palestinian farmers in Gaza facing hardships caused by the Israel–Hamas military conflict.
  • since its founding in 1948 Israel has had twelve Attorneys General.
  • since 1948 Israel has only lost 18 planes in air to air combat.
  • the Israeli kibbutz Gvat was established in commemoration of the 35 Pinsk Jews shot by Polish soldiers during the Pinsk massacre.
  • the Israeli band Ping pong were disendorsed by the Israeli Broadcasting Authority as the representative in the 2000 Eurovision after waving the Flag of Syria in their song "Sameyakh".
  • the Israel Prize was set up in 1953 at the initiative of Israeli Minister of Education Ben-Zion Dinur, who then went on to win the prize in 1958, and again in 1973.
  • the Israeli Air Force's first heavy bombers were three B-17 Flying Fortresses smuggled to Israel in the late 1940s by Charles Winters and his associates.
  • the Israeli politician and diplomat Adin Talbar was the national 800 meter dash champion in 1942.
  • the Israeli ground-based missile-defense radar EL/M-2080 Green Pine (diagram pictured) operates in search, detection, tracking, and missile guidance modes simultaneously.
  • the Israeli government is considering recognizing Indian nanny Sandra Samuel as a Righteous among the Nations.
  • on July 30, 1970, Israeli and Soviet fighter pilots battled in the skies over Egypt in an engagement codenamed Rimon 20.
  • in the 2009 Indian parliamentary election the Communist Party of India (M-L) Red Flag decided to support the Left Democratic Front, claiming that its opponents were pro-Israeli.
  • during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, 105 Israelis were taken prisoner by Egypt in the Battle of Nitzanim, which was viewed as humiliating in Israel.
  • for many years, kibbutz Mizra's store was the only place in Israel that sold non-kosher meat.
  • during Operation Raviv of September 1969, Israeli troops used captured Arab armor (T-55 pictured) to raid Egypt's Red Sea coast.
  • due to the Arab League boycott of Israel, McDonald's did not open in Israel until 1993 when they opened their first branch in Ramat Gan.
  • despite having immigrated from Poland, Dahn Ben-Amotz was often considered the epitome of the concept of the Israeli native "Sabra".
  • former Israeli politician and Speaker of the Knesset Shlomo Hillel was in charge of an underground ammunition factory disguised as a laundry facility during the British Mandate of Palestine.
  • in 1943, Prigat, a small and newly created juice manufacturer at the time, sold 775,000 syrup bottles to the British Army in Israel.
  • in the 1960s, Israel trained Ethiopian forces for counterinsurgency operations against the Eritrean Liberation Front.
  • in a 1967 television interview, David Frost compared Welsh nationalist activist Dennis Coslett to Israeli general Moshe Dayan, because both wore eyepatches.
  • in 2005 Georgian ambassador to Israel Lasha Zhvania asked Hebrew speakers to stop calling his country Gruziya.
  • in 1954, Israel walked out of the Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission after the commission failed to condemn Jordan for the Scorpion Pass Massacre.
  • the mentally ill Egyptian policeman who perpetrated the Ras Burqa massacre, killing seven Israeli tourists, including four children, was hailed in the Egyptian opposition press as a national hero.
  • the U.S. airlifted 22,325 tons of military supplies to Israel for use in the Yom Kippur War under Operation Nickel Grass.
  • the artist who made a stone relief of the Menorah in Israel's Migdal Synagogue in 50 BCE – 100 CE may have seen the original Menorah in the Second Temple before its destruction in 70 CE.
  • the destruction of Ayn Ghazal by Israeli forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war was condemned by Count Bernadotte.
  • the ancient Tzippori Synagogue in Israel was discovered by workers building a parking lot.
  • the affair known in Israel as "the dirty trick" included the only successful vote of no confidence issued against an Israeli government to date.
  • the adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1450 marked the first time that Israeli losses were mentioned or condemned in a United Nations resolution.
  • the eastern segment of Canada Park in Israel lies on the village site of the depopulated former Palestinian village of Dayr Ayyub.
  • the final text of the Durban Declaration produced by the governments meeting at the World Conference against Racism 2001 does not contain the language that caused the Israeli and United States delegations to withdraw halfway through.
  • the well-preserved Khan al-Umdan (pictured), located in Acre, is the largest caravanserai in Israel.
  • until the former Arab village of Nabi Rubin was captured by Israel in 1948, it was the site of a large annual religious festival with tens of thousands of Muslims participating.
  • the prelude to Operation Pleshet saw Israel use its first ever fighter plane, the Avia S-199.
  • the popular Israeli singer Aya Korem works part-time as a bartender in Tel Aviv in between recording and performing.
  • the first Spinka Rebbe, Joseph Meir Weiss, was buried in Romania in 1909, but reinterred in Petah Tikva, Israel in 1972.
  • the Shelly was an Israeli cargo vessel that sank after being accidentally rammed by a cruise liner, killing two crewmembers.
  • the Teach First organisation which helps top graduate students teach in some of the most deprived areas in London and was inspired by Teach for America, is now expanding to Manchester and Israel.
  • the Alignment is the only political party in Israel ever to have held a majority of seats in the Knesset.
  • the Defense (Emergency) Regulations first enacted in British Mandate Palestine in 1945 were incorporated into Israel's domestic legislation in 1948 and remain in force to this day.
  • the al-Muallaq Mosque, also known as the Mosque of Dhaher al-Omar in Acre, Israel, is located on the site of the town's ancient synagogue.
  • the Abergil Crime Family is facing charges of money laundering, murder and drug trafficking, both in Israel and the United States.
  • the Dean of Barnard College and Teddy Roosevelt's grandson founded an organization that lobbied the Truman administration to prevent the creation of the State of Israel.
  • the Etzioni Brigade participated in the first ever Israeli Haganah operation that deployed more than one brigade.
  • the Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera, Israel, is named after Hillel Yaffe, a doctor who served nearby Jewish settlements in the early 20th century.
  • the Palestinian Fedayeen campaign against Israel was one of the causes of the 1956 Suez Crisis.
  • the Judean date palm, which was thought to have died out around 1 CE, was resurrected using a single seed found in the palace of Herod the Great on Mount Masada in southern Israel.
  • the Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan was developed by a U.S. ambassador in 1955 to reduce conflict between Israel, Jordan, and their neighbors.
  • the Jaffa Clock Tower (pictured) in Israel was built to celebrate the silver jubilee of the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Abd al-Hamid II.
  • as Israeli military governor of the Gaza Strip, Yitzhak Pundak planned to relocate the Palestinian refugees there to a new city in the Sinai Peninsula, but met with opposition from Ariel Sharon.
  • architect Arieh Sharon (pictured), who had been a beekeeper on a kibbutz, later led a 180-person commission to plan the development of Israel.
  • Israel Prize recipient Avraham Yaski founded the largest architecture firm in Israel.
  • Israeli Dudu Yifrah raised sewn-together Israeli-Palestinian flags on the summit of Mount Everest, and dedicated his climb to his Palestinian colleague Ali Bushnaq.
  • Israeli writer Eli Amir called for more Israeli literature to be translated into Arabic to promote understanding.
  • Israeli politician and settlement activist Gershon Shafat spent ten months as a Jordanian prisoner of war.
  • Israeli pilot and peace activist Abie Nathan landed his plane in Egypt in 1966 in an attempt to deliver a message of peace to President Nasser.
  • kibbutz Re'im has started a project to become the first community in Israel with its domestic power consumption provided entirely by solar energy.
  • Mount Hermon was captured by Syria on the first day of the Yom Kippur War and recaptured by Israel fifteen days later.
  • Berman's Bakery, Israel's second-largest, got its start by peddling black bread and honey cakes to Christian pilgrims on their way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
  • Daniel Friedmann, Israel's Minister of Justice, is a seventh-generation sabra, a rarity in a country where mass Jewish immigration did not begin until the late 19th century.
  • Angel Bakeries is the sole supplier of hamburger buns for McDonald's restaurants in Israel.
  • Russian-born Israeli mathematician Aryeh Dvoretzky is the first graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to become a full professor there.
  • Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a majority of Israel's population support future enlargement of the European Union to incorporate Israel.
  • Israeli chess Grandmaster Ronen Har-Zvi first met his wife playing online chess at the Internet Chess Club.
  • Israeli actress Hanna Maron lost her leg after a grenade was thrown at her airplane, but resumed her acting career a year later.
  • Ariel Sharon named his former party, Shlomtzion, after the newly born daughter of Amos Keinan, co-founder of the Israeli–Palestinian Council.
  • fallow deer bones found in the Qesem Cave, Israel, show evidence that humans 400,000 to 200,000 years ago butchered animals to share and cook.
  • archaeologist Francis Turville-Petre, discoverer of Neanderthal remains in Israel, was portrayed in works by authors W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood.
  • 39% of Israeli schoolchildren watch the educational television program Bli Sodot in their classroom.
  • 20th-century medieval scholar Erika Cheetham interpreted Nostradamus' writings as prophecies of Napoleon, Hitler, and the establishment of modern Israel.
  • Israel and China were cultivating military cooperation well before the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992.
  • Israel has the highest solar energy use per capita in the world.
  • Israel's future Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, and its future President of the Supreme Court, Meir Shamgar, were both interned in Africa by British Mandate authorities for membership in Lehi and Irgun.
  • Israel's Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center, known for its association with Jerusalem Syndrome, was built on the site of a 1947 massacre.
  • Israel's deadliest traffic accident took place in December 2008 when a tourists' coach en route to the resort town of Eilat plunged into a ravine.
  • Israel is the world's largest recipient of United States overseas military assistance.
  • Dov Yosef, Israel's second Minister of Justice, immigrated to Israel as a soldier in the Canadian Jewish Legion.
  • Frank Brickowski played basketball in Italy, France and Israel for three years in the early 1980s, until the New York Knicks thought he was ready for the NBA.
  • Yolande Harmer, who was one of the most prominent Israeli spies in Egypt in 1948 is thought of as "Israel's Mata Hari".
  • The Land of the Settlers is a five-part documentary series made by Chaim Yavin, dubbed "Israel's Walter Cronkite", and was so controversial that his station refused to air it.
  • Yehuda Hiss has been the chief pathologist at Israel's National Institute of Forensic Medicine since 1988.
  • Uri-On (pictured), created by Michael Netzer in 1987, was the first Israeli superhero to be published in color.
  • Tiv Ta'am is the largest supermarket chain in Israel to sell non-kosher food.
  • Karl Heinz Schneider, who used to organize battalions in the Hitler Youth, later moved to Israel, converted to Judaism and took the name of Abraham Reuel.
  • Major General Dan Harel was the Israeli commander in charge of the Gaza pull-out during the summer of 2005.
  • after the Palestinian Safad village of Fir'im was depopulated in 1948, the Israeli settle­ment of Hatzor HaGlilit was established nearby.
  • after Egypt was defeated by Israel during the Six-Day War the Egyptian government issued copies of the Hope paintings to its troops.
  • a Transporte Aéreo Rioplatense Canadair CL-44 crashed in the Soviet Union in 1981, after smuggling arms from Israel to Iran during the Iran-Contra affair.
  • Rabbi Wolfe Kelman prepared the way for the rabbinic ordination of women in Conservative Judaism and his daughter Naamah Kelman was the first woman in Israel ordained by the Reform Judaism movement.
  • Table to Table is an Israeli charity that collects leftover and surplus food, gathering enough each week to provide 12,000 to 14,000 meals and 40 to 50 tons of produce.
  • Samuel Brand, a survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Nazi Germany, was officially the first immigrant to enter Israel after its creation.
  • Majdi Halabi, an Israeli Druze soldier from the village of Daliyat el-Karmel, disappeared on duty near Haifa and was formally declared to be missing in action in June 2005.
  • Miriam Ben-Porat was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Israel and the first woman to serve as Israel's State Comptroller.
  • Hapoel Tayibe was the first ever Arab football club to play in the top division in Israel.
  • Haim Yosef Zadok was Israel's first secular Minister of Religious Affairs.
  • Gonzalo Aguirre Villafán, former president of the parliamentary Defense Committee of Bolivia, was educated in Israel.
  • Operation Bringing Home the Goods was launched by Israel to capture Palestinian prisoners in Jericho to make sure they were not released.
  • Operation Diamond, mounted by the Mossad in 1966, resulted in an Iraqi pilot landing a Soviet-built Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 in Israel.
  • Sami Hadawi, author of works on the land rights of Palestinian refugees, was exiled by Israel in 1948 and denied permission to have his remains returned to his native Jerusalem for burial in 2004.
  • Qualifying Industrial Zones are special free-trade zones in Jordan and Egypt created to take advantage of the free trade agreements between the United States and Israel.
  • Pinchas Rosen, Israel's first Minister of Justice, served in the German army during World War I.
  • Oriental metal is a kind of death metal music that originated in Israel which has traditional Jewish and "Oriental" influences.
  • "A-Ba-Ni-Bi", Israel's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1978, was performed partly in the Hebrew equivalent of Pig Latin.
    • Previous Quiz Next Quiz

    Related Quizzes

    Key Events and Figures of the 13th Century: A Quiz

    #13th century #history #Mongol Empire #Crusades #European culture #Franciscan order #Cambridge #Boyana Church

    Discovering the 14th Century: A Historical Quiz

    #14th Century #History #Renaissance #Ming Dynasty #Hundred Years' War #Petrarch #Military History

    Exploring the 16th Century: Events, Figures, and Discoveries

    #history #16th century #exploration #Renaissance #Conquistadores #art #politics #religion

    Exploring the 17th Century: Key Events and Figures

    #17th century #history #empires #Mughal Empire #Ottoman Empire #Persian Empire #Taiwan #Hudson's Bay Company #Kara Mustafa #French history

    Exploring the 18th Century: A Historical Quiz

    #18th century #history #quiz #education #literature #philosophy #politics

    Significant Events of 1904

    #1904 #history #events #quiz #education

    Significant Events and Figures of 1906

    #1906 #history #chess #astronomy #civil rights #swimming #biochemistry

    Significant Events and Figures of 1911

    #1911 #history #events #figures #Nobel Prize #aviation #fire incidents #education #composers