Jewish Literature Quiz

From legends in the Bible and Talmud, to the American masters Bellow and Roth, storytelling has been an integral part of Jewish life. How much do you know about Jewish literature?

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Question 1. Who was Rivkah Tiktiner?
 A Holocaust survivor who wrote poems about her wartime experiences
 A 16th-century Jewish educator, scholar, and author
 An Israeli novelist
 A Ladino writer

 

Question 2. Who is the celebrated classical Yiddish writer known for short stories that inspired Fiddler on the Roof?
 Rivkah Tiktiner
 Mendele Mokher Seforim
 Sara Copio Sullam
 Primo Levi
 Sholem Aleichem

 

Question 3. Which is NOT a major category of Ladino literature?
 Translations of sacred texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the High Holiday prayerbook, and the Passover Haggadah
 Rabbinic literature, including commentaries on Jewish texts and Jewish law
 Folk tales, fables, proverbs, poems, and short stories
 Novels, TV shows, and movies, both newly written and those that were made from older Ladino folk tales

 

Question 4. Who is the main character in Philip Roth's book about a man's unrelenting monologue, delivered to his therapist, about his sexual appetites and adventures?
 Nathan Zuckerman
 E.I. Lonoff
 Bernard Malamud
 Alexander Portnoy

 

Question 5. Who is the author of the Russian-American novel Absurdistan?
 David Bezmozgis
 Ellen Litman
 Gary Shteyngart
 Dalia Sofer
 Maurice Sendak

 

Question 6. Which of these books is NOT about the Jewish immigrant experience?
 Call it Sleep
 The Rise of David Levinsky
 The Ritual Bath
 The Promised Land

 

Question 7. In Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer is on a quest to the Ukraine to find a woman named Augustine, who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Who is the author?
 Saul Bellow
 David Bezmozgis
 Jonathan Safran Foer
 Joan Leegant

 

Question 8. What is Franz Kafka's book Metamorphosis about?
 Josef K. is arrested and prosecuted for a crime that is not revealed to him, and his innocence seems impossible to prove, despite the lack of evidence
 Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up one morning and finds that he has turned into a "monstrous vermin"
 A man named K. takes a room in a village while waiting for his appointment at the nearby castle and talks to the local village-people, who are all stuck in the town without an apparent purpose
 A teenage boy is sent away by his family to a strange alternate version of the United States where the Statue of Liberty holds a sword in her hand instead of a torch, and a single bridge stretches between New York and Boston
 The influence of being raised Jewish in the pre-WWII environment of Prague

 

Question 9. Up until the 1800s, which of these languages was not a widespread language used for writing Jewish fiction?
 Russian
 German
 Yiddish
 Polish

 

Question 10. Which of these is NOT a contemporary Israeli author?
 Aharon Appelfeld
 S.Y. Agnon
 Amoz Oz
 A.B. Yehoshua

 

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