Gather your wits (and some back issues of Mishpacha), and we’ll see how much you’ve absorbed on this journey through Jewish history

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, chassidim and misnagdim, beginners and know-it-alls, welcome to For the Record’s Annual Trivia Extravaganza. For the last four years, we‘ve been schlepping you through the back alleys of Jewish history, bringing you nearly 250 columns.

Of course, each of our columns is meticulously researched and fact-checked. (Well, most of them...) From the shtetls of Eastern Europe to the bustling streets of New York, from the hallowed halls of legendary yeshivos to the courts of chassidic dynasties, we‘ve traversed time and space to unearth hidden gems from our past. Because you know what happens to those who forget their past....

We‘ve shared tales of rabbinical giants, community leaders, and unsung heroes who left an indelible mark on Jewish life. Now it‘s time to see if all the hours spent poring over dusty archives, deciphering faded Yiddish newspapers, and frantically writing columns past the weekly deadline was time well invested.

Can you tell the difference between the Meitscheter Illui and the Kozhiglover Gaon? Do your friends know how proficient your knowledge is about Jews in the Civil War, Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin, and the Old Yishuv of Yerushalayim? Are you a walking encyclopedia of rabbinic trivia? Or does the information go in one era and out the other?

Let’s find out. Gather your wits (and some back issues of Mishpacha), and we’ll see how much you’ve absorbed on this journey through Jewish history.

What follows are 20 questions drawn from the material in the For the Record column since its inception. All answers have appeared in one (or more) of the columns.

Grading system

15-20 correct answers: Congratulations, Jewish history expert! We might tap you to substitute for us when we need a break.

10-15 correct answers: You probably deserve some sort of award for “impressive knowledge of Jewish history.”

5-10 correct answers: How quickly do you fall asleep reading this column every week?

0-5 correct answers: For the record, you don’t read For the Record.

1. In addition to Prague, which city had the unique distinction of having three renowned rabbinic luminaries— the Maharal, the Tosfos Yom Tov, and Rav Dovid Oppenheim— serve as its rav at different times?

a) Frankfurt

b) Pressburg

c) Nikolsburg

d) Mainz

2. Which chassidic dynasty was so influential that in 1899, the Polish State Railways (PKP) established a direct train line from Warsaw to accommodate the influx of followers visiting their Rebbe?

a) Gur

b) Alexander

c) Belz

d) Chabad

3. Which one of these yeshivos considered Lakewood as a relocation option in the years prior to Beth Medrash Govoha’s opening?

a) Mirrer Yeshivah

b) RIETS

c) Lomza Yeshivah

d) All of the above

4. What was the name of Rav Meir Shapiro’s first sefer?

a) Ohr HaMeir

b) Imrei Daas

c) Eretz Tzvi

d) Shaarei Teshuvah

5. What was the relation of Rav Tzvi Hirsch Grodzenski (the Omaha Gaon) to Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzenski?

a) Brothers

b) Father and son

c) Uncle and nephew

d) Cousins

6. Which visiting gadol delivered a powerful hesped in front of thousands of mourners outside RIETS on East Broadway at the 1928 funeral of his close friend Rav Shlomo Polachek (the Meitscheter Illui)?

a) Rav Shimon Shkop

b) The Ponevezher Rav

c) Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz

d) Rav Dovid Leibowitz

7. In 1913, this Jewish community had a robust Talmud Torah with more than 2,100 students, with 64 of its high school boys making a much-heralded siyum on Bava Metzia, attended by many of America’s leading rabbanim. Which was it?

a) Newark

b) Harlem

c) Bronx

d) Baltimore

8. Which chassidic “Wonder Rabbi” was visited by the British author and diplomat Laurence Oliphant in 1881?

a) Rav Avraham Yaakov Friedman of Sadigura

b) Rav Shlomo of Chortkov

c) Rav Shalom Rokeach of Belz

d) Rabbi Chaim Halberstam of Sanz

9. Who was the first official “chief rabbi” of England?

a) Rabbi Solomon Hirschell

b) Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler

c) Rabbi Dovid Tevele Schiff

d) Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Levin

10. Which esteemed rabbi was considered for the position of chief rabbi in New York in 1879, several years before the hiring of Rav Yaakov Yosef?

a) Rav Chaim Soloveitchik

b) The Malbim

c) Rav Eliyahu Feinstein

d) Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzenski

11. Which one of these Torah leaders was reinterred in Israel in 1956?

a) Rav Meir Shapiro

b) Rav Menachem Ziemba

c) The Alter of Novardok

d) The Chida

12. Which American rav, with the encouragement of Rav Meir Shapiro, became the only maggid shiur to deliver a daily shiur for the first eight cycles of Daf Yomi?

a) Rav Eliezer Silver

b) Rav Efraim Yolles

c) Rav Chatzkel Besser

d) Rav Yisroel Rosenberg

13. In his introduction to the Aruch Hashulchan (published in 1884), to whom does the author, Rav Yechiel Michel HaLevi Epstein, pay tribute?

a) His brother-in-law the Netziv

b) The Chofetz Chaim

c) American Jewry

d) Czar Alexander III

14. Who first employed the pushke as a novel means of collecting tzedakah across the Diaspora?

a) Dutch Jewry

b) the Volozhin Yeshivah

c) Kupas Rav Meir Baal Haneis

d) Kollel Chabad

15. Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky’s first shteller in America was a two-month stint, filling in for this beloved rabbi:

a) Rav Boruch Shapiro

b) Rav Shalom Pinchas Wohlgelernter

c) Rav Ephraim Epstein

d) Rav Zev Gold

16. The “Buffalo Rebbe,” Rav Eliyahu Yosef Rabinowitz, is remembered as the first chassidic rebbe to die on American soil. What year was he niftar?

a) 1888

b) 1860

c) 1897

d) 1910

17. Which leading rosh yeshivah was also a two-time color war general at Camp Munk?

a) Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch

b) Rav Yaakov Bender

c) Rav Meir Stern

d) Rav Aharon Feldman

18. Who was appointed the rav of the chassidic community in Cluj (Klausenburg) after Rav Yoel Teitelbaum‘s appointment fell through?

a) Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner

b) Rabbi Akiva Glasner

c) Rav Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam

d) Rav Yisrael Hager

19. Which Jewish heroine was the topic of a 1914 Shabbos Chanukah speech in Vienna that eventually inspired a young Sarah Schenirer to initiate the Bais Yaakov movement?

a) Yehudis

b) Devorah

c) Chana

d) Yael

20. Which American Founding Father observed that Jews talk too much during davening?

a) Benjamin Franklin

b) Benjamin Rush

c) Alexander Hamilton

d) Samuel Adams

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1022)