70 JewQ champions gather in Bushkill, Pa., joined online by 800 from around the world
Seventy JewQ champions from 93 cities across the world gathered onstage in Bushkill, Pa., on Sunday to compete in an exciting, fun-filled championship that was broadcast around the world. The coronavirus pandemic didn’t stop the 800 children worldwide who spent a total of 14,000 hours learning about every detail of Jewish life.
Hundreds of CKids participants at Chabad centers across the globe joined the live stream, hosting watch parties back at home with popcorn, flags and other party favors. Each of the 800 children who participated in learning the material was given the opportunity to partake in the championship through answering questions on a live screen and taking part in raffles for exciting prizes and a special awards ceremony.
Many children who participated in the 2020 championship eagerly joined this year’s program, and JewQ 2021 saw many new faces as well. Everything from the Jewish holidays to the ins and outs of the Jewish calendar was covered in CKids’ Living Jewish book that children used as their guide, in addition to the multitude of resources on the CKids website.
Last year’s fourth-grade champions Abi and Tali Grunwald, twins from Worcester, Mass., were featured in a video at the live event. Despite all of the uncertainties brought by the coronavirus pandemic, the two were quite certain that they would be participating in the JewQ championship of 2021.
“When Covid started, I wanted to get my mind off the fact that I couldn’t do anything; school was remote, soccer and karate weren’t happening and I was just stuck in the house,” says Tali. Studying for JewQ was a challenge but was definitely “worth it.” Studying all that information helped her feel confident in her knowledge of Judaism: “If someone were to ask me: ‘What are the main reasons you celebrate the Jewish holidays?’ I’d know the answer.”
I’m the only Jewish kid in my class,” says Abi. “When I started studying for JewQ, I really didn’t know much, but once it ended, I felt smart, very smart. I was like, ‘Huh, I am smarter about my religion than I actually thought.’ ”
Abi and Tali’s mother, Aviva, notes that JewQ brought the family closer together, saying “since they learned this year about the Jewish holidays, we were able to observe them significantly better this year than we have in the past.”
She says that their excitement was electric, and it was beautiful to see how they shared their enthusiasm with their friends. “At one point, they were informed that they would be receiving mezuzahs as part of the program. Since they already had mezuzahs on their bedroom doorpost, they decided to give them to another Jewish family that they knew didn’t have any.”
Abi took one of the “Twelve Torah Passages” she heard in last year’s competition to heart. Yagaati (“I have worked hard”) speaks about the power of effort and perseverance, and has become somewhat of a guiding motto for her.
“When JewQ came around, I thought of ‘Yagaati,’ said Abi. “I really put my mind and heart into it, and JewQ helped me realize that if I work hard, I will succeed.”
A Year of Study, Preparation and Local Competitions
To determine which participants would enter the international championship, each child took a total of three tests. The top three children from each Chabad center with the highest grade-point average took their final test in March. The 180 children who passed were invited to the international championship weekend event, a controlled environment in Bushkill, where every participant had either received the vaccine or had tested negative for the virus.
At the end of the weekend, 70 children gathered onstage in front of a panel of judges, including Rabbi Shais Taub, Rabbi Shraga Sherman and Rabbi Mendel Raskin, where they were asked rapid-fire questions and answered in turn until only the final JewQ champion was left. The onstage competition was followed by an awards ceremony honoring each of the 180 participants with medals based on their final test grade. The event concluded with the CKids “Educator of the Year” award, granted to Rabbi Dovid Weinbaum, who stepped up during the Covid crisis and developed an online Hebrew-school curriculum for Chabad Hebrew schools worldwide.
“The international championship was a beautiful show of Torah knowledge,” says Rabbi Zalman Lowenthal, director of CKids International. “The children learn everything from the details of the Jewish holidays to the intricacies of the Hebrew calendar. It was incredible to watch how the children got their families involved and involved other children in the fun and the learning.”
This year, JewQ expanded the program to five Hebrew schools in France and Ukraine, with Chabad centers in Australia participating in their second year. In three months, they hope to open up JewQ enrollment at Chabad centers in South America.
The online element of the program was directed by Rabbi Mendel Raskin, the mastermind behind the online games and the live broadcasted event. “It was very inspiring to see how much Torah the children knew; they really ‘knew their stuff.’ It was beautiful to see how proud the parents were. Just from looking at the crowd while their kids were answering questions, you could see how excited they were. They were genuinely amazed by how much about Judaism their children knew. JewQ is about acquiring knowledge, but it’s also about the feeling of investment—the fact that the children took the time to learn at home and pushed themselves to do well.”
As Abi reported, “I feel like once we took that final test it was like, ‘Hey, I know this. I made it! I did it! I’m amazing.”
