Students Shine at the Hidon Hatanach

Eighth grader Adina Israel and eleventh grader Matthew Kritz were both selected as finalists at the national level of this year's Hidon Ha-Tanakh [Bible Contest], sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Israel. Adina and Matthew were joined at the Hidon by MJBHA Upper School student Gabe Gross, and Middle School students Aaron Hall, Eliana Tuchman, Anna Rose Osofsky, and Hadassah Raskas. Though we just missed out on the top individual awards, the overall performance of the team was nothing short of remarkable. All of five of the MJBHA contestants in the Middle School Division finished within the top 12 (out of 82 in the Hebrew day school division from throughout the country), while the two upper schoolers finished fourth and eighth. 

The contest, which was held at the Ramaz school, on the upper east side of Manhattan, draws students from Jewish day schools and supplementary schools from every region of the United States. Three regional exams are given throughout the year and everyone who reaches a certain cutoff score is invited to the nationals. All eight of the Berman contestants (affectionately known as the Berman Bnei Binah) qualified for the finals. (Yishai Brown qualified but did not make the trip to New York.) This year's contestants were tested on their mastery of the biblical books of Exodus, Samuel II, Esther, and Jonah. High school students were also tested on the books of Joel, Amos, Haggai, and Malachi. 

The Hidon students worked very hard all year on their own time under the guidance, encouragement and mentoring of Upper School Tanakh teacher, Mrs. Pessie Busel Novick, whose enthusiasm for Tanakh and for the contest clearly rubbed off on her students.

Upon reporting the students' scores via e-mail, Rabbi Ezra Frazer, Coordinator of the National Bible Contest, made the following comment, "I want to personally congratulate the Berman Bnei Binah on an incredible team effort! Although you aren't sending anyone to Israel for the international finals, I don't think there's any other school that came close to having so large of a group of students all do so well."