Aviel Haddad, an 8th-grade student at Yeshivat AMIT Ashdod, was recently crowned the winner of the first-ever interactive Bible contest in Israel. The initiative aimed to introduce the touch-screen generation to the Bible.
The competition was organized by the Education Ministry’s religious education administration, the ministry’s department of Jewish culture, and Herzog College.
Students who participated in the contest used a special app developed at Herzog College to study chapters from Nevi’im (Prophets) that deal with the return to the Land of Israel.
The students accumulated points on the app as they continued to study, and those with the highest scores made it to the finals. That stage of the competition was interactive as well, with students sing a special remote control to select answers to the questions presented to them.
Thousands of students participated and studied 170 chapters from the Bible. Aviel impressed the judges with his thorough knowledge of the material and took the top spot at the contest.
Rabbi Shalom Malool, the yeshiva’s principal, said that the competition “proved that it is possible to connect the touch-screen generation to the Tanakh and the heritage of our forefathers. Aviel greatest victory is the vast knowledge he acquired about the Tanakh.”