The Netanyahus on stage
The Netanyahus on stageIsrael news photo

Avner Netanyahu, 15-year-old son of the Prime Minister and his wife, has won the Jerusalem Bible Quiz in the Jerusalem Public School District. He will represent the district in the national Bible Quiz, to be held later this year.

 

Avner, the younger of the Netanyahus' two sons, outscored 50 opponents in the final round, scoring 98 out of 100 points. The quiz was held Tuesday afternoon in the auditorium of the Bible Lands Museum in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.

Avner is the latest in a long family line to win recognition for Bible knowledge.

 

Binyamin and Sarah Netanyahu were on hand to cheer their son, as was Avner's brother Ya'ir. Avner's friends and classmates from the Hebrew University High School, joined in the audience by their homeroom teacher and principal, held signs and actively cheered him on.

 

When Avner was pronounced the winner, the entire Netanyahu family was invited to the stage to congratulate him and join the judges and Museum Director Amanda Weiss in leading the singing of HaTikvah.

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu said in an interview nearly a year ago that he often read the Bible together with his son.

 

Avner is the latest in a long family line to win recognition for Bible knowledge. His mother Sarah's three brothers have scored high in previous Bible Quizzes: Amatziah Ben-Artzi finished in second place in the International Youth Bible Quiz; Matanyah Ben-Artzi won the national Bible Quiz at age 10; and Hagi Ben-Artzi won the International Youth Bible Quiz. In addition, the Ben-Artzis' father, Shmuel, is a veteran Bible teacher in Israel, and wrote a popular Bible Quitz textbook.

 

The organizers state that the objective of the quiz is to encourage interest and study among youth in the Bible as the cultural basis of the Nation of Israel. Many of the questions in the quiz were based on short videos filmed in the various galleries of the museum.