Our Stories

On Yom Ha’atzmaut this year, MILTON students and staff had even more to celebrate; just that morning, former student Joshua Appelbaum (‘24) won third place in Chidon HaTanach, an international competition where high schoolers go head-to-head on their knowledge of Tanach.

The competitive contest was the culmination of years of preparation and qualifying championships. Students first must take three preliminary exams, which determine if they qualify for the national finals in New York. From there, the top four scorers represent the United States in the international final competition a year later in Israel.

Joshua got involved with Chidon HaTanach when he learned about it at the club fair at the start of his 9th grade year at Berman. 

“It was just a small thing at first,” he said. “We didn’t meet much–we just took the tests three times a year and studied outside of that.”

After taking the qualifying tests, half of student competitors make it to the national level. “About two months before the national competition, I got pretty serious,” Joshua said. “I studied for an hour a day.”

At the national competition, Joshua was selected as one of the student winners. After that, he had a year to prepare for the international competition in Israel.

“After I won second at Nationals, I had to just keep myself motivated. I really ramped up my studying,” Joshua said. “My primary studying is, and probably always will be, just reading Tanach enough times. It’s not only the best way to study and learn the material–you can also carry that with you. It doesn’t go away if you just sit down and study. You’ll memorize it slowly, but in the long term it’ll be memorized.”

Joshua also took practice tests from previous years and created Quizlets for more complicated Tanach sections such as long lists of names. He also cites his co-competitors as a source of motivation. “We were all on WhatsApp groups together, and that helped us all stay motivated and practice together,” he said.

A few weeks before the event, all national qualifiers took a preliminary exam narrowing the group down to 16 competitors. These 16 students faced off in the final competition on Yom Ha’atzmaut. The students’ scores on this preliminary exam are the scores they begin with going into the final competition, and according to Joshua, only the top 8 scorers truly have a chance to win.

On the day of the final competition, students arrived a few hours early for a short rehearsal. The supportive atmosphere among competitors remained. “Most of the time, we were just sitting there feeling nervous and testing each other,” Joshua said.

Joshua wasn’t sure how well he would do, but remained calm. “I had a conversation with another one of the kids who ended up placing 6th about how neither of us had a chance of making it anywhere close [to the top]. I think some of the other kids felt a lot more pressure. Once the competition began, there was so much adrenaline. When I was on, I stayed confident and I just knew the material well, and it worked out. Sitting back down, though, I was terrified. There was nothing I could do except wait.”

The studying habits Joshua developed have remained since the competition. “I still study for a few hours a day, and without the pressure, it’s just developed into a hobby,” he said. “It feels like I’m doing something valuable and productive with my time. I really enjoy the pursuit of academics and learning.”

Joshua credits the excellent Hebrew program at MILTON as a key factor in preparing him for understanding Tanach in Hebrew, the language the entire competition is in. “My Hebrew teacher, Mar Cohen-Zamir, enabled me to get more into Judaic Studies because he was so good at teaching Hebrew. Without him, I could have opened a Tanach, but I don’t think I’d really understand what I was reading, and it would have been so much harder to become invested in Jewish learning.”

Interested in competing in Chidon HaTanach in high school? Here’s Joshua’s advice: “Focus on making yourself feel as confident as you can. You can memorize certain lists of names and not others, and learn the material well, but it’s better to not know everything and stay confident the entire time than to know everything slightly better but not feel like you do. Then you might get one question wrong and feel entirely thrown off.”

Joshua and his fellow American competitors in Israel.

Joshua at the national competition last spring.