The Etgar Israel Challenge for 2021 has been won by a team from Yavneh College.

They scored highly on the multi-choice quiz to test their knowledge of the Jewish state, which is based on the Etgar Israel handbook.

Around 150 14-year-olds from four schools — JFS, King David High Manchester and JCoSS were the others — compted in this year’s contest, which was adapted for pandemic conditions.

Since it could not be held in a single place, the contestants instead were split into teams in their own school and given an “Etgar Israel in a box”, with three tasks to complete in an hour

Yavneh’s winning quiz team comprised Adam Bannon, Joshua Barbanel, Samuel Beach, Sonny Perchick, Mikey Wyman, and Fraser Bookatz.

For the second challenge, pupils were given three blank postcards with a photograph of new immigrants to Israel from different eras. One was from a European migrant ship in 1947, another showed Yemeni children in 1952 in ma’abarot, refugee camps, the third Russians on an El Al plane in 1991.

Students were given historical material such as newspaper clippings and diary entries from the time, and asked to imagine they were one of the new arrivals and write a postcard back to the country they had just left.

The results are still being collated.

In the third challenge, they had to use a map of Tel Aviv to identify various locations in the city. The final destination enabled them to unlock a treasure box and a small prize.