by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

May 12, 2009

Darren Sultan knows his Torah. A first-place winner last year in the United States version of the International Bible Contest for Jewish Youth, the 16-year-old West Orange boy was in Israel last month to compete among 47 finalists from 24 countries in the Israeli and Diaspora versions of the competition.

All was going well until he was asked for the name of the father of the Arkites and the Sinites.

“I had 25 seconds, but I just couldn’t pinpoint the answer,” Darren told NJ Jewish News in a phone interview. “I feel I tried my best, and in the end, I did fine. I’m not upset.”

Indeed, Darren did more than fine. He took first place in the Diaspora competition, fourth in the Israeli competition.

“I was very nervous. It was a big accomplishment for me. It’s something I really wanted to do,” said Darren, who attended elementary school at Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in Livingston and is a junior at The Frisch School in Paramus.

The real fun began after the competition — which was held on April 29, Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day — when Darren attended a two-week Bible camp for all the national champions. It included touring as well as meeting dignitaries, including Israeli President Shimon Peres, which, he said, “was really interesting.”

“After the competition is over, it stops being so competitive, and it became this friendly atmosphere. We bonded. It felt like being in summer camp, traveling all over Israel.”

His parents, Andrea and Ronald Sultan, flew to Israel to watch the contest. “It was very exciting,” said Andrea Sultan in a phone interview after their return. “It was very, very nice to be in Israel for Yom Ha’atzmaut — but we never expected that he would win.”

In fact, they almost forgot to turn on their video camera, she said. “I turned to my husband and said, turn it on, it might be Darren.”

For Darren, the bigger shock was his first-place finish in the U.S. competition, held in New York in May 2008. That’s when he hunkered down and set his sights on winning the Diaspora competition. “I studied every day,” said Darren, one of eight siblings. “I just kept going through the material, reading and getting as much in as I could.”

He also started reading Torah in the Sephardi minyan, a smaller group within his synagogue, Congregation Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob & David, at the suggestion of Rabbi Eliezer Zwickler. As his mother explained, reciting the stories in the Torah on a weekly basis helped lodge the details in his memory.

“I could hear him chanting even when he wasn’t layning,” said his mother. “It’s how he studied.”

On his father’s side, Darren is descended from the Jewish community of Aleppo, Syria.

Although Darren’s competitive Bible days have come to an end, since he is barred from participating again in the international contest (past participants are ineligible), his learning days have just begun.

He has decided to tackle Talmud next. “I have to build a study schedule, but I’d like to go through all of Gemara” — the portion of the Talmud that provides rabbinic commentary on the Mishna — “in the next two and a half years,” he told NJJN in a telephone interview. He’s planning to start this summer. This time, however, there’s no competition, he said; it’s just Torah l’shma — learning for its own sake.

And the father of the Arkites and the Sinites? That would be Canaan, the son of Ham, mentioned in the “begats” section of Genesis 10:15-20

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About the competition

THE INTERNATIONAL BIBLE Contest for Jewish Youth is in its 46th year. The American contest has been around slightly longer, about 50 years, according to Ezra Frazer of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which sponsors the national competition and is a cosponsor of the international competition together with the Israel Defense Forces, the Jewish National Fund, and the Ministry of Education.

(Frazer, a Teaneck native, won the national competition in 1955 and came in second in the Diaspora competition.)

At the American competition, to be held this year on May 17, students take a written test — one of four administered — covering 100 chapters of the Bible. There are separate exams for high schoolers and middle schoolers, and for students in day schools and supplementary schools. Day school exams are given in Hebrew.

The top scorer on each test is declared a national champion, and the Jewish Agency flies all four winners to the international contest, held the following year.

More written exams are given at the start of the two-week competition. Championship rounds are held game-show style and are televised, with dignitaries usually present.

— JOHANNA GINSBERG

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