Two national religious students from Rehovot and Jerusalem won the two top places in this year’s annual Bible Contest held on Yom Ha’Atzmaut.
Contestants from around the world, including the United States, competed, and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told them after 15-year-old Rehovot student Eyal Yitzchak Matas won the quiz:
Now you can go back to your homes, but come back to us, to the Land of Israel. Make Aliyah to the State of Israel. We are waiting for you.
Matas studies at a private religious school in Petach Tikvah, near Tel Aviv, and his Bible teacher is former Knesset Member Michael Ben-Ari. He was warded a scholarship to university.
Yisrael Elgrabli, 17, of Jerusalem, won second place.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said at the event, “The Bible is the foundation of our lives, and we could not exist without it.”