Andrew Guckes | Staff Writer
Joshua Vessal is, in many ways, just like other seventh graders: When he saw his older brother accomplish something, he wanted to do it, too.
Earlier this spring, Vessal took home the title of seventh grade world champion at the 2025 JewQ International Torah Championship, following in his older brother Yosef’s footsteps. He was one of more than 60 finalists out of more than 4,000 total entrants in the competition, according to Chabad. The students represented more than 250 global communities — with Vessal and the City of Brotherly Love coming out on top for all seventh graders across the world.
The Black Rock Middle School student said that the months of studying were all worth it.
“It looked really fun to travel, and it felt like maybe this could be my chance to show my family that I [have] actually studied and that I can follow in my brother’s footsteps,” Vessal said.
Vessal and his mother, Michele, credit a lot of his success and passion for Jewish knowledge to Chabad of the Main Line. Chabad international puts on the competition through its youth engagement arm, CKids. The Vessal family attends religious school at the Chabad of the Main Line in Merion Station.
Vessal completed the two-part competition, which includes a traditional oral component similar to that of a spelling bee, as well as a written part. They said that the family knew he did well in the oral portion, but they were still shocked to hear his name called as champion simply because there was no telling how well the written portion went.
The content of the competition consisted of everything from identifying parts or themes of Torah stories to specific details that took weeks to remember. Vessal explained one trick he had for a deceptively difficult Jewish trivia question.
“[Memorizing] the 12 tribes of Israel was really hard for me,” Vessal said. “I would remember three at a time and just repeat them to myself out loud.”
Once he had mastered each group of three, as well as any other piece of knowledge he needed for the competition, he called in his dad and champion brother for support.
“My brother and my dad quizzed me a lot,” he said.
Michele Vessal said that both Yosef and Joshua jumped at the chance to participate in the competition. She said that Chabad and CKids know how to attract young people to an activity like this.
“They said it is fun because Chabad is really good at making them feel good about it. They learn and they get rewards for it. When they move up a level, it’s very motivating for them,” she said.
While the JewQ International Torah Championship is the highlight of the event for many, there is a lot more that goes on at the Chabad JewQ Shabbaton. For Vessal, the highlight was actually just getting to be Jewish with other Jews.
“It was cool to walk around and see everyone wearing a kippah, and to see how there are Jews all over the world,” he said.
That realization was especially prominent for Vessal because, like the other contestants in the International Torah Championship, he does not attend a Jewish day school. That is a requirement of the competition. The JewQ knowledge championship is aimed in part at helping students who otherwise wouldn’t extensively study Jewish history to do so.
Learning as much history as Vessal did took a lot of moving parts and helping hands. He was quick to credit his teachers as instrumental in him winning this title.
“When we all get together and work together, we’re a really big force,” Vessal said of the team effort that led to his win.
Vessal said he was nervous to get on stage at the Parsippany Hilton, but he quickly realized that this was a friendly environment.
“I was scared in the beginning, but after the first question, I realized that everybody around me wouldn’t judge me if I got something wrong, or something like that,” he said.
It wasn’t just Joshua who gained a lot from the event. Michele Vessal said that this was, in some ways, a first for her, too.
“This was the first time I experienced a Shabbaton, and I had the best time. The speakers they had [taught me] so much,” she said. “It’s easy to get upset about everything you see on the news now, and it can feel scary and sad and upsetting sometimes, but being in that environment was very uplifting. It felt really good.”
She added that the family will always advocate for the program and competition to other Jewish families. The process is a long one — with regional competitions occurring months before the national one — but both Michele and Joshua said that it was well worth it. In fact, Vessal, a recent bar mitzvah, said that it was JewQ that led him to a meaningful Jewish practice he had never tried before.
“They helped me put on tefillin, and now I put on tefillin every day,” he said.
He added that he hopes to spread the knowledge he has learned by teaching religious school to young students. Michele Vessal said that the family is elated to have another JewQ International Torah Championship winner.
“There’s so many kids, and you never know how they all did,” she said. “This is all on him. We’re not forcing him to do it; he [and his brother] did it for themselves. We’re really happy for Josh because he looks up to his older brother. We’re proud of him to begin with, but it’s the icing on the cake for him to win the whole thing.”
