A
dreidel (
Yiddish: דרײדל
dreydl plural:
dreydlekh,
[1] Hebrew: סביבון
sevivon) is a four-sided
spinning top, played with during the
Jewish holiday of
Hanukkah. The dreidel is a Jewish variant on the
teetotum, a gambling toy found in many European cultures.
Each side of the dreidel bears a letter of the Hebrew alphabet: נ (
Nun), ג (
Gimel), ה (
Hei), ש (
Shin), which together form the acronym for "
נס
גדול
היה
שם" (
Nes
Gadol
Hayah
Sham – "a great miracle happened there"). These letters also form a mnemonic for the rules of a gambling game played with a dreidel: Nun stands for the
Yiddish word
nisht ("nothing"), Hei stands for
halb ("half"), Gimel for
gants ("all"), and Shin for
shtel ayn ("put in"). In
Israel, the fourth side of most dreidels is inscribed with the letter פ (
Pei), rendering the acronym,
נס
גדול
היה
פה,
Nes Gadol Hayah Poh—"A great miracle happened here" referring to the miracle occurring in the land of Israel. Some stores in
Haredi neighborhoods sell the
ש dreidels.
According to Jewish tradition, when the Jews were in caves learning
Torah, hiding from the
Seleucids, dreidel became a popular game to play. Legend has it that whenever the teacher heard the
Seleucids soldiers approaching, he would instruct the children to hide their
Torah scrolls and take out their dreidels instead.
