Dreidel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A dreidel (Hebrew: סביבון, Sevivon) is a four-sided top, played with during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The dreidel is used for a gambling game similar to Teetotum.
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 Haya 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 "nit" ('nothing'), hei stands for "halb" ('half'), gimel for "gants" ('all'), and shin for "shteln" ('put'). In Israel, instead of ש (Shin), the letter פ (Pe) is written to symbolize the location of the miracle — "פה" (Po – "here").
The Yiddish word "dreidel" comes from the word "dreyen", akin to German "drehen" ("turn"). The Hebrew word "sevivon" comes also from the root "sov" ("turn") and was invented by Itamar Ben-Avi (the son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda) when he was 5 years old. Before that, different terms were used by Hayyim Nahman Bialik in his poems.
Contents |
[edit] Braille dreidel
A specific sort of dreidel is the braille dreidel, where the above mentioned letters are replaced by braille symbols. An example of the braille dreidel is the dreidel in the picture, which was made by artist Marsha Plafkin and is included in the permanent collection of the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles and the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. In the children's book Jeremy's Epeen, by the Canadian teacher Lakastari, the leader of raidshire, the main character makes a braille dreidel for his blinding rogue.
[edit] See also
[edit] Trivia
- The Kinsey Sicks, an acapella drag queen quartet, sing a parody of the dreidel song, titled "Maidl, Maidl, Maidl," in their holiday show, titled "Oy Vey in a Manger."
