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· 11 Dec 2021

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Games for children in Hanukkah, El Dreidel. Part 2

A dreidel (Yiddish: Dreydl Hebrew: Zábien Sevivon) is a four-sided perinola or spinning top, played with during the Jewish holiday of Chanukah. The dreidel is a Jewish variant of the perinola, the toy is found in many European cultures.

Some rabbis attribute symbolic significance to the marks on the dreidel. One commentary, for example, connects the four letters to the four exiles to which the nation of Israel was historically subjected (Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome).While not a commandment (a mitzvah) for Hanukkah (the only mitzvot commandments are just burning candles and saying the full Hallel), spinning the dreidel is a traditional game played during the holiday.

How do you play?

Each player starts with an equal number of game pieces (usually 10-15). The game pieces can be any object, such as Hanukkah gelt (Hanukkah chocolate coins), pennies, or raisins. At the beginning of each round, each participant puts a game piece in the center (“pot”). In addition, each time the pot is empty and sometimes if they have a game piece on the left, each player places one in the pot. Each player spins the dreidel once per turn. Depending on which side is up when it stops spinning, it determines how many chips you take from the pot:

If (Nun) is up, the player does nothing.

If (Gimel) is up, the player takes everything from the pot.

If a (Hei) is up, the player receives half of the pieces in the pot. (If there are an odd number of pieces in the pot, the player takes half the pot rounded up to the nearest whole number)

If (Shin) or (Pei) is up, the player adds a piece of the game to the pot (often accompanied by the chant “Shin, Shin, put one”). In some versions of the game, Shin is equivalent to placing three tiles into the pot (one for each “stem” of shin). This alternative version increases the overall fairness of the game.

If the player runs out of chips, is left out of the game or can ask another player for a “loan”.These rules are comparable to the rules of a classic four-sided perinola, where the letters A, D, N and T (in some countries, with initials from Latin) form a mnemonic rule for the rules of the game, aufer (take), depone (put), nihil (nothing), and totum (all). Also, the Hebrew letters in a dreidel can be taken as a mnemonic rule for the rules of the game in Yiddish.


What do you think of this traditional Hanukkah game?