THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 16, 1995 TAG: 9512150080
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 167 lines
A HUGELY POPULAR song of the eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah, which begins Sunday at sunset, extols the virtues of a simple toy:
I have a little dreidel,
I made it out of clay,
And when it's dry and ready
Oh, dreidel I shall play!*
But the dreidel, a spinning top marked with four Hebrew letters recalling the miracle at the heart of Hanukkah, has spun past its humble clay beginnings. The dreidel - pronounced and sometimes spelled as ``draydel'' - has gone deluxe.
It's an item of original art and a gift of sophistication. Sterling silver dreidels sell for upwards of $200. Limoges - a famous French porcelain company known for exquisitely crafted and expensive items - offers a porcelain dreidel that retails for about $100.
Dreidels come in crystal, china and hand-painted hardwoods. And some don't even spin.
``A lot are made for decorative purposes,'' said Dan Baisley, general manager at the Connecticut-based Ya-El Imports, which sells Jewish items to 3,000 gift shops nationwide. ``People are starting to collect them. It's getting more popular.''
Most vendors say the surge in the popularity of dreidels as art objects has happened over the last decade. They suggest that it has been driven in part by the flowering of artistic work in modern Israel, where the dreidel is known as a ``sevivon,'' based on the modern Hebrew word for ``spin.''
But even as adults get hip to the dreidel on display, there is an ever-growing array of dreidels for kids - some cheaper than a gumball. Isabelle Horne, who runs the gift shop at Norfolk's Ohef Sholom Temple, estimates she's sold 1,500 plastic dreidels this year, at 10 cents apiece. Wooden ones sell for a quarter.
There are dreidels that inflate in the bathtub. For about two bucks, ``The World's Only Jogging Dreidel'' cranks up and runs on plastic sneaker feet. Slap down another dollar or so, and you're within range of a dreidel advertised to ``fly'' across the room, launched by a small plastic gun.
And the appeal may not be limited to humans. In ``Sammy Spider's First Hanukkah,'' a book by Sylvia A. Rouss, a spider becomes so entranced by watching a family play the dreidel game that he asks his mother to get him one. ``Spiders don't spin dreidels,'' she tells him. ``Spiders spin webs.''
The story of the dreidel, its origins and its purpose, has been spinning for thousands of years. The modern understanding - contradictory and complex - arises from a mixed bag of history, morality tales and cherished customs.
There is a starting point of agreement. The Hebrew letters on the four sides of the dreidel spell out a Hebrew phrase, which is translated as ``A great miracle happened there.''
The holiday's original history comes from a military victory, recorded in Apocrypha literature. Around 165 B.C., the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes ordered all people under his rule to follow Hellenistic rituals, such as the worship of Greek gods.
In Israel, a small band of Jews led by Mattathias and his son, Judah the Maccabee, resisted. They launched guerrilla attacks on the king's armies and won a surprising victory.
The holiday was first celebrated as a kind of independence day, somewhat like the Fourth of July, but as the Jews suffered under the reign of subsequent tyrants, the holiday's emphasis shifted away from the victory for religious freedom.
Several hundred years later, rabbis wrote about the ``miracle of Hanukkah:'' When the Maccabees liberated Jerusalem and cleansed their temple, they could only find enough oil to light the temple's candelabrum for one day. Miraculously, the oil lasted eight days, which was interpreted as a sign of God's care for the Jews.
It's not clear when Jews started using a four-sided top as a token to recall the holiday's miracle. Far back in history, tops of all shapes and sizes were associated with games and gambling. And society's penchant for gambling was a source of irritation to many Jewish leaders.
``Gambling has been criticized by Jewish religious leaders for 2,000 years,'' said Rabbi Michael Panitz, at Temple Israel on Granby Street in Norfolk. ``Nevertheless, it was a popular pastime. How do you de-fang gambling without outlawing it completely? At what point do you make peace with it and channel the energy?''
One way, Panitz suggests, is to turn the games with a top into a child's pastime. But he and others suggest that the dreidel - or some style of spinning top - may have been used for a serious purpose by Jews during periods of religious persecution.
Jews would study the Torah - the name for the five books of the Hebrew bible - but when soldiers came to crack down on their activity, they would pull out the top and pretend to be playing a game. Some say that Torah challenge games were developed based on the dreidel, with players striving to invent phrases following the Hebrew letters.
``The miracle was that they could study the Torah during these times,'' said Rabbi Lawrence A. Forman at Ohef Sholom in Norfolk. ``They were referring to the miracle that the Torah survived.''
The roots of the current dreidel's shape and lettering likely trace to medieval Germany, with popular gambling dice and tops that had letters standing for directions to follow in the game: nichts (nothing); ganz (all); halb (half); stell ein (put in). These items were known as ``drehen,'' a word meaning ``to spin.''
Jews likely translated these letters into Hebrew equivalents and then composed a verse to commemorate the miracle of Hanukkah, according to the ``Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols,'' by Ellen Frankel and Betsy Platkin Teutsch.
The game of dreidel may have gotten linked to Hanukkah because the holiday's tradition forbids working by the light of candles on the menorah - the nine-branched candelabrum used during the holiday, several rabbis suggested. Instead, families are encouraged to tell stories, sing songs and play games.
Parents traditionally give out toys to children, a custom that has grown, especially in the United States, due to the holiday's proximity to Christmas. But even before presents became a holiday custom, the dreidel was a fun way to teach children about Hanukkah's serious meaning, said Rabbi Arthur Ruberg, at Beth El Temple in Norfolk.
`In every Jewish holiday, there are devices to keep kids interested,'' he said. ``Before presents were ever an issue, the dreidel was that device to hook children.''
That kids and adults remain hooked on such a simple toy - in an age of whiz-bang video games and computer software - is a little piece of the dreidel's miraculousness.
``There is a certain simplicity to it, and sometimes simplicity is worth more than gadgetry,'' observes Ruberg. ``The dreidel is a piece of the ambience of the holiday.'' MEMO: * Lyrics by Samuel Grossman
ILLUSTRATION: Traditions
VICKI CRONIS
The Virginian-Pilot
Dreidels can range in style from hand-crafted versions costing
hundreds of dollars to plastic models selling for 10 cents apiece.
HOW TO PLAY
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
VICKI CRONIS
The Virginian-Pilot
A dreidel centerpiece on a menorah.
WHAT IS HANUKKAH?
Hanukkah - considered a minor holiday in the annual Jewish cycle
of observance - is an eight-day celebration that recalls a victory
for religious freedom. The holiday, timed to a lunar calendar,
begins this year on Sunday at sunset.
Each evening, Jews light candles in a ``menorah,'' or
nine-branched candelabrum used specifically during this holiday.
Tradition holds that no work should be done by the light of the
candles, so families are encouraged to spend that time singing
songs, telling stories and playing games together.
The earliest accounts of the Hanukkah story are found in the
First and Second Books of Maccabees, preserved in the Apocrypha
literature.
Around 165 B.C., the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes ordered all
people under his rule to follow Hellenistic rituals, such as the
worship of Greek gods. In Israel, a small band of Jews led by
Mattathias and his son, Judah the Maccabee, resisted that decree.
They became guerrilla fighters based in the mountains, and defeated
Antiochus' overwhelming forces.
The holiday was first celebrated as an independence day, with
emphasis on the military victory. Later, rabbis wrote of the
``miracle of Hanukkah:'' When the Maccabees liberated Jerusalem and
cleansed their temple, they could only find enough oil to light the
temple's candelabrum for one day. Miraculously, the oil lasted eight
days, which was interpreted as a sign of God's deliverance.
by CNB