A Toy with a Story
A titanium dreidel! Sounds crazy, no? And to further paraphrase Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, in our little state of Connecticut with its heritage of precision manufacture using high tech metals, such an innovation might well be considered, dare I say, a tradition.
Simply put, a dreidel (sevivon in modern Hebrew) is four sided top. But unlike the usual spinning child’s toy, this top is fraught with symbolism of an ancient miracle. Dreidel is played during Chanukah, the Jewish festival of lights. It commemorates the ancient revolt for religious freedom in Jerusalem by the Maccabees who triumphed over superior Greek forces in 166 BCE, and the single days’ worth of oil that burned for eight days in the rededicated Temple’s menorah (candelabrum) after the desecrated holy place had been recovered. Each side of a dreidel is inscribed with a Hebrew letter that together stands for the phrase “a great miracle happened there” (or, in Israel, “a great miracle happened here”).
