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”).
There seems little limit to the materials out of which dreidels are made. At Chanukah time I set out a large bowl of them crafted of various woods and plastics in a range of sizes. I’ve seen them made of paper mache, silver, and stone. Before World War II, Jewish children in eastern European schools carved them from wood or cast them in lead. Of course, “The Dreidel Song” famously celebrates one formed of clay.
I’d never imagined a precision engineered dreidel, but last year my wife Mary gifted me two of them constructed of titanium from HORST Engineering. A Hartford area maker of precision machined components for aerospace and other high technology industries, they fabricate dreidels in aluminum and stainless steel as well as titanium. Appropriate to a maker of aircraft hardware, their motto is “We Lift You Up.” But the joyful smiles induced by their dreidels give the slogan a wholly new and equally appropriate meaning.
Precision Engineering
HORST’s first dreidels were made as giveaway trinkets at the company’s annual Family Day a few years ago, says CEO Scott Livingston. The event features tours of the plant and its computer-driven machinery. However important to safe air travel, the clevis pins, bolts, screws, bushings and other parts they manufacture are a little hard to relate to, especially for children. So, each year they distribute a company fabricated product with a little more general appeal. They’ve made key chains, pens, golf tees, yo-yos, miniature model airplanes, ornaments and other items. They have even made tops, but nothing was as popular as their dreidels. Not merely nice gifts to Family Day attendees, Livingston notes that the objects are a way of showcasing the company’s materials and processes in a manner that can be more readily understood.
Unlike other dreidels, HORST’s have a two-piece design that is modular and interchangeable, with the stem separable from the body. The body is turned on a Swiss screw machine, an automatic lathe that allows for production of high precision parts in volume. The stem is turned from solid bar stock, and the thread connecting it to the body is made on a thread roller. Diamond knurling for better grip on the stem is made on the same machine they use for surgical instrument handles. A cross-hole is drilled in the stem so they can be displayed by hanging with a string or wire (even on Christmas trees). The HORST logo is dot-peen marked on the top of the stem, the same way they identify critical aircraft hardware. Stainless steel models are naturally gray, but colored by anodizing, aluminum ones come in blue, gold and orange, titanium in green and purple.
HORST Dreidels are only an inch-and-a-half tall, but at a little over half an ounce they have a substantial weight for their size and feel good in the palm of the hand. Their heft is distinctive, and it takes a few practice spins to get the hang of it. But after several attempts, I found they just don’t twirl, they seem to dance. And because the titanium anodizing process only covers the surface, the coloring is somewhat mottled causing them to shimmer as they revolve.
Dreidel Origins and Play
A dreidel is a put-and-take gambling device. Each player has a stake for playing in coins, poker chips or other tokens, even nuts or pieces of chocolate. Everyone puts an equal number of objects into the pot and then takes turns spinning. Depending on the letter your spin lands on, you take all (gimel, ג) or half the pot (hei, ה), have to put in (shin, ש), or get nothing (nun, נ).
Dreidel derives from the German word dreihen, meaning to spin, according to twentieth century scholar Sidney B. Hoenig. The top was popular there in medieval times and had Latin letters on its sides. Later known as teetotum, the game was all the rage in nineteenth century London. Somehow, over the centuries, Jews gave the game their own spin with Hebrew letters that some saw as prophesized in the Bible. The most logical connection with Chanukah may be that the inevitable fall of spinning dreidels symbolizes the toppling of Greek authority by the Maccabees.
With origins as a gambling device, dreidels are a curious symbol for a religious holiday. Although medieval rabbis frowned on games of chance, they must have looked the other way during the long, cold nights of Chanukah. As a child, I was taught an apocryphal story that Jews played dreidel to fool Greek authorities as a subterfuge in case they were caught studying Torah, which was forbidden. I was also told about a complicated numerology where letters on the dreidel were equal in number to that for the Hebrew word for the messiah. Being mathematically challenged, I never quite understood how that worked.
In recent years, competitive dreidel tournaments have come into vogue. Spinners compete on how long their dreidel spins. Major League Dreidel, founded in New York City in 2007, sponsors the best-known competition and markets a playing surface designated a “Spinagogue,” also called a “Dreidel Spinning Stadium.” Their Motto, “No Gelt No Glory,” refers to the chocolate coins (gelt) traditionally gifted for Chanukah.
Mary and I throw an annual Chanukah party with plenty of latkes (potato pancakes) because fried foods recall the miracle of a single days’ worth of oil lasting for eight. We also listen to Klezmer music, and of course play epic rounds of dreidel. Some players like to spin dreidels on their stem, see how many they can spin at once, or engage in dueling dreidels where you try to knock others down. This year, I will take a whirl with my titanium beauties.
A Confluence of Stories
As I watch my dreidels spin, I think about Livingston’s Jewish grandfather who founded HORST Engineering after fleeing Nazi Germany, about a year before the outbreak of World War II. It’s a quintessential American story of a smart, hardworking immigrant making good on the opportunities this country offers. It’s a story that brings light and hope appropriate to the holiday.
He started his working life in a traditional bicycle factory where the two-wheelers were made from scratch—frames, wheels, and other components. Earning a master’s degree in engineering at the Technische Universitat Ilmenau, he learned metal working and the tool and die trade in about three years at various German factories, including a maker of stationary bicycles and other exercise equipment. A sympathetic employer helped him escape to the Netherlands in 1938. At age 26, he arrived in the United States where Horst Rolf Liebenstein became Harry Livingston. Coming to bustling Hartford, he worked for local manufacturers before founding his own business in 1946 to make small parts for a variety of industries, including typewriter companies. His sons steered the business toward specializing in aerospace parts. Today, HORST products are found all over commercial and military aircraft, including engines, fuel controls, landing gear, cabin pressure systems, and other components.
HORST Dreidels are a unique boutique product produced in limited numbers of just a few hundred. Each one includes a soft protective carrying pouch and a serial numbered Certificate of Conformance. Naturally, they’re more expensive than mass produced models of plastic and wood typically found on store shelves. But worthy of display or a spin year-round, they are heirlooms that bring delight far in excess of their cost.
I relish small objects expressing something larger, that link the present to the past and suggest the future. HORST Dreidels tie an ancient miracle to contemporary technological wonderworks that would have seemed miraculous to the people of the Maccabee era. It connects a classic American story of an immigrant seizing opportunity and creating innovation to a deeply rooted tradition brought from beyond our shores.
Dreidels can be viewed as about chance, change, and toppling oppression. Their spin is as much a gamble as is life. They’re just toys, but can be so much more.
