Recalling How to Put a Spin on a Hanukkah Game

“Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made it out of clay. . . .”

So goes the refrain to a popular Hanukkah song well-known to most Jewish children growing up in the United States--and to non-Jewish children who learn the song for school holiday programs.

Unfortunately, for many, the next line of the song might as well be, “And I don’t know how to play.”

Many adults who played with the four-sided spinning top every year as children don’t remember how to play dreidel games. In what may be something of a Jewish equivalent to the Peter Pan story, only children seem to know the rules.

“That is true, that is true,” said Shahrokh Ghodsi, owner of the Golden Dreidle in Costa Mesa, which boasts one of the largest selections of dreidels in Southern California. “I don’t know why it’s the case, but it is true.

“That’s why we have these pamphlets,” Ghodsi said, handing over a small stack of one-sheet dreidel instructions. “Take a few. Somebody you know needs them.”

The eight-day Hanukkah holiday, which began at sundown Thursday, has packed the Golden Dreidle with shoppers this week. However much they may have played with dreidels in their youth, many admitted that they were now basically clueless.

The rules are simple enough. It takes two or more to play. Each player begins with an equal number of markers, usually pennies or Hanukkah gelt (foil-wrapped chocolate coins).

The flier that Ghodsi distributes calls for each player to put a marker in the center to start the game. Other sources specify five markers per player for the kitty; whenever the kitty is empty, each player adds one piece. The players spin the dreidel one at a time.

A different Hebrew character graces each of the dreidel’s four sides; when the dreidel stops spinning and falls, the letter on top tells the player what to do:

Nun, player takes nothing.

Gimel, player takes all.

Hay, player takes half.

Shin, player adds one piece to the kitty or loses the game.

Players who have nothing left to give are out of the game. The game is over when one player has won all the markers.

At Gallery Judaica on the Westside, which carries about 20 kinds of dreidels, an identical cheat sheet with those definitions is available to customers. “People pick up that piece of paper all of the time,” the store’s Tina Oberman said.

The characters on each side of the top constitute an acronym formed from the first letters of a four-word Hebrew sentence meaning “A great miracle happened there.” Israeli dreidels are slightly different because they derive from “A great miracle happened here.”

The miracle was the reclaiming of the temple of Jerusalem, and its rededication in 165 BC by a small band of Maccabees following the temple’s plunder by Syrian Greeks.

Tradition holds that when Judas Maccabaeus searched for sacred oil to relight the temple menorah, he found only enough oil to last one day--yet it miraculously burned for eight.

Playing with dreidels is said to have begun before the Maccabees’ revolt, when Syrian King Antioch IV forbade Jews to worship. Young boys met secretly to discuss phrases of Scripture. When Syrian soldiers happened upon them, the boys would take out a little wooden top so that the soldiers would think they were playing, not studying or praying.

Although it is a clay dreidel in the folk song, most dreidels today are made of wood. The Golden Dreidel carries more than a hundred designs. Among them are Lucite dreidels, glow-in-the-dark dreidels, Disney sports dreidels, Limoges dreidels from France. (Small wooden and plastic dreidels start at 25 cents; collectibles can cost hundreds of dollars.)

And now there is cyber-dreidel. It can be accessed from the dreidel Web page of the Jewish Communication Network: https://www.jcn18.com/spin-ns.htm.

Clicking on the Hanukkah icon lands you on the Hanukkah page and an invitation to “take a spin with the Internet’s first virtual dreidel.”

Clicking the “Spin Me!” button sends the virtual dreidel spinning across the screen, eventually landing on its side and showing a letter. A diagram shows how the four letters are used for wagering.

Just in case you didn’t know--or don’t remember.