Dreidel:The Toycrafter

The Toycrafter, a Rochester, New York, toy maker specializing in tops, produced this intricate wooden dreidel. Jewish children traditionally use the four-sided top to play a game of chance during the celebration of Chanukah. The Hebrew letters marking the four sides of the dreidel stand for the phrase "A Great Miracle Happened There," referring to the miracle of a day's supply of sacred oil burning for eight days after the Jews recaptured the Temple at Jerusalem from the Greeks. The letters also correspond to the Yiddish words describing the rules of the game developed many centuries later in Germany; depending on which letter ended facing up, a player would either add to a pot of coins (called gelt), take part of it, or take the whole thing. (Today, most children play to win foil-wrapped chocolate coins.) Jewish tradition holds that when the Greek ruler Antiochus IV forbade the study of the Torah (the sacred text of the Jewish faith), small groups of young students gathered secretly to learn from one another. They took small tops with them and, when soldiers wandered near the group, students played with the dreidels to disguise the true purpose of their meeting.