Dreidel

What it is

A dreidel is a top with four flat sides and a handle. Each side carries one Hebrew letter: nun, gimel, hei and shin. Yiddish speakers call it a dreydl, from a word meaning to turn, and modern Hebrew calls it a sevivon. Players spin it between finger and thumb on a table, and the letter left facing upward when it falls decides what happens to the pile of small stakes at the centre. Coins, raisins or chocolate coins serve as those stakes. It belongs to the same family as the teetotum, a gambling toy once known in Europe and Latin America.

Origins and history

Scholars trace the top back to the teetotum, an English or Irish toy that reached Germany, where it was popular around Christmas. Its sides carried Latin words describing four outcomes: take the lot, take a part, take none, or put a stake forward. German speakers named the toy trendel. Yiddish-speaking Jews adopted it and gave the sides Hebrew letters, so the letters served as a reminder of the play. Another account, written down in 1890, holds that the game began with Jews who studied Torah in hiding from the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV, keeping tops ready to hide their scrolls.

Rules and rivalries

Each player begins with the same number of pieces, ten or fifteen in many homes, and chocolate coins are common. One piece from every player opens the pot, and the pot is refilled when it runs empty or holds only a single piece. On a turn the spinner keeps still on nun, takes everything on gimel, takes part of the pot on hei, and gives a piece on shin. In the United States some players remember the four outcomes with English words: get all, half, share, nothing. Mathematicians have studied the game, working out how long a round should run, and one showed that the person spinning first has the better chance.

Meanings and readings

Some rabbis give the markings a deeper sense. One commentary sets the four letters against four empires that at different times held the House of Judah: Babylonia, Persia, the Seleucid Empire and Rome. Read as numbers, the letters add to 358, the value of the letters spelling Moshiach, the Messiah. A folk etymology, rather than a scholarly one, takes them as the Hebrew sentence 'a great miracle happened there', a nod to the festival oil. Most tops made in Israel replace shin with pe so the sentence ends 'here'. Haredi communities argued for keeping shin, since 'there' pointed to the Temple in Jerusalem, and in 2022 a five-sided top was made to say both.

Today and collecting

The top is not required for Hanukkah, but it is played for fun. A spoof league, Major League Dreidel, began in New York in 2007 and runs holiday contests where the longest spin wins, played on a device called a Spinagogue. Newer commercial versions blend the game with poker, and other new tops have appeared since 2007. Collectors hunt for old dreidels, and Jewish institutions and museums in the United States hold collections. Old examples survive in wood, silver, brass and lead, including a rare ivory piece cast in Jerusalem in 1929.

How Dreidel is kept

The game needs at least two people and a flat surface. Players are usually children, sometimes with adults joining in on a Hanukkah evening. Each person starts with the same number of small pieces, and one piece from each goes into the middle. Turn by turn, a player spins the top once, and the letter facing up settles the turn: take the pot, take a share of it, gain nothing, or add a piece. Anyone who runs out leaves the circle, or asks another player for a loan.

When and where

It is played during Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, on the holiday's days and evenings. Hanukkah does not strictly call for it: the festival's two traditional obligations are lighting candles and saying the full hallel. The top belongs to the holiday's customs rather than to its rules.

Jewish families play it wherever Hanukkah is kept, in Israel, North America and elsewhere in the diaspora. Israel's own tops usually carry pe in place of shin, and tournaments run in New York. Yiddish-speaking communities in Udmurtia and Tatarstan, in Russia, had their own words for the top. Collections of old tops are held by Jewish institutions and museums in the United States.

What Dreidel means

For the families who keep it, the dreidel folds the festival's story into a game: a plain top that carries the memory of a small miracle, when oil lasted longer than anyone expected. Its letters also carry a hope, in the folk reading of the sentence they spell. Rabbis have added their own layers, seeing empires and the Messiah in the four sides. In Israel the changed letter turns the old phrase from 'there' to 'here'.

Days Dreidel is marked

Questions people ask about Dreidel

See also

Charro traditionThe equestrian skills, formal attire and rodeo arts of the Mexican horseman.Pub quizA weekly social trivia game played by teams at tables in pubs and barsWorld Eskimo-Indian OlympicsAn annual Arctic gathering of traditional survival games, athletics, and cultural artsKyūdōThe Japanese martial art of archery, practiced with an asymmetrical longbow

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle

• Dreidel on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.