Objects

Hannukah whirligig

The Hanukkah whirligig was donated to the POLIN Museum by Artur Cyruk, a military man who is passionate about the history of Polish Jews and the initiator of the "Atlantis" project which aims to protect Jewish cemeteries in Podlasie.

The Hanukkah toy is called drejdl in Yiddish or seviwon in Hebrew. It is a toy popular with children during Hanukkah, a holiday celebrated to commemorate the victorious Jewish uprising and the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple (https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/slownik/chanuka). Hanukkah was largely celebrated in homes, hence the popularity of family games.

Please see the entry "Toys and Games" on The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe website (https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Toys_and_Games, accessed 06.09.2020)

The presented Hanukkah toy is a four-walled object with a handle, tapered on one side, with the Hebrew letters nun, gimel, he and shin arranged on the walls forming the acronym of the Hebrew phrase "Nes gadol haya sham" (A great miracle happened there).

The presence of spinning tops in Jewish culture can be traced back to antiquity (more specifically, the Greco-Roman period), but dreidels of modern form have become commonplace since the Middle Ages among Ashkenazi Jews.

Hanukkah, as an act of struggle and victory for the Jewish people, was a frequently cited holiday by Zionist activists.

Zionist journalist and poet Wilhelm Berkelhammer wrote in his work ("Literatura polsko-żydowska 1861-1918. Antologia" [Polish-Jewish Literature 1861-1918. Anthology], ed. Z Kołodziejska-Smaga, M. Antosik-Piela, Kraków 2017, pp. 26-27):

"Turn on the lights! Let them shine

Into the dark, gloomy night

Let the ghostly shadows flush out

From the fountains of your Power!

Turn on the lights! Let them burn

Through day and night - without end

So that brightness rises in your hearts

As before the face of the sun!

Turn on the lights! Let them shine

With brightness your heads

Let the Judean New Nation rise from the dead among the lights!

The Judean New Nation!"

Natalia Różańska

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Information about the object
Organization / label
unknown
Object type
handicrafts
accessory for play and sport
Time of creation / dating
20th century
Place of creation
unknown
Technique
cast
Material
lead
Keywords
Copyright status
the object is not protected by copyright law
Owner
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Identification number
MPOLIN-M129
Localization
The object is not currently on display