Objects

Hanukkah dreidel (Yiddish: dreidel) is a toy used during the Hanukkah holiday. Dreidels can be made from a variety of materials, although wooden ones are the most popular. Four letters of the Hebrew alphabet can be found on their four walls: nun, gimel, he, szin. These are the initial letters of the Hebrew expression nes gadol haya sham (literally "there was a great miracle"), which is a reference to the miraculous event described in the Book of the Maccabees that took place after the take over of the Temple in Jerusalem by Jewish rebels. During the game in which nuts, candies or money are at stake, they are read as the first letters of Yiddish words: nem (take) lub niszt (nothing), gib (give) or ganc (everything), halb (half) i szteł (place [everything]) or szlecht (wrong).

The Hanukkah dreidel from the collection of the Vistula Museum in Kazimierz Dolny has an octagonal stem and four perpendicular walls on which the Hebrew letters nun, gimel, he, szin are engraved. The edges of the walls are decorated with an engraved band ornament.

The Hanukkah dreidel was purchased for the collection of the Museum of Goldsmithing Art (a branch of the Vistula Museum in Kazimierz Dolny) in 1986.