Objects

It was donated by Małgorzata Melchior. It belonged to the collection of the donor's husband, a history enthusiast and collector.

Hanukkah doughnut (Yiddish: dreidel, Hebrew: seviVon) is connected with a popular children's game played by the youngest during the Hanukkah holiday (the holiday commemorates the recovery of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Jews; see the category note on the holiday: Hanukkah). The game itself was already known in ancient times; the use of spinning tops appeared in Jewish culture during the Greco-Roman period. Dreidels of today's shape became popular in the Middle Ages among Ashkenazi Jews (https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/slownik/aszkenazyjczycy).

This quadrilateral dirk is made of wood; a cylindrical wooden handle is attached to its top, used to hold the dirk with the fingers. On each side there is a Hebrew letter, stamped in black ink: נ (nun, pol. n), ג (gimel, pol. g), ה (he, pol. h), ש (shin, pol. sz). The Hebrew letters visible on each dreidel are the first letters of the words making up the sentence: Nes gadol haja sham/po (from Hebrew: A great miracle happened there/tu). The version with the word "there" functions in the Jewish Diaspora outside the Holy Land; in Israel, the version with the word "tu" is adopted. NR