A Long-Lived Tradition: Best Regards From A Little Dreidel

The story of the dreidel (spinning top for Hanukkah games) begins with the Israel Antiquities Authority excavation directed by Eliran Oren in 2020–2021 at the Neve Yamin site, near Kefar Saba in the Sharon region, prior to the construction of an industrial area.

In the course of the excavation, Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Shahar Krispin discovered an intriguing object using a metal detector: a small dreidel, missing the handle and the tip! The dreidel is made of lead and is about 5 cm high. It was probably made in the early twentieth century and is about a hundred years old.

“Although we don’t know all the details about the dreidel, it probably arrived here with the Jews who were deported here in the 1917 Jaffa-Tel Aviv deportation,” explains Eliran.

“During the First World War, the Ottoman authorities ordered the deportation of the residents of Jaffa-Tel Aviv as a preliminary measure, in the threat of the invasion of the region, and out of fear of betrayal by the local population,” explains Dr. Roy Marom, a historian specializing in the late Ottoman period. “In effect, this order was mainly enforced against the Jewish population, and as a result, many deportees migrated to the Kefar Sava area, aided by the earlier settlers there and the laborers working the fields to the east.”

Eliran adds, “The dreidel was discovered on an Ottoman-period agricultural farm near a large water reservoir. It is possible that one of the newly settled deportees was drawing water and lost the dreidel on the way. The little treasure was lying there waiting to be revealed, sending us Hanukkah greetings from 1917!”

Photo: Shahar Krispin