The Powerful Story Behind These Dreidels

"A few years ago, my wife's grandfather, Meir Tsenziper, a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor, may he live a long life, gave me three dreidels that were made when he was a child. I asked him about them, and he told me an amazing story.

When he was a child, around the time the Nazi party rose to power in Germany, there was a lead factory in their town in Latvia, though it's unclear what they produced. From the leftover lead, some Jewish workers cast a few dozen dreidels and distributed them to children.

The dreidels are made of cast lead, following the best tradition, and since they were not made in Israel, they bear the letters:

N - (Nes, 'Miracle')

G - (Gadol, 'Great')

H - (Haya, 'Happened')

Sh - (Sham, 'There' - referring to Israel).

The children would sit in a circle, four per circle, and play for money, each putting a penny in the pot, then everyone would spin the dreidels and this is how the game went:

If you got 'N', you neither won nor lost.

If you got 'G', you took the whole pot.

If you got 'H', you took half the pot.

And if you got 'Sh', you had to add a penny to the pot.

These dreidels survived with him through the Holocaust, and he kept them for more than eighty years until about seven years ago. After I married his granddaughter, during Chanukah, he placed three dreidels in my hand and told me these were the last ones he had left and I should take care of them. And so I have and will continue to do."