Dreidel history: In England and Ireland there is a game called totum or teetotum that is especially popular at Christmastime. In English, this game is first

Dreidel history: In England and Ireland there is a game called totum or teetotum that is especially popular at Christmastime. In English, this game is first mentioned as “totum” ca. 1500-1520. [snip] Our Eastern European game of dreidel (including the letters nun, gimmel, hey, shin) is directly based on the German equivalent of the totum game: N = Nichts = nothing; G = Ganz = all; H = Halb = half; and S = Stell ein = put in. When Hebrew was revived as a spoken language, the dreidel was called, among other names, a sevivon, which is the one that caught on. Thus the dreidel game represents an irony of Jewish history. In order to celebrate the holiday of Hanukkah, which celebrates our victory over cultural assimilation, we play the dreidel game, which is an excellent example of cultural assimilation! From "A Different Light: The Hanukkah Book of Celebration" - see https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-origin-of-the-dreidel/ https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-origin-of-the-d... (use reader view) And some images of the top used to play: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dreidel&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dreidel&iax=images&ia=images