Like a dreidel spins

Hanukkah is my holiday, the holiday on which I was born. It has always been an especially joyful holiday for me, but with the expansion of my personal family, it has become even more joyful, mixed with the joy of my children.

The design of my dreidels, which began back in 2016, quickly became a tradition that I have maintained ever since. Since 2016, I have produced 40-50 unique, limited-edition dreidels each year, and now I am already excited for the upcoming Hanukkah holiday. Hanukkah 2018!

The small-quantity production was initially due mainly to technical constraints. I designed and created the 2016 edition of the dreidel while serving as a full-time (almost) mother at home. I had no means at all to produce a large quantity - so I started with what I had. It should be noted (I'm allowed to be a little proud, aren't I?) that the 2016 dreidel model sold out.

In 2017, the dreidel production was still carried out in my home, on an antique lathe and with the generous help of my father. This model of the dreidel is bolder, and I produced 50 dreidels from it, made of black Corian and white Corian combined with brass or stainless steel. And yes, only a few units of the 2017 dreidel remain.

This year, I decided on an interesting combination of colors and wood. The colorfulness connected for me to the colorful Hanukkah candles and the joy of the Festival of Lights. The wood, for me, gives a homey feeling and also takes us back in time, to the world of wooden games, which invites us to touch and experience. While designing the dreidel, I imagined my daughters, Maya and Liri, sitting with me on the rug, choosing their favorite dreidel color and competing with me in a dreidel spinning contest. We returned to our roots. To the spinning of the dreidel that has always reminded me of a dance, a kind of endless spin.

Indeed, the harmony in motion and that spin of the dancer's dress, soft and quiet, became a source of inspiration for me while designing the dreidels. In addition, one of the associations that came to me during the design process was the dreidel as a kind of playful gnome, which one could compete with in a game of "which gnome will spin faster/longest". In this case, I thought not only about the appearance of the dreidel but also about the children's joy of playing. And that, after all, is what really matters.