One of our greatest pleasures when we’re in Israel — not nearly as often as we’d like — is walking the streets of Jerusalem and looking in the windows of all the interesting gift shops, both the well-designed stores with professional displays, and the innumerable carved-out corner stands in the Old City. Hotel lobbies are great as well — as are the well-known artist galleries and silver emporia of Geulah, Meah Shearim, the Cardo, Mamilla Mall, Chutzot Hayotzer outside Ir David, or even the pricier businesses of Kanfei Nesharim; even the grand displays in the kiosks at the airport pique my interest.
I think our obsession with dreidels began when we went to visit our boys during their years in yeshivah in Israel. We’d established a policy with all our children: Once they left home to study in another city, we made it our business to travel to that city — be it on American shores or on the other side of the Atlantic — and introduce ourselves to their rebbeim and teachers so that these educators knew that this child didn’t fall out of the sky. The kids might have been mortified, but since this condition wasn’t negotiable, we simply made it happen. Because we were the ones who always made the appointments with these teachers and rebbeim, we always brought our embarrassed children along. Those meetings translated into wonderful relationships that we’ve nurtured over the years, and continue to enrich our lives decades later.
Somewhere between the many cities and shores, we were introduced to the world of dreidels. There’s nothing like the ho ho ho season in Israel to remind us Americans that we’re living in the wrong place. Except for the YMCA near the Old City walls, there is nary a piece of tinsel or evergreen tree in sight! It fills my heart with song to see all the chanukiot and different sufganiyot that fill our eyes with light and our stomachs with calories (all in the name of religious observance, of course).
I would like to tell you that I remember the first dreidel we bought. I don’t. I think it was a Danny Azulay (he used to sign and number them on the bottom with the year; I don’t know if that still happens).
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