A joyful Hanukkah song from RIGLI and JewishSong.org
"Dreidel" is one of the most beloved children's songs of Hanukkah, the song of the little four-sided spinning top that families play with by the light of the menorah. For generations it has been the first Jewish song many children ever learn, simple enough to sing before you can read and joyful enough to carry a whole holiday.
RIGLI gives this beloved Hanukkah favorite a brand new, singable melody and a warm, contemporary arrangement, original music written so a new generation of kids can fall in love with it. It belongs to the wider world of JEWISH, a feature musical in development in which a class of students revives old Jewish songs and makes them their own.
A child makes a little dreidel and plays the spinning game during Hanukkah. The four Hebrew letters on its sides, Nun, Gimel, Hey, Shin, stand for "Nes Gadol Haya Sham": "a great miracle happened there." So a simple toy quietly carries the whole meaning of the holiday.
For nearly a century, children have spun the dreidel at Hanukkah and sung about it, in Yiddish, in English, in homes and classrooms around the world. That is the tradition we hold on to: the holiday itself, the little spinning top, the candles, the shared joy. The melody here is something new, an original RIGLI tune written to carry all of that warmth in a fresh, singable way.
That is the through-line of the whole project: take what families already love about a Jewish holiday and give it new, original music that any listener, Jewish or not, can step inside and sing along to. Reviving Jewish song for a new century, one new tune at a time.
Everything below is free for non-commercial use (see the license at the bottom of this page). Use the full mix to learn the song, the instrumental as a backing track, and the vocals-only stem to rehearse the melody.
Original music and arrangement Walter J. Kin (RIGLI). Performance Riglis Band. Project "Jewish the Musical" creative producer Walter J. Kin (RIGLI).
History of the song. A dreidel is a little spinning top with four Hebrew letters on it. Children have played with it at Hanukkah for a very long time, and someone wrote a happy little song about it that families still sing every year.
What this song is about. Making a dreidel and spinning it for fun during Hanukkah, and remembering that the letters on it mean "a great miracle happened there".
You may use, perform, teach, record, and share Dreidel and the files on this page for non-commercial purposes: schools, synagogues, JCCs, choirs, camps, museums, families, and individuals. Keep the attribution to RIGLI / JewishSong.org, and please do not charge money for the performance or resell the files.
The music, arrangement, and recording of Dreidel are original works created for RIGLI. Produced by Walter J. Kin (RIGLI), Member of the Dramatists Guild of America. Distributed by RIGLI / Rigli Publishing as part of the JewishSong.org project.
Full terms, the standard non-commercial license, and a copy-paste attribution snippet are on our License - Free page. For-profit or commercial use is handled separately.
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