Designing a dreidel as an act of Jewish expression

The conference workshop on creating your own dreidel designs brought a hands-on dimension to Practicing Jews: Art, Identity, and Culture. Alongside academic talks, keynote presentations, dance, visual culture and discussions of gender and identity, the session invited participants to explore how a familiar Jewish object can carry personal meaning.

A dreidel is often associated with Hanukkah games, children and bright seasonal decorations. In an art workshop, however, it becomes a small sculptural form with space for memory, symbolism and experimentation. Participants could consider what Jewish identity looks like in their own lives, then translate those ideas into colour, shape, lettering and pattern.

Making a traditional form personal

The four-sided dreidel has a recognisable structure, but its surface offers considerable freedom. The Hebrew letters nun, gimel, hei and shin traditionally refer to the phrase “a great miracle happened there”. A contemporary design can retain those letters, reinterpret their presentation or place them beside symbols connected to family, place and lived experience.

That flexibility reflects the wider purpose of the conference. Jewish culture is not treated as a single, fixed style. It includes religious practice, historical memory, visual traditions, family customs and modern artistic responses. Designing a dreidel gives those broad ideas a manageable, tactile form.

From symbol to sketch

A useful starting point for the workshop would be a page of quick sketches rather than an immediate attempt at a finished object. Participants might draw patterns inspired by synagogue architecture, Hebrew calligraphy, textiles, plants, food or photographs held in family albums. A design could also begin with a question about belonging, language or movement between countries.

The process makes abstract ideas visible. A participant with family connections to Melbourne might combine local flora with a Hebrew letterform, while someone living in Sydney could draw on harbour colours, suburban streets or memories of lighting candles at home. Such references do not replace Jewish symbolism; they show how Jewish life is practised in particular places.

Materials and making

A workshop of this kind can work with accessible materials: paper templates, pencils, paint, markers, air-dry clay or lightweight wood. The emphasis is less on producing a perfect spinning toy than on learning how form communicates. Cutting, folding and decorating also make the activity suitable for different ages and levels of artistic experience.

Australian participants may be familiar with finding creative supplies at independent art shops, school resource centres, weekend craft markets and large retailers. The local market can shape the final object: recycled cardboard, fabric offcuts and salvaged timber may be easier to obtain than specialist Judaica materials. Reusing materials can also connect the activity with everyday Australian habits of repairing, repurposing and shopping at op shops.

Jewish identity across contexts

The workshop placed identity in conversation with artistic expression. A dreidel can be devotional, playful, political, decorative or autobiographical, depending on the maker. Its small scale allows participants to explore complicated subjects without needing to resolve them in a formal speech or academic paper.

That openness is especially meaningful in Australia’s varied Jewish communities. Melbourne and Sydney have large and visible Jewish populations, while smaller communities in cities such as Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Canberra maintain their own institutions and traditions. A design workshop can make room for Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, progressive, Orthodox, secular and mixed family experiences without suggesting that one version represents everyone.

Design as conversation

Making an object alongside other people changes the experience of art. Participants can compare motifs, explain why a particular colour matters or discover that a common symbol has different meanings in different families. The conversation may move between technique and memory, connecting the workshop table with the conference’s broader discussions of culture and identity.

The activity can also encourage careful thinking about representation. Hebrew letters should be handled with respect, and cultural motifs deserve attention rather than being treated as surface decoration. Asking where a symbol comes from, who uses it and what it means in context helps transform craft into a thoughtful cultural practice.

From workshop table to gallery

The finished designs could be viewed as a small exhibition in their own right. Displaying several dreidels together would reveal contrasts in scale, colour, texture and intention. One might be minimalist and geometric, another crowded with family references, and another shaped by an artist’s interest in dance or movement.

This relationship with the gallery reflects the conference’s interest in bringing scholarship, artistic work and community participation together. Objects made during a workshop do not need to compete with established artworks. Their value lies in showing process: how people respond to a tradition, adapt it and share the result with others.

A small object with a wide reach

The dreidel also demonstrates how Jewish visual culture can travel across settings. It may appear in a gallery, a community centre, a university venue, a school art room or a family living room. For Australian audiences, the object can carry both inherited traditions and local experience, whether it is made during a Sydney summer, in a Melbourne studio or at a community event in a regional town.

Practical considerations matter when designs are copied, photographed or displayed online. Under Australia’s Copyright Act 1968, original artistic works receive copyright protection, while the use of existing images, fonts or patterns may require permission. A participant who creates an original dreidel design should be able to receive credit for it, especially if the work moves from a workshop into a gallery or digital archive.

Creating a dreidel is therefore more than decorating a familiar game piece. It is a way to test how tradition can remain recognisable while making room for individual histories, Australian surroundings and new artistic languages.

The key idea to remember is that a dreidel’s four sides can hold far more than a game: they can hold memory, identity, community and the ongoing practice of making Jewish culture visible.