chicbee04 has added a photo to the pool:
Cookies with blue frosting for Hanukkah on a blue plate...;))
The cookie on the right is in the shape of the Star of David, or Shield of David = Magen David in Hebrew. The second cookie on the left is in the shape of a top, a Dreidel, to spin while playing children's games.
The following info about Dreidels is from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanukah
Dreidel
The dreidel, or sevivon in Hebrew, is a four-sided spinning top that children play with on Hanukkah. Each side is imprinted with a Hebrew letter. These letters are an acronym for the Hebrew words נס גדול היה שם (Nes Gadol Haya Sham, "A great miracle happened there"), referring to the miracle of the oil that took place in the Beit Hamikdash.
נ (Nun)
ג (Gimel)
ה (Hey)
ש (Shin)
On dreidels sold in Israel, the fourth side is inscribed with the letter פ (Pe), rendering the acronym נס גדול היה פה (Nes Gadol Haya Po, "A great miracle happened here"), referring to the fact that the miracle occurred in the land of Israel. Stores in Haredi neighborhoods sell the traditional Shin dreidels as well.
Some Jewish commentators ascribe symbolic significance to the markings on the dreidel. One commentary, for example, connects the four letters with the four exiles to which the nation of Israel was historically subject: Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome.
After lighting the Hanukkah menorah, it is customary in many homes to play the dreidel game: Each player starts out with 10 or 15 coins (real or of chocolate), nuts, raisins, candies or other markers, and places one marker in the "pot." The first player spins the dreidel, and depending on which side the dreidel falls on, either wins a marker from the pot or gives up part of his stash. The code (based on a Yiddish version of the game) is as follows:
Nun–nisht, "nothing"–nothing happens and the next player spins
Gimel–gants, "all"–the player takes the entire pot
Hey–halb, "half"–the player takes half of the pot
Shin–shtel ayn, "put in"–the player puts one marker in the pot
Another version differs:
Nun–nem, "take"–the player takes one from the pot
Gimel–gib, "give"–the player puts one in the pot
Hey–halb, "half"–the player takes half of the pot
Shin–shtil, "still" (as in "stillness")–nothing happens and the next player spins
The game may last until one person has won everything.
The dreidel is believed to commemorate a game devised by the Jews to camouflage the fact that they were studying Torah, which was outlawed by Greeks. The Jews would gather in caves to study, posting a lookout to alert the group to the presence of Greek soldiers. If soldiers were spotted, the Jews would hide their scrolls and spin tops, so the Greeks thought they were gambling, not learning.[42]
The historical context may be from the time of the Bar-Kohba war, 132-135 C.E. when the penalty for teaching Torah was death, so decreed by Rome. Others trace the dreidel itself to the children's top game Teetotum.[43]
Dreidel gelt (dreidel money): The Eastern European game of dreidel (including the letters nun, gimmel, hey, shin) is like the German equivalent of the totum game: N = Nichts = nothing; G = Ganz = all; H = Halb = half; and S = Stell ein = put in. In German, the spinning top was called a "torrel" or "trundl," and in Yiddish it was called a "dreidel," a "fargl," a "varfl" [= something thrown], "shtel ein" [= put in], and "gor, gorin" [= all]. When Hebrew was revived as a spoken language, the dreidel was called, among other names, a sevivon, which is the one that caught on.
via Dessert Pool http://www.flickr.com/photos/80454089@N00/11136073283/in/pool-72296557@N00
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