Cindy Cohen Levy has put a new spin on an old game.
When the kids play dreidel at her annual interfaith Chanukah parties, everybody wins.
Cohen Levy, a musician and music teacher in Tiburon, has even revised verses of the song, striking the lyric “It drops and then I win” to reflect her changes to the game.
“For a young child to be able to use the little muscles in the fingers to spin a dreidel is a daunting task,” explained Cohen Levy, who runs Music Makers, an innovative music school for children between the ages of 18 months and 6 years.
“When we play, we try to spin the dreidels so that they touch one another, and when we they touch, we applaud. It’s a less competitive way to play. It’s entertaining, and inclusive.”
And with four Chanukah parties in the works for Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon, kids will have plenty of opportunities to spin and touch dreidels — and also to sing Cohen Levy’s revised “Dreidel Song.”
They’ll also have a chance to explore their teacher’s collection of 16 humorous dreidels from around the world, including an inflatable dreidel “that the kids like to dance with,” a doodle dreidel “that makes pretty designs,” a walking dreidel and a dreidel from outer space.
But all dreidels aside, Cohen Levy’s Chanukah parties, which she has been throwing since 1986, will feature several other activities for children, their parents and grandparents.
There will be many traditional and original children’s songs and dances, accompanied by instruments, including a guitar, piano and accordion. All guests will be led in a chanukiah lighting and Hebrew blessings, and they will receive a packet of Chanukah materials with the story of the holiday and other information to take home.
While Jewish holidays have a serious message, Cohen Levy said her parties stay “happy and bright,” since that’s the message children internalize. Therefore, the historical, war aspects of the Chanukah will not be emphasized.
“The children are not at an age where they can comprehend with understanding the historical implications of the holidays,” she said. “But they are at an age where they can comprehend celebration and light vs. dark.”
For interfaith and nonobservant families it’s “a non-threatening way to find out about Chanukah.”
She also noted that many non-Jewish preschool teachers have often attended her Chanukah parties over the years “to collect material and songs to sing in their secular preschools.”
But ultimately, it’s the music that draws the crowd together.
“We can learn about cultures and about each other through music,” said Cohen Levy. “To me, it’s like no other tool in building community. Both a non-Jew and a young child can be connected to Judaism by the power of music.”
Cohen Levy first learned the power of music while teaching elementary school in the 1980s. “Every time I brought my guitar into the classroom, they loved it so much, I decided music was really my calling.”
Craving more direct contact with students, she opened Music Makers in 1986, where she teaches 28 age-appropriate, hands-on music classes to 250 students and their parents at the Westminster Presbyterian Church.
“We learn about the music through the musicians and through the culture they represent, without getting technical,” she explained. For instance, a recent class on jazz music was taught by a saxophone player. In January a class on calypso music will be taught by a steel drummer.
“We clap our hands and tap our feet. We become a community each week.”
In January Cohen Levy is hoping to add a weekly sing-along to the Music Makers curriculum called “Shir Delight” to help teach Hebrew vocabulary. (Shir is Hebrew for “song.”)
“Kids are like little sponges,” she said. “They could pick up Hebrew vocabulary like that.”
But first comes Chanukah. The musical selections are all picked out. “We have everything except the latkes,” said Cohen Levy. “And they even get a plastic dreidel of their own.”