Eight Lazy Nights

Nowhere in Jewish scripture does it say that a Hanukkah celebration should include a drunken bearded guy in a Yankees cap yelling, “Get in the hole!” But there he was, on the second night of the eight-night holiday, in the crowded back room of a South Williamsburg bar, shouting at a little plastic top as it spun down a slippery table. When his dreidel landed in the opposing goal, the dude downed the rest of his beer as the room erupted in cheers.

Welcome to Judaism in the 21st century. The 3,500-year-old religion, whose very survival has at times depended on adaptation, is adapting yet again. This time, it’s to the needs of young, collegeeducated, Macbook-toting, indie rockworshiping, Netflix-navigating Jews—a generation that generally doesn’t want to be bothered with stuff like a supreme being or mandatory synagogue services.

“I don’t believe in God,” Hannah Kauffman, 24, says flatly. Behind her, several teams of twentysomethings playing a new Roulette-style dreidel game pause for vodka shots. The Ramones’ frenzied “Blitzkrieg Bop” blasts from the stereo speakers.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that in this crowd, there’s nothing shameful about letting religious obligations slide. “I haven’t been to synagogue in like three years,” says musician Lena Leon, 24.

When asked to recall the last time she attended synagogue, Kauffman thinks for a few seconds: “Oh… 10 years ago?” But wait, don’t get them wrong.

Despite an aversion to ritual and a distrust of the divine, this generation is proud as hell to be Jewish, even if some of them can’t remember the last time they showed up at temple.

“I love the family, the dinners, the holidays, the foods, the music. To me, that’s what being Jewish is,” explains Eric Pavony, co-owner of Full Circle Bar and referee of the night’s dreidel competitions. “You can be a Jew and never go to synagogue.”

For fellow Jews who’d rather play games and talk trash than sit in pews and recite prayers in a language they don’t understand, Pavony is building his own network. Two years ago, he took a fresh look at dreidel, an ancient tradition in which a bunch of people take turns spinning a top and watching the top until it stops spinning.

“It was boring,” says the 31-year-old, who devised a more challenging version around a modified beer pong table.

The new game quickly evolved into Major League Dreidel, which held competitions this month at the Knitting Factory and venues in Tampa, Denver, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Pavony has dubbed himself “knishioner” of the league.

Surely some worry Judaism is being reduced to nothing more than a post-college party with puckish puns.

Meanwhile, a board game version, “Spinagogue,” just hit the shelves at Bed, Bath & Beyond.

New York City nogoodniks aren’t the only ones upping Judaism’s entertainment value. Three years ago, Jennie Rivlin Roberts, of Atlanta, Ga., fused her passion for Texas Hold ’Em poker with her annual Hanukkah party.

“No Limit Texas Dreidel” took off and Roberts now sells it, along with other Jewish gifts, on her website, ModernTribe.com.

But mixing religion with gambling— is that kosher? “Dreidel was already a gambling game, a boring gambling game,” says Roberts. “I don’t have a problem with gambling. Besides, we’re gambling with chocolate.”

Working off the idea that any Jewish activity is better than no Jewish activity, the religious establishment has embraced these independent endeavors. Birthright Israel, a nonprofit that sends tens of thousands of young Jews on free trips to Israel every year, has ordered “Spinagogues” for alumni events across the country.

“I welcome it,” says Birthright’s Rabbi Daniel Brenner. “I personally feel like it’s never right to reject even the minutest sense of cultural connection that a person may have.”

Even if that connection comes while hurling dreidels and tossing back “latkes and vodkas”?

Yes, says Rabbi Alan Londy of Temple Israel. “The fact is, Jews are coming together to do Jewish things, even though they’re somewhat avant-garde.”

But what about tradition? Surely some worry Judaism is being reduced to nothing more than a post-college party with puckish puns. Can the religion survive without the ritual?

As she stepped away from the bar to test out a new dreidel game, Kauffman offered a hint at how survival will happen: “Jews drink here and then they go home and have babies.”