'Ladies and gentlemen, spin your dreidels'

Why break a record when you can smash one?\nAlumni Hall buzzed Sunday, if only for 10 seconds, with the sound of 713 dreidels spinning their way into the record books.\nThe previous record, set by the University of Maryland at 536 dreidels for 10 seconds in 2000, was unofficially broken, pending confirmation by the Guinness Book of World Records.\nAs the crowd gathered before the event, volunteer "spinners" signed in and received a colored plastic dreidel. Some crowd members, obviously old hands at the dreidel game, brought their own dreidels with them.\nTalia Shifron, the 11-year-old daughter of Helene G. Simon Hillel Center Rabbi Sue Shifron, said the event was a fun way to bring the community together.\n"It's cool to come out and see all these people working to break the record," Talia said. "I definitely think we're going to be able to do it."\nTalia came with three of her closest friends, none of whom are Jewish.\nInitially, nerves were high as the planners discovered there weren't the hoped-for 561 people present. Frantic cell-phone calls ensued, but nevertheless, the numbers remained too low. \nInstead, the planners realized that the record was for dreidels spun, not people spinning the dreidels. \nVolunteers handed out a second dreidel to a majority of the crowd, and people practiced a two-handed technique, or tried spinning the dreidels one after the other.\nWith Adam Sandler's "The Chanukah Song" playing over loudspeakers, Dean of Students Richard McKaig started the practice round with "Ladies and gentleman, spin your dreidels."\nAfter the practice round, members of Kappa Kappa Psi and the Marching Hundred volunteered to lead the crowd in the IU Fight Song, and with school spirit flying high, the real spinning began.\nAfter a shaky first try, a crowd member realized the dreidels spin longer if dropped from about six inches above the floor.\nAfter the second spinning and another official count, Rabbi Shifron sprinted to the stage with the good news -- the record had been broken.\nShifron said Guinness will now have to confirm the record by participant sign-in sheets and any visual evidence of the event. The process will take about four weeks.\nStudent organizer sophomore Carly Pinzur said the best part of the day was the support from the community.\n"I was standing at the door, and I saw so many people I didn't know," Pinzur said. "And I know a lot of the Jewish community. It was great to have so much support from the community."\nAndy Gitelson, program director of the Hillel Center, said the program was an overwhelming success and noted a challenge for the future.\n"It's a great way to get Jewish students together and a way to educate the public about Hanukkah," Gitelson said. "We've already got feedback about universities that want to break it next year"