Tag Archives: Toys

Jew of the Week: Henry Orenstein

Henry Orenstein with some of his toy inventions (Credit: Shaminder Dulai)

Henryk Orenstein (b. 1923) was born and raised in Poland. He survived five concentration camps during the Holocaust (losing both parents and two of four siblings), and settled in the US afterwards. Orenstein’s first job paid him 85 cents an hour. One day, he saw a doll being sold for a whopping $29.95, and knew he could make a better and cheaper doll. Orenstein pitched his new design – with a $9.99 price tag – mainly to grocery stores instead of department stores. The dolls quickly became a huge hit, and made him $2 million. Orenstein started his own toy company, Deluxe Reading (or Topper Toys, as it was more commonly known). The company went on to produce the famous Suzy Cute and Dawn Doll lines, as well as the hugely successful Johnny Lightning model cars, and many Sesame Street toys. Orenstein’s New Jersey factory soon employed 5000 people, all of whom admired their boss, and once talked of him running for president! By 1972, the company went out of business, but Orenstein was still inventing toys, filing patents, and pitching new ideas to larger toy companies. In the early 80s, Orenstein discovered a new, little-known Japanese toy, a transforming car, and saw the huge potential behind it. He managed to convince American toy giant Hasbro to bring these “Transformers” to the US, and the rest is history. Transformers became a worldwide phenomenon, with comic books, video games, 40 toy collections, multiple TV shows, and a series of blockbuster films (the fifth installment – The Last Knight – hits theatres this week). Year after year, Transformers are Hasbro’s best-selling toy line, and have been credited with keeping the company afloat. Meanwhile, Orenstein fell in love with the game of poker. He once sat down to watch the World Series on TV and was totally bored by it. This led him to his most famous invention: the hole-card camera. Orenstein patented a table which had cameras built in under glass panels to allow TV viewers to see the poker players’ cards. Poker officials rejected his idea, and it would take another seven years until Orenstein successfully convinced one executive to use the hole-card camera. Debuting in 2002, Orenstein’s table revolutionized the game, and much like Transformers, made poker a worldwide phenomenon. One NBC exec admitted that Orenstein is “single-handedly responsible for the success of poker today.” Orenstein has himself won over $200,000 in poker tournaments. He also produced the Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament, and the High Stakes Poker TV show. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2008. All in all, Orenstein holds over 100 patents, has published two books, and is a noted philanthropist. He has donated millions of dollars to various causes, and has built subsidized housing for the poor in New York and in Israel. He has been known to personally pay rent and medical bills for thousands of people in need, including many Holocaust survivors. Now in his 90s, Orenstein still plays poker three times a week with his friends.

Words of the Week

Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.
– Golda Meir

Henry Orenstein (with Optimus Prime) on the cover of Newsweek

Jew of the Week: Charles Lazarus

Toys “R” Us!

Charles Lazarus and the original Children’s Supermarket

Charles P. Lazarus (b. 1923) was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up working in his father’s bicycle shop. After returning from combat in World War II, he opened his first business, a baby furniture store called ‘Children’s Bargain Town’. In 1950, Lazarus responded to customer requests and began selling baby toys in his store. He quickly realized that toys are a much better business than furniture, as they break often, get boring quickly, and parents are always looking for new gifts for their kids. Lazarus had a vision of toys becoming an everyday commodity, as opposed to a seasonal item. He decided to try a new store concept, modelling on the self-serve grocery stores that were becoming very popular at the time. Thus, Lazarus opened the first ‘Children’s Supermarket’, which still stands today in Washington. His motto: “Give the customer what they want.” In 1957, as business boomed, Lazarus opened a second store, calling it ‘Toys “R” Us’. The chain has since expanded to over 1,600 locations around the world, employing over 100,000 people, and becoming one of the most recognizable brands globally. Lazarus personally oversaw the bulk of this growth, running his company for 46 years before stepping down as CEO and Chairman in 1994. The company continues to give back to the community with its Children’s Fund donating millions of dollars to countless children’s programs. Recently, Toys “R” Us began to cover the roof of its distribution centre with solar panels, creating a 5.4 megawatt, clean energy generator – the largest such project in North America.

Words of the Week

There is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. ‘Palestine’ is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it.
– Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, Syrian Arab leader to British Peel Commission, 1937

Jews of the Week: George Lerner & The Hassenfeld Brothers

All Your Favourite Toys!

Mr. Potato Head – one of the most succesful toys of all time!

Having written recently of the world’s largest toy company, Mattel, it would be unfair not to mention the second-largest company, Hasbro. This toy giant was founded as a tiny textile company in 1923 by Polish-Jewish immigrants Henry and Helal Hassenfeld. Over time, they shifted their business towards pencil cases and school supplies, and later to children’s toys. Meanwhile, a fellow Jew (of Romanian descent, born in Brooklyn) named George Lerner invented Mr. Potato Head. In 1952, the Hassenfeld brothers bought the rights to the toy, quickly putting their company on the map. In fact, Mr. Potato Head was the first toy to be advertised on television! But the real big day came in 1964 when the brothers came up with G.I. Joe, thus launching the era of the now-ubiquitous “action figure”. Shortening the company name to Hasbro (a contraction of Hassenfeld Brothers), they continued growing tremendously, creating toys for Star Wars and Sesame Street, and later for Transformers, Batman and Pokemon. Favourites such as Play-Doh, Tonka, My Little Pony, and even Parker Brothers board games like Monopoly, are all created by Hasbro. True to Judaism, the company has become well-known for its charity work, setting up the Hasbro Children’s Foundation and the Hasbro Charitable Trust. They also built and continue to finance the Hassenfeld Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, considered one of the top children’s institutions in the world!

 

Words of the Week

The responsible nuclear Iran. Wait. We’re supposed to believe that a revolutionary Shiite theocracy is overnight going to become a sober, calculating disciple of the realist school of diplomacy … because it has finally acquired weapons of mass destruction? Presumably this would be in the same way that, if German scientists had developed an atomic bomb as quickly as the Manhattan Project, the Second World War would have ended with a negotiated settlement brokered by the League of Nations.
– Niall Ferguson