Tag Archives: New York

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

Jews of the Week: Margaret and H.A. Rey

Curious George

Margaret and H.A. Rey

Margaret and H.A. Rey

Margarete Elisabethe Waldstein (1906-1996) was born in Hamburg, Germany, the daughter of a Jewish politician. She studied art and worked in advertising until 1935, when she fled Nazi Germany for Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, she reconnected with an old family friend who had also moved to Brazil. Hans Augusto Reyersbach (1898-1977) was born in Hamburg, too, and now working as a salesman in Rio. The two got married that same year, and resettled in Paris. Reyersbach started drawing a series of animal cartoons and was soon commissioned to write a children’s book by a French publisher. Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys, a story about a giraffe and her monkey friends, was published in 1939 under the pen name H.A. Rey. The story became popular very quickly. Particularly beloved was one of the monkey characters in the book, originally named Fifi, and commonly translated to other languages as George. The following year, Rey started working on a new manuscript featuring the curious monkey. By this point, World War II had started, and the Nazis were approaching Paris. Hans and Margaret fled the city on a pair of bicycles. The manuscript was one of the few things they took with them. The couple arrived in Spain, then Portugal, then headed back to Brazil, and finally settled in New York. Curious George was published in 1941, and like its predecessor, was very popular. Hans and Margaret went on to produce seven Curious George books together. Hans wrote and illustrated many more children’s books before passing away in 1977. Two years later, Margaret became a professor of creative writing at Brandeis University. Meanwhile, she worked on a second series of Curious George books, as well as a number of short TV films based on the stories. In 1989, she established the Curious George Foundation with two goals: to promote creative writing among children, and to prevent cruelty to animals. When she passed away in 1996, Margaret left major donations for the Boston Public Library, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and donated the family’s entire literary estate. Curious George continues to be among the most popular children’s books all over the world. A third series of Curious George stories have been produced in recent years, as well as a TV series which airs on PBS. In 2006, an animated film starring Will Ferrell and Drew Barrymore was released. Two sequels and a video game have been produced since then. Today, there is an official children’s bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts called The World’s Only Curious George Store. There is also a Curious George Live national tour, and a popular Curious George-themed water park at Universal Studios in Florida.

Words of the Week

One should always see to it that tomorrow should be much better than today.
– Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch

Jew of the Week: Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis

JungreisEsther Jungreis (1936-2016) was born in Hungary, the daughter of a rabbi. During the Holocaust, the family was sent to Bergen-Belsen, and later loaded up on a train headed for Auschwitz. On route, they managed to escape to Switzerland with the help of Rudolph Kastner’s Aid and Rescue Committee. The quota for migrants to Israel was filled, so the family was given papers to go to the States. Jungreis went on to marry a rabbi and settled in North Woodmere, New York, where the couple founded the town’s Jewish Center and Congregation Ohr Torah. Seeing the rampant assimilation in the United States, Jungreis made it her life’s work to prevent what she saw as a “spiritual holocaust”. In 1973, she started an organization called Hineni, aimed at inspiring Jewish youth to return to their roots. Under her dedicated leadership and moving speeches, Hineni grew to become an international organization, no longer focused solely on youth but rousing countless young and old alike. Jungreis organized events and gave lectures around the world – visiting fifteen or more countries a year was normal for her. Her weekly class drew as many as 1500 people at a time. Meanwhile, Jungreis wrote a regular column for The Jewish Press (the world’s largest English-language Jewish paper) for some 45 years, making it the longest running column in the publication’s history. She also wrote four best-selling books, and had a television programme. In 2004, the Rebbetzin spoke at the Republican National Convention, and in 2008 was selected by President Bush to join him on his delegation to Jerusalem for Israel’s 60th anniversary. Today, she is recognized as one of the central pioneers of the modern kiruv (Jewish outreach) movement. Sadly, the Rebbetzin passed away yesterday. She worked tirelessly until the very end, and in her last article – published just last week – finished with these words: “When will we wake up? When will we don our priestly garments and fulfill our G-d-given destiny and be ‘a light unto all mankind’?”

Words of the Week

A long life is not good enough, but a good life is long enough.
– Rabbi Theodore Meshulem Jungreis