If you called it a German toy factory, the East Hartford, Connecticut, machinists would probably just shrug and carry on. Horst Engineering doesn’t make toys for a living. It produces jet engine fasteners, pistons, pins, and bolts—the unglamorous hardware that prevents aircraft from disintegrating at 30,000 feet. However, the name on the door actually originates…
When a parent uploads a picture of their five-year-old, an algorithm redraws the child standing next to a chanukiah, shamash in hand, sleeves pushed up exactly as in the original image. This is a brief, slightly strange moment. Perhaps ninety seconds pass. The companies developing these products are wagering that if enough families repeat ninety…
Certain types of objects wind up weighing more than they should. A small wooden toy that spins on a table, a picture, a chipped mug. It took years for a woman who was adopted as a baby into a Dutch Protestant home in New York to realize why her parents had given her a dreidel…
Standing in a December kosher grocery store aisle, gazing at a wall of olive oil bottles, and contemplating carbon footprints is almost comical. However, more and more people are experiencing that. The holiday of Hanukkah, which was centered around a single flask of oil that famously refused to run out, has subtly evolved into a…
Over candlelight and fried dough, a certain kind of small talk takes place that sounds nothing like diplomacy. However, if you walk into nearly any embassy reception during Hanukkah season, whether in Washington, Vienna, Doha, or Ottawa, you’ll notice something that formal summits seldom capture: officials from unrelated nations standing shoulder to shoulder, holding tiny…