Ephraim Hertzano
Ephraim Hertzano (Hebrew: אפרים הרצנו; born in Romania ; died 1987 in Israel ) was an Israeli game inventor who probably developed the world-famous parlor game Rummikub in his native Romania in the 1930s or 1940s . After emigrating to Israel, he founded the game company Hertzano there in 1950. The resulting company Lemada Light Industries Inc. , founded by his children in 1978, still produces the game today.
Life
Little is known about Hertzano's past before emigrating to Israel. In Romania he worked as a salesman for toothbrushes and other plastic and cosmetic items. It is reported that Hertzano loved the card game rummy very much. When the communist government in Romania banned card games in the 1940s because it condemned it as decadent , Hertzano looked for a legal alternative and invented with his wife Hanna Rummikub :
The Rummikub tiles are made of plastic, not paper, which is why Rummikub does not fall into the card game category. But at that time plastic was difficult to obtain in Romania and expensive. On a business trip, Hertzano came across a company that recycled used aircraft cabin hoods made of acrylic glass and made toothbrushes from them. Here he got the material for the production of the first play sets.
In 1950, Ephraim Hertzano and his wife Hana started a new life in Bat Jam , a city in the southern metropolitan area of Tel Aviv . There they lived - due to an economic crisis in the country - in modest circumstances. Ephraim Hertzano continued to sell retail goods and made Rummikub games in his small workshop, cut and painted the cards by hand, and made small wooden cases for packaging. He offered the games to retailers in town. He also tried to convince business owners and their wives of the game by inviting them to Rummikub game nights. In the first few years, Hertzano only sold a few dozen games. It wasn't until the 1960s and 1970s that demand rose. Hertzano sold thousands of games in Israel with the help of his children Mariana and Micha. In 1977 Rummikub was the best-selling game of the year in the USA and was now marketed internationally. Mariana and Micha Hertzano founded the company Lemada Light Industries Inc. in 1978 , which with Rummikub became globally successful.
Ephraim Hertzano died in 1987.
The company Lemada Light Industries Inc. is still owned by the Hertzanos family today. The offices are located near Ben Gurion Airport , the production facility in the small town of Arad in the Negev desert. The games are produced there in three shifts. Micha Hertzano reported in 2016 that a new Rummikub game was created every six seconds.
Awards
- 1980: Game of the year for Rummikub
- 1980: Game of the Year for Rummikub
- 1980: Spel van het Jaar for Rummikub
Publications
- The official rummikub book . Sterling Publishing, New York 1978, ISBN 978-0806949444
- Rummikub. Rules, strategies, variants (German translation, arrangement and extension by Gilbert Obermair ). Hugendubel, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-88034-090-0
Web links
- Literature by and about Ephraim Hertzano in the bibliographic database WorldCat
Individual evidence
- ↑ History of the Rummikub game on rummikub.de , accessed on April 12, 2016
- ↑ a b c d e Rummikub is the chairman of the board. In: israel21c.org. April 20, 2016, accessed April 20, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Ephraim Hertzano. In: america.pink. July 20, 1904, accessed April 20, 2016 .
- ^ Behind the Headlines: from Romania to Israel to the Rhine: Rummikub Makes Waves Among Devoted , Jewish Telegraphic Agency article of October 11, 1994, accessed April 16, 2016
- ↑ Christine Schmitt: Steine los in Mitte , in: Jüdische Allgemeine , January 7, 2016, accessed on April 12, 2016
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hertzano, Ephraim |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Romanian-Israeli game inventor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 19th century or 20th century |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Romania |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1987 |
| Place of death | Israel |