Barbie’s inventor, Ruth Moskowicz, met her husband Elliot Handler – another child of Russian Jewish immigrants – at a Jewish dance when they were teenagers. When Elliot was drafted during World War II, Ruth worked to sell plastic items she and Elliot designed under their new company, Mattel. After the end of the war, Ruth and Elliot began to shift their manufacturing focus to plastic toys, tapping into the newfound prosperity of peacetime. While Ruth and Elliot weren’t traditionally observant, t