Henry Orenstein, a Holocaust survivor who went on to invent the Transformers toys and became a major donor to Jewish and Israeli causes, died Dec. 14. He was 98.

Orenstein became a best-selling toymaker with his Transformers line, which he first created in the early 1980s. He brought the idea to Hasbro, which first produced the toys in 1984. The toys would become one of the most successful action figures in history, spawning TV shows, movies and merchandise worth billions of dollars.

He followed up on that success with numerous other inventions and more than 100 patents before becoming a star poker player and being inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2008. He said he was attracted to the game for the way it hinged on calling bluffs and weighing odds.