Bar mitzvah gift does inventor a favor

When Joel Rosenzweig's son, David, was bar mitzvahed at Temple Sinai in Roslyn in September, each of the 140 young guests were given a party favor -- a toy none of them had seen before called FyrFlyz, a precision-balanced instrument designed to spin on its axis and allow kids to create a light show in their hands.

The elder Rosenzweig was not just trying to be nice. His Great Neck company, I-Star Entertainment Llc, had just come up with the FyrFlyz, and he wanted to see the kids' reaction to it. It was a huge hit, he said.

"Two days later, I was on a plane to Hong Kong, said Rosenzweig, who met there with international toy sales executives. So far, FyrFlyz has been shipped to Singapore, the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Turkey and Greece, Rosenzweig said. It is due out on store shelves in the United States at the end of July and is expected to sell for around $8.

Rosenzweig, president of the year-old company and inventor of FyrFlyz, said when he was young, people put strings through a large button and would spin the button. FyrFlyz is the 21st century equivalent, he said.

Marty Abrams, I-Star's chief executive, said there is a learning curve to the toy. "The more you use it, the more light you learn to make."