Chabad focuses on persuading Jews to perform more mitzvahs – the menorah lighting campaign that stretches back to 1973, when the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, decided to pass out some 60,000 menorahs that were made in a matter of days.

The Rebbe’s representatives found Tibor Kuferstein, who owned a metal factory in Gowanus, Brooklyn, that produced supplies for military contracts. Mr. Kuferstein was tasked with coming up with something inexpensive, light and easy to distribute.

“They asked me if I understood what to do, and I said, ‘Yes, I would take a piece of this, and a piece of that, and make something very good for them’,” Mr. Kuferstein, a émigré from Budapest who is 82 and lives in Flatbush. “The first one I made was too sharp, so made it softer.”

Mr. Kuferstein said that while he was not a member of Chabad, he is very religious and found biblical significance in the fact his factory produced materials for both war and religious purposes.

“The Bible says there is going to be a day when the guns will be made into plowshares, and I thought this was my chance,” he said. “They told me they were going to give it out for free, and I thought this was a very good idea.”

Mr. Kuferstein wasn’t sure how many menorahs he had produced over the years, though he was certain it was in the hundreds of thousands by the time he retired in 1989.

That was just around the same time when Chabad began importing them from China, where they cost just a few cents to make. (They sell at retail stores for about $2, depending on the source.)

Today, roughly 350,000 are distributed around the world, in Russian, Hebrew, French, Spanish and English, said Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesman for Chabad.org. Each includes a package of candles and instructions for the blessings.