Q: Why is there no Jewish American Girl Doll?
A: Julie Albright is a plastic nine year old from the 1970s. She lives in San Francisco, loves sports and animals, and curls her hair with orange juice cans. Julie is the newest addition to the immensely popular American Girl line of historical dolls, an elite group of nine little heroines who, at $87 each, inspire slavish devotion in the pre-tween set.
The Pleasant Company, a recently acquired subsidiary of Mattel, has sold over 13 million of the cherubic pose-able figurines over the past two decades. These period-piece dolls have been designed to reflect the breadth of the American experience. They include Felicity, a plucky redhead from the Colonial era who clamors for representation with taxation; Kirsten, a hearty and bright-eyed blond from the pioneer and river fording days; and Addy, an African-American doll struggling to escape the antebellum South during the Civil War.
Despite their varied backgrounds, the girls all share one trait: none are members of the Tribe. A Christmas dress accessory is available for all of the girls but Kaya, a Native American. Why is a Jewish doll so conspicuously absent from this paean to American girldom?
“A Jewish historical character is one of the top requests among the hundreds we receive in the course of a year,” says Susan Jevens of American Girl’s PR team. “We’re seriously considering [it] for the future.”
Five years ago, a Jewish doll was more than a consideration. Stephan Brumberg, a Professor of Education at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of CUNY, was commissioned to fact-check a book about Tasha, a proposed Jewish doll who lived on the Lower East Side at the turn of the century. “I was impressed by [American Girl’s] intent to be historically accurate,” says Brumberg. He was asked to validate information on details as precise as the color of the walls of Tasha’s public school. But the book was edgy, and included a plot twist in which Tasha’s unionized cousin was clubbed by a policeman while standing on a picket line. Despite reaching completion, the project was tabled around the time that Mattel purchased Pleasant Company in early 2004.
While Tasha’s story has not yet made it into the historical collection, the company once did produce a limited edition Jewish doll, a curly haired girl with a taste for Eastern European cuisine named Lindsey Bergman. She was the first doll in the “American Girl of Today” collection, launched in 2001. Each year, the “Today” doll highlights a different contemporary milieu (such as Judaism or surfing) for one year’s worth of production. Lindsey is currently listed on eBay under headings like “rare,” “limited edition” and “hard to find.” and she is selling for over three times her original price. She has brownish curly hair and blue eyes, a pudgy tummy and a clipped-back side part. The accompanying book makes esoteric (but explained) references to matzoh balls and Bar Mitzvahs, and characterizes Lindsey as a yenta-in-the-making. Her life is “Jewish” in taste and feel, yet it in no way resembles the hardship and struggle embodied in Tasha’s minority experience. Historical dolls like Felicity, Molly and Addy help girls situate their ethnic cultures within the American context. Lindsey is just a toy.
It’s curious that American Girl has yet to respond to consumer demand for a historical Jewish doll. Why was the Tasha project tabled? Was it poor timing, coinciding as it did with the purchase by Mattel? In an e-mail, Jevens wrote that dolls take years to develop, and that many are in process at any one time. Is Tasha’s launch imminent? Only time will tell.
For now, Jewish girls and boys remain deprived of the opportunity to see their own American story mythologized and legitimized within the diverse rainbow of ethnic dolls who celebrate their unique culture alongside their American identities. Without Tasha, they’ll just have to settle for those Jewish role models readily available: Sarah Silverman, Amy Winehouse and, on a good day, Bette Midler.
