Jewish Singles Introductions Go Global
Jewish mothers, grandmothers and doting aunts who have been despairing that the eligible bachelors in their family would ever meet “Ms. Right” can now take heart. Susie Carter, editor and co-publisher with her husband Dave of the magazine AkiskaMen USA, is about to do for Jewish men what she’s been doing for the men of Alaska and some other global eligibles. She’s been touring the country to make local contacts and is about to start her newest edition, JewishMen (one word, according to the magazine’s format), a magazine for women.
Asked why she had specifically targeted Jewish men for her newest venture, Carter said, “Tell all the Jewish mothers to send me their sons, and we’ll get them married! We’ve test-marketed JewishMen in a previous issue, and it turned out to be the most popular edition of all our magazines!”
Although Carter and her family are Mormons, she discovered during a three-year residence in Berlin that she has Jewish roots through two of her great-grandmothers, and that one great-grandmother’s aunt had married a Native American named Oshtar, “which is spelled almost like Esther. Our children know all about their Jewish ancestry. We don’t keep it under wraps. No way!”
“Having found that out, I started getting letters from Jewish mothers asking me to help them, telling me they had either a son or a daughter who couldn’t find anyone of their age or of the Jewish faith. They were all saying, ‘Please help me.’ So I realized there was a need for that in JewishMen“
“I’m really not a matchmaker!,” Carter claims. “The magazine is targeted toward women. We’re not waiting for the men to help us, but what we’re doing is based on women helping each other. We’re networking with women throughout the entire world to find eligible men through our magazine!”
Carter doesn’t accept “just anybody” in the magazine. A female friend or relative has to submit the candidate’s name to Carter, starting a process involving filling out a questionnaire and then obtaining the man’s permission to appear in the glossy, illustrated magazine. Staff writers write up the actual descriptive material.
The latest issue of the three-year-old AlaskaMen USA publication features 98 pages, complete with a centerfold, and descriptive biographies and photos, two per page, of attractive, mostly young men in “action-shots!’ either fishing, hunting, or sailing, against the picturesque Alaskan background.
Carter was recently on the Joan Rivers show. Half-jokingly, she says, “Joan wants me to try to find her a husband. You’d be surprised how many famous women contact me in Alaska. It’s kind of sad because they’re so isolated!”
Carter, who ran a daycare center for 25 years in California before relocating to Anchorage several years ago, has 9 children from her two marriages. She is nothing if not peripatetic. Carter has just returned from England, where she is planning to start up’an AlaskaMen UK edition and is also going to Hawaii to start an IslandMen edition.
Carter may be reached by calling (907) 522-1492 or (900) 860-9294, or by writing to AlaskaMen USA/201 Danner St., Suite 100/Anchorage, Alaska 99518.
