What Should A Jewish Doll Look Like?

In the fall of 1999, LILITH took the Wisconsin-based Pleasant Company to task for not including a Jewish doll among its popular “American Girls” series, which includes Addy, the black slave girl, and Kirsten, the Swedish girl from Minnesota “Dolls We Have Lived For”]. One year after we ran our story, Pleasant, a division of Matte], introduced a seventh doll, Kit, a child of the Great Depression who is clothed in hand-me-downs. Kit is of indeterminate ethnicity.

And now, said Julie Parks, spokesperson for Pleasant, “We are happy to tell your readers that a Jewish doll is now in the works.” But the Jewish-American doll will not appear until after 2002, said Parks, because of the extensive research involved in the production of each doll.