#Jewish dolls

[lovemarisolluna]

Paloma has been baking up a storm making enough hamantaschen to give as mishloach manot to all her friends!

[dolls-and-cats]

To Jewish friends in the doll community, gut yontif and I hope y'all have a sweet new year.

I am not Jewish myself, but have appreciated learning about Judaism over the past few years from public historian Rebekkah Rubin's (iamexcessivelydollverted on instagram)'s posts. Today, I made a honey cake from a 1970s recipe book, From Dora with Love, following Rebekkah's recent patreon post. Rebekkah says the honey in the recipe ties in with the hope for a sweet new year.

My doll is Alma from the book Alma Presses Play by Tina Cane, which is loosely autobiographical and set in NYC in the 1980s. Alma grows up with Jewish and Chinese heritage but doesn't grow up as an observant Jew or connected to a synagogue community.

[strangegutz]

just saw an ask you replied to a while back about eddies arm and how it put the "fear of god" into him and it got me curious

are the religions in the gulch the same as irl? or are there like special gulch cults? (or do you guys stay as far away as possible from thinking of that when working on hbg)

(the ask im referencing: https://www.tumblr.com/strangegutz/764619614938398720/how-did-eddies-arm-get-damaged-unless-thats?source=share )

We have put some thought into religions and practices with HBG! It's in the rural southwest and in the 70's, so like, we have to, right??

Safe to assume all real-world religions also exist in the HBG universe, of course

I grew up Catholic, so I wanted to toss some of that in there- I've always thought small altars and having patron saints was cool, as well as some more folksy superstitions, so we have a kinda mishmash of that-

a lot of outlaws and other rural folks keep altars to patron saints in their homes. Whether it's just a wall hanging or a full set up, it brings good luck, and a lot of people do it even if they're not religious- kinda a culture thing. For some it's a deep connection, while for others it's like "well i lose my keys all the time so I should get a statue of St. Anthony by my door" White has a little tabletop shrine to St. Agatha, Zeki has a portrait of St. Sebastian. Eddie has two- a shrine out front of his house to The Virgin, and a small altar in his house to "St. Lucifer," which mostly serves as a testament to his love of being a contrarian, though he likes the symbolism.

Tibbs and I both find cults and fringe religious groups pretty interesting and want to throw some into the setting- I havent done much with it publicly (because i havent drawn any funny jokes about it yet) but Eddie in particular seems to know a lot about Satanism and the metaphysical, though it tends to stay on the drugs-and-free-love-and-mesh-shirts side of things. He's had 83 years to have existential crises about his artificial sentience, and he's found it more fun to lean into being an affront to god

We DID think of a belief system for CompanDroids based on the Ten Tenets of Chindōgu called The Ten Tenets of Neo-Chindōgu, which read as follows:

More of a mantra than a full religion though

[pinkfai]

Images from Pinterest 🩷

I never seen this before but it's beautiful tho I am Irish American I have a soft spot for Israel .

[whereserpentswalk]

Plastic golem guarding an abandoned storefront.

[multifander-is-very-crafty]

Next project: a Barbie doll inspired by the one and only Eden Golan!

I haven’t even started the design for the dress yet, nor have I purchased the doll… but I’m already excited to get to work!

[strwbrryvagabond]

wanted to get on here and yap about American Girl for some reason today

I'm far from a brand loyalist, and honestly, I was shocked I didn't grow up with the off-brand dolls you could get at Walmart or Target since I grew up poor until recently when my mom informed me that I would save money up for months and months at a time so that I could buy the dolls, and my parents only even actually purchased one for my birthday once we started to do a bit better financially, and after they saw how much I loved and took care of the dolls

I bought accessories for them myself as well, both from the actual company and from other brands like Target and Walmart ones, and even paid my mom to order me a bunk bed for them off of Etsy or something because I was so distraught that they didn't all have their own beds.

Anyways, I know brands are bad and stuff, and American Girl is not without faults and controversies, but tbh those dolls really shaped me as a kid, like I intentionally bought Rebecca Rubin as my first doll when I was a kid after seeing her in a catalog that we got sent by mistake because she was Jewish and looked like me. I had never seen a doll or character, or pretty much anything at that age who was Jewish like me and looked like me, and she wanted to be an actress, and at the time, I also wanted to act

I took that doll very literally everywhere, half the pictures of me from that age, she's tucked under my arm in a different outfit, her hair as well taken care of as I could manage for being so little. I accidentally messed up one of her curls while trying to fix her hair, and I cried for like a solid half an hour until my mom helped me fix it. even after I got other dolls, all of which I still loved and took care of religiously, Rebecca was the one who came everywhere with me

I'd already been a big reader before that, which is a whole other post, but I devoured those books, and I totally blame them for my current love of learning history and historical fiction. and the different dolls were all depicted as activists and feminists, and do not get me wrong here (I say on the 'taking things out of context' website) they were far from perfect with their diversity and activism, like oh jeez they did some very questionable things sometimes, but for the early 2000s and 2010s? revolutionary

the store closest to me closed a little before my birthday last year. I didn't know that it was even happening, and honestly probably still wouldn't have known if I hadn't been shopping with my friends at that mall like two weeks before my birthday since that was the only day we could all make work. Despite not having touched my dolls in a while, everything was super on sale, and I had been planning on taking Rebecca to college with me, so I figured I might buy her an outfit or something.

while the store was pretty ransacked, I was shocked and, no joke, teary-eyed over how many things they had for different cultures, different religions, and how many little girls I saw in there with big starry eyes looking at a doll that looked like them

I ended up buying a Channukkah outfit, and one of the friends I was with convinced me to, against my nature, let them buy a Lunar New Year outfit for me as well, which almost made me cry again. What really did it was seeing one of the previous Girls of the Year, Corrine Tan. Oh my gosh if they had had her when I was a little girl, she would've gone right beside Rebecca with how obsessed I was with her. I don't think I've mentioned it here before, but as a kid, I LOVED Mulan, and when I went to Disney World and the dress up boutique they had, I was DEVASTATED that they didn't have a Mulan costume. I latched onto her so hard for a very similar reason that I latched onto Rebecca so hard; because even though she wasn't the same ethnicity as me, Mulan was Asian, and so am I. I wore out I think three burned copies of that movie I watched it so often

I'm just weirdly sadder than I expected that American Girl is closing so many stores and not making as many sales I guess. I'm really fighting being a brand loyalist right now, because there are about a million other brands that make super similar dolls that I'm sure little kids all over loved, it's just always stuck with me that they at least seem to care about representation in the stories they make for these dolls

I mean, it clearly impacted me growing up, and I think it was for the better. I remember reading Addy's book being one of the first times I was exposed to the idea of children being slaves because they obviously didn't talk about that in an elementary school in the 2010s. I really just wanted to get all of my thoughts out, I've been thinking about it a lot recently since I took Rebecca to college, and I've now been hearing stories from girls who see her in my room about what doll or what toy shaped them as a child. Very excited to dress her up for Channukkah when it comes around, and tbh I've been looking for more outfits for her online. I just want her to be something I take with me throughout my life I guess. I mean, I took her everywhere when I was little, so it kinda feels wrong not to take her with me on this super big part of my life.

yeah anyways uh, if you had one of these dolls go... idk kiss em on the forehead or something. remind the toys that shaped you that you love them for what they did for you and all that. yap session over

[doyouknowthisjewishcharacter]

Do you know this Jewish character?

[fentanyl-rabbits]

Simon & Halbig Doll, circa 1940

[cheolism]

It is still so absolutely wild to me that Holocaust survivors speak against genocides and evil and everything that comes with it and yet there are zionists who will defend Israel to the end of the earth. They will bring up the Holocaust in the blink of an eye as an explanation as to why they needed their own country but suddenly refuse to listen to the words spoken by literal Holocaust survivors. It’s just insane.

[lovemarisolluna]

I was directed to this beautiful fabric (it’s a hand woven Turkish tea towel!) by another AG collector, and I knew it was perfect for Marisol’s tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl. It was such a fun project to sew on while on my own Jewish journey!

[zoominag]

AG holiday collections--

--from an alternate universe where Jewish holidays get a whole collection every year the way Xmas does. Inspired by this post.

Rosh Hashannah 5783 collection

Yom Kippur collection, 5783

Note: It is traditional to avoid wearing leather shoes on Yom Kippur, so it's common to see formal outfits paired with sneakers or other casual shoes.

White eyelet dress and accessories White eyelet dress. Matching white eyelet hair bow. Silver and blue Star of David necklace.

Sweet and serious pantsuit White slacks White jacket with silver bow. Silver blouse with pleated neck. Silver and blue star of David barrette. Baby version: one-piece white dress with silver bow and faux silver shirt with pleated neck. White hairbow.

Yontif suit mix-and-match separates Navy blue slacks. Navy blue suit jacket. Navy blue tailored vest. Dark red sweater vest. White dress shirt. Blue necktie with gold and red stripes. Red bow tie. Dark red necktie with pomegranate print. White kipa.

Soft and sincere outfit White pleated below-the-knee skirt. Navy blue shell. White bolero jacket with silver button. Sheer white stockings. Silver and red Star of David barrette.

[kylejsugarman]

the release of the new 1999 ag historical twins is indicative of a lot of problems with the company and its dolls and its decisions lately, but one that is personally driving me up the wall now is just. how many more dolls are we going to get of girls in middle/upper-middle class homes with a perfect family?? like im not at all saying that every story needs to be full of tragedy and drama, of course not, but it just feels like the stories have gotten cleaner and cleaner and cleaner. the issues are smaller, sometimes even glossed over. i thought wbu was going to steer the company towards telling more "mature" stories where issues are directly addressed, but it feels like we're instead getting more and more stories about girls in comfortable homes with perfect families and comparatively minor issues. that's part of why they're starting to feel so samey. where's the diversity?? where's the variety??

[forthegothicheroine]

Sam Goldwyn, explaining why Frank Sinatra got the part Sam Levene had played in Guys and Dolls on Broadway, said succinctly: "You can't have a Jew play a Jew. It wouldn't work on the screen."

Eddie Muller, Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir

[megaeralwrites]

This antique cat gentleman I thrifted ages ago has BIG HERMANN GOSCHALK ENERGY, and it seemed only fitting for a quote about The Shabti's atmosphere of "giddy wholesomeness." Thanks for the lovely review, Jessica! ❤️

[c0rpsedemon]

also don't like that she has the same name as one of my historical ocs . who is also new england based . like i had dibs .