Fran Greenman-Schmitz has spent decades in major roles in marketing and branding for children's products, from books and magazines to Mattel's American Girl line of dolls—including the Jewish doll, Rebecca. But after the Hamas attack on Israel nearly a year ago, she says, it seemed urgent to her to reorient her career.
"I began to realize how little Jewish content, and content about Israel, had really made it into the mainstream," she tells PW. "I believe that is a contributing factor to the antisemitism we are seeing so much of now. People fear what they don’t understand. I thought that I should do what I could to ensure that good content got out there as much as possible—content that reflects all of the good in Judaism and Jewish heritage, and Israel, and positive Jewish values. I went looking for the companies and the people that were already doing that."
She found her spot: The storied 50-year-old Jewish house Kar-Ben, a Lerner imprint, where editor and publisher Joni Sussman had announced her retirement plans. And she found her mission: "to expand the reach of their wonderful content as much as I can."
Through a Jewish Lens
For Greenman-Schmitz, that can mean many things. It can mean exploring or expanding platforms such as interactive books enriched with audio and video tie-ins. It can mean podcasts, or maybe new ways to feature a favorite Kar-Ben character, Sammy Spider, star of many Kar-ben titles, she says. And for Greenman-Schmitz, it means a whole new career trajectory.
"Finding kids where they are is the best way to get them to absorb the content that we want to them to see. I want them to see themselves in the content. I want kids to understand the messages that we want to share—that it's good to be Jewish, that there are other Jewish kids and you're not alone in the world, and that there are famous, talented, amazing, Jewish figures to be role models for you."
However, Greenman-Schmitz is not interested in the path to growth taken by several Christian children's book publishers that are adding general market books to their lists, titles that align with religious values without being overtly religious in text or illustrations.
"There are many wonderful books out there that try to model positive values for kids—kindness, curiosity, sharing, wonder—and Kar-Ben books do that also, but with a Jewish lens. My hope is that more of our books will be seen as appropriate for general, not-necessarily-Jewish audiences…even with all of their Jewishness included," she says emphatically. "It's appalling how little people know about Jews, Jewish history, even biblical history."
To reach a wider market, she also wants Kar-Ben books to be seen, period. It's a challenge to get shelf space in mainstream bookstores because booksellers know hundreds of thousands of Jewish families, the primary audience, are getting children's books, from Kar-Ben and other Jewish publishers, free from the PJ Library. The Jewish philanthropic foundation was founded in 2005 to send children a book a month and initially most of the books were from Kar-Ben. Today the PJ Library has more Jewish publishers added to the mix.
Another challenge to Jewish children's books' visibility is, frankly, not enough books, Greenman-Schmitz says.
"I've spent a lot of my career working in kids' entertainment for mainstream brands. I've seen over time a huge movement to represent diversity and to bring in authentic voices. You find wonderful stories and books about Native Americans and people of Hispanic origin, Black, Asian, and mixed cultures. But when it comes to Jews, even though a large portion of the people creating this content are Jewish, they back away from Jewish content. And so there really isn't very much out there."
This leads her back to her motivation to be Kar-Ben publisher. "I would love to create content that's more mainstream, that appeals to every kid, and that happens to have proudly Jewish characters who are shown in a really positive light. So, we're out there carrying our banner."
