Yaldah Magazine to Print Monthly

Sandy Eller – VIN News

Eight years after its initial release, Yaldah Magazine, the successful Orthodox publication written by Jewish girls for Jewish girls continues to grow and in response to reader request, is switching over from a quarterly to a monthly format.

“From the very beginning, our readers told us that putting out four magazines a year just wasn’t enough,” Leah Caras, founder and publisher of Yaldah, told VIN News. “We have had a great response to the magazine and girls tell me that they read each issue over and over again. While the weekly Jewish magazines do publish their own kids’s magazines, they just can’t compare to a magazine that is written exclusively by girls, for girls.”

Mrs. Caras published the first issue of Yaldah in 2004 when she was just thirteen years old. The first run of Yaldah consisted of 150 copies and was completely sold out. Just one year later, Yaldah was printing double the number of issues in order to accommodate its reader base. By 2005, Yaldah’s first editorial board, which consisted of thirteen girls, was created, with each member doing her part to create a magazine for young Jewish girls.

“I never imagined that anything like this could ever happen,” said Mrs. Caras. “I had big plans, but I didn’t know if the magazine would last a year, or maybe two. I never dreamed that one day, I would be married and sitting here with my baby on my lap designing yet another issue of Yaldah.”

Under the new monthly format, Yaldah will publish ten issues a year from September through June with an annual subscription price of $36. The current editorial board consists of nineteen girls from the United States and Canada and in addition to Mrs. Caras herself includes her younger sister, thirteen year old Rochel Larson, her mother, Evelyn Krieger, and her husband, Rabbi Michael Caras, director of marketing for Yaldah.

Yaldah currently has 1200 subscribers and is aimed at girls aged eight through fifteen. Mrs. Caras, who in addition to publishing Yaldah also has her own freelance graphics design business LL Design, dreams of one day starting a second magazine geared towards older teenage girls.

Mrs. Caras has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Microsoft Start Something Amazing Award, Guardian Life Insurance Girls Going Great Scholarship, Milton Fisher Scholarship for Creativity and Innovation, Jewish Children International Power of Children Award, and Next Step Magazine Super Teen Award. She created YM Books, a division of Yaldah Magazine which, to date, has published two books, after winning $100,000 in the 2008 Wells Fargo Someday Stories competition.