If you are planning to visit the local malls and to search for a Jewish New Year card, then you better be ready to look long and hard. Hallmark and the other card manufacturers have made looking at Jewish New Years cards a task that is seldom within the realm of possibility. Such an effort would fall into the same category as a similar task, the job of searching for a card for the Chinese New Year.
Yes indeed one must put forth countless energy to even come close to finding something that might qualify as a Jewish New Year card. Sometimes it is easier to find a card for National Secretaries' Day then it is to find a card for any of the holidays celebrated by non-Christian religions. For example, when was the last time that you saw in a store an Ayyam-i-Ha or a Naw Ruz card? Those are two of the holidays celebrated by Baha'is.
Naw Ruz is the Baha'i New Year. It comes at roughly the same time as Norooz, the Persian New Year. Yet neither of those holidays appears to merit the ink and paper needed to create a New Years card. Those who desire such cards find themselves in the same boat as those who have gone in search of a Jewish New Year Card.
Perhaps if some publisher were to release a children's book about the Jewish New Year, the card manufacturers would take that as a hint. Perhaps then they would see fit to produce a Jewish New Year card. A trip to a local Borders Books or to a Barnes and Noble would show that the publishing world recognizes many special holidays. There have been children's books written about Kwanza and about the Muslim festival that follows the month of Rahmadan. Bookstores have on their shelves at least one book about Hanukah. There are also children's books about the Chinese New Year.
Maybe card manufacturers hesitate to make a Jewish New Year card because they might then be pressured to make a card for the Orthodox New Year. The Greek and Russian Orthodox Church does not follow the same calendar as the rest of the Christian churches. Still, the absence in bookstores of any children's book on the Orthodox New Year seems to argue against that possibility.
Even UNICEF, which annually puts out Christmas cards, has not created any Jewish New Years Cards. Nor does that organization offer for sale any cards that mention a Buddhist or a Hindu holiday. And there are certainly no cards available for those who celebrate any of the Sikh holidays. In light of the aforementioned facts, one wonders why an organization that favors world peace does not lend stronger support to the recognition of holidays from many religions and many cultures.
Perhaps card manufacturers would create such special cards if they knew where they could run ads for such cards. Right now UNICEF does put out a magazine for teens, but that publication, Vainquer Teens, does not contain any advertisements. If that publication did have ads, then it would be a good place to advertise a Jewish New Year Card. Maybe some student could do an Opinion piece for the editor of Vainquer and request the making of more specialized cards.