So, Caras decided to take matters into her own hands. In 2004, when she was 13 years old, she founded Yaldah, a glossy quarterly aimed at Orthodox Jewish girls. She wrote 90 percent of the first issue herself, selling ads to her dentist and her school in Brookline, Mass. The first run cost $700 for 150 copies; today the circulation is 2,000 copies, of which 700 go to subscribers. Caras, now a junior at Yeshiva University, convinced a handful of Barnes & Noble stores (in various parts of the Northeast, Ohio, California, Michigan, and Texas) to carry the magazine. “We definitely have room to grow,” she said.

The publication is a cheerful, colorful affair, full of photographs of beaming brunettes with braces, cover lines about staying positive and organizing your bedroom, advice columns about modest attire, and puzzles with clues like “Find the hidden chometz.” Unlike the world of Hannah Montana, Yaldah exists in near-perfect alignment between a parents’ wishes for a daughter and those a girl has for herself.

Yaldah, which means “girl” in Hebrew, is “about getting away from the messages in the media that kids have to grow up so fast,” Caras said. “But we’re also into empowering girls—you can be 13 and publish a magazine—and inspiring them to take responsibilities. It’s a balance, growing up and still retaining your innocence.”

As a publication, Yaldah is a girl-driven affair, with an editorial board of 20 girls in the demographic—the magazine is aimed at girls from 8 to 14 years old—contributing most of the content. Its current ad-sales chief is a 12-year-old South African girl who makes Skype calls to Jewish camps and girls’ clothing sites after school. There’s also an advisory board of rabbis and educators, many of whom are parents of readers. Caras says they have vetoed very little. A rare hint of conflict: In a recent issue, a reader wrote to the advice columnist, chafing at her mother not letting her wear pants. “A Jewish girl is a daughter of a King,” the columnist responded, “she should feel dignified and special.”

Sometimes parents and children seem so united in the pages of the magazine that it’s hard to tell the difference between them. “Before I knew about Yaldah, I was reading a magazine that claimed to support the values important to girls, but I realized that they were just trying to get you to like them so that you would buy their products,” wrote one “Sara Chana, age 11, OR,” in a letter to the most recent issue.

The few ads sprinkled throughout Yaldah are for Jewish bookstores, camps, and schools. There’s a product section in the back labeled “Modest, stylish and affordable,” featuring merchandise from retailers like Target and Kohl’s. The page carries the following diplomatic caveat: “Different families and communities have different standards of tznius. Make sure to check with a parent or Rabbi if you’re not sure an outfit meets your standards.”

Puberty, with its attendant joys and discontents, is delicately avoided. “We might address moodiness or feelings,” said Caras. “We don’t do controversial topics—nothing too deep. Boyfriends we would definitely stay out of.” Drugs and alcohol, too. The winter 2008-2009 issue of Yaldah featured an article on anorexia, however, after someone in the magazine pointed out research showing that their demographic was affected by the disease. The piece focused on the Torah’s view of the body as a dwelling place for the soul, as well as unobjectionable advice on body image. It recommended telling an adult if you suspect a friend has an eating disorder and also advised girls: “Dress in a tznius way. Tznius takes the emphasis off of the body by covering it up, allowing people to focus on their Neshamos.”

“In the Jewish community, especially the Orthodox one, we’re not so into the clothing and boys,” said former editorial board coordinator Nechama Saltzman, now 17. “All that stuff is not so part of our lives.”

Caras recently married and has been juggling the 30 or so hours she spends on the magazine weekly with her studies. But for all her media-mogul tendencies and her interest in empowerment, she is not a feminist, she said. “I definitely think it’s great, empowering girls, and I guess I just don’t fit with what most feminists would fit into. I still very much connect with the sort of traditional roles of being at home, being a mother.”

But guess what? That line was crossed long ago. Target sells Hello Kitty eyeshadow. Barbie offers a slew of branded cosmetics, including the Fab Fashion 32-piece Makeup Set, which comes in a hot-pink case adorned with black spike heels, and the Lighted Vanity Case, a big mirror surrounded by pink hearts and drawers to hold eyeshadow brushes and spackling tools. If a child requires a Bieber-y soundtrack while putting on her face and prefers a Bratzier color palette, there’s the black and purple Totally Me! Deluxe Cosmetic Case with Light-Up Mirror and MP3 Speakers. “Everything you need to get glammed up while listening to your favorite tunes!” the promo copy gushes. “Nail polishes, lip glosses, body glitter, body glitter gels, lipsticks, eyeshadow powders, cream blushers, blush powders—Totally Me! lets you be totally YOU!” (That is, if “you” are a painted whore of Babylon with an iPod.) Even Crayola, a brand associated with preschoolers, sells fingernail decals.

And this is hardly Walmart’s first time at the tween makeup rodeo. geoGirl takes over the shelf space vacated by mary-kateandashley, a cosmetics line branded by the Olsen twins, who are now focused on designing high-end adult fashions. In addition to geoGirl, Walmart sells beauty products by Disney Princesses, Lip Smackers, Lotta Luv, and FAB. Unlike those lines, though, geoGirl is promoted as full of antioxidants, which fight wrinkles. Which is awesome. Because what 9-year-old isn’t troubled by those troublesome fine lines from smoking? Now we moms can put off our daughters’ Botox for another few months.

In these tough economic times, the only age group that’s increased its beauty spending has been tweens. Their average monthly beauty expenditure rose to $9.20 from $8.50, and marketers say tweens now spend $24 million a year on cosmetics. A study conducted in 2009 found that 55 percent of 6- to 9-year-old girls use lipgloss or lipstick, up from 49 percent in 2003.

At this point, I figure half my readers are raging about little girls turned into Lohans lite by spineless parents with bad values, while the other half are rolling their eyes and saying “Cut the Debbie Downer doominess—makeup can be fun.”

And to both sides I say, you’re right. I see nuance and ambiguity here. My daughter Maxine, 6, has Disney Princess lip balm; my daughter Josie, 9, wore purple lipstick and black eyeliner on Halloween. For us, visiting the corner nail salon is a delicious splurge; both girls go with me for occasional mani-pedis. (Or, as Maxie calls them, “meggie-peggies.”) Adornment and sparkle can be fun.

But when we tell girls that all they are is adornment and sparkle, we have a problem. In her new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, Peggy Orenstein details the relentlessness with which princess culture is pimped to America’s youngest consumers. The problem is in the onslaught, and in the tacit messages in toys and media that push prettiness (and makeup) above all else. “Imposing any developmental task on children before they are ready can cause irreparable, long-term harm,” Orenstein writes, summarizing the psychologist Stephen Hinshaw.

So, Orenstein argues that putting kids in sparkly blush and Suri Cruise heels is as problematic as putting them in a high-pressure academic kindergarten. “That inappropriately early pressure seems to destroy the interest and joy in learning that would naturally develop a few years later,” Orenstein writes of those super-accelerated early childhood programs. “And girls pushed to be sexy too soon can’t really understand what they’re doing. They do not—and may never—learn to connect their performance to erotic feelings or intimacy. They learn how to act desirable but not how to desire, undermining rather than promoting healthy sexuality.”

Even if we say no to makeup, we can’t escape the gendered messages of the culture we live in. Orenstein was shocked to see a banner depicting a little girl in a tiara and glittery earrings hanging above the door to her daughter’s synagogue preschool. Everywhere she went, she saw the rigidly gendered nature of most children’s toys. And her daughter Daisy, despite being raised in crunchiest Berkeley, Calif., clamored for princess everything. “When I was growing up,” Orenstein reflects, “the last thing you wanted to be called was a ‘princess’: it conjured up images of a spoiled, self-centered brat with a freshly bobbed nose who runs to ‘Daddy’ at the least provocation. The Jewish American Princess was the repository for my community’s self-hatred, its ambivalence over assimilation—it was Jews turning against their girls as a way to turn against themselves.”

But that was then; this is now. I’ve previously mentioned a 2007 American Psychological Association report on the increasing sexualization of girls. Sexualization, said the APA, is viewing a girl as “a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making.” It’s linked to depression, eating disorders, and low self-esteem. But we feminist parents also don’t want our daughters feeling shame about their curves or their burgeoning sexual desires. We don’t want the kind of tznius, or modesty, that views girls’ bodies only as temptations for men.

The drumbeat emphasis on looks, looks, looks reminds me that we’re approaching Purim, when we tell the story of Queen Esther. Parents may try to shift the narrative’s emphasis to Esther’s bravery, but the takeaway for little girls is always that she won a beauty pageant. (A pageant run by Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who surely would have received his own Bravo TV show if cable had existed in the time of Xerxes I.) Esther wouldn’t have even had the opportunity to be brave if she hadn’t been a babe. Little girls get that. And seeing a shul full of tots painted and styled to emulate Esther can be disturbing, a synagogue full of JonBenéts.

We may tell our girls to be strong, faithful, brave, and smart, but the overarching message they get is that beauty trumps all else. There’s a midrash about Pharaoh’s decree that Hebrew boy babies be thrown into the Nile: Men stopped sleeping with their wives so as not to risk procreation, but Rashi says the women melted their jewelry into mirrors so they could beautify themselves into irresistibility, thus insuring the survival of the Jewish people. See how important it is to be ultra-foxy? Without babeitude, we would not exist today.

So, one geoGirl “SWAK lip treatment” cannot crush a little girl’s soul. The problem is that girls marinate in a stew of imagery ordering them to be pretty and sassy. “It would be disingenuous to claim that Disney Princess diapers or Ty Girlz or Hannah Montana or Twilight or the latest Shakira video or a Facebook account are inherently harmful,” Orenstein writes. “Each is, however, a cog in the 24/7, all-pervasive media machine aimed at our daughters—and at us—from womb to tomb; one that, again and again, presents femininity as performance, sexuality as performance, identity as performance, and each of those traits as available for a price. It tells girls that how you look is more important than how you feel. More than that, it tells them that how you look is how you feel, as well as who you are.”

That’s the problem. Not nail polish.

And then there’s Noah Cyrus. Blogs were abuzz last week with news that Miley’s 9-year-old sister was designing a lingerie line for little girls. This didn’t seem shocking, since Noah was photographed on Halloween at a children’s AIDS fundraiser in a slinky black dominatrix outfit, sexy makeup, and knee-high, high-heeled, black, shiny PVC boots, then seen in the boots again the next day, along with a super-short ruffly polka-dot mini, black sheer stockings, and a black spaghetti-strapped top. A few weeks later she was filmed performing Akon’s “Smack That” (“Smack that/give me some more/Smack that/Till you get sore”) while smacking her own teeny butt. And then there was that time she played around on the stripper pole.

That she was not, in fact, designing a children’s lingerie line (the story was misreported by icky gossip cretin Perez Hilton, then picked up by the mainstream media) was not the point. The point was that it seemed completely credible, because hey, look at her. As Chris Rock once said of becoming the father to a baby girl, “My only job in life is to keep her off the pole!” Billy Ray Cyrus has already failed on that front. But look at us. We’re the ones who watched Noah squeal, “Smack that, all on the floor” 943,869 times on YouTube.

When I was Noah’s age, I attended a Jewish Day School run by Orthodox rabbis. The girls were drilled in tznius, or modesty. We prayed behind a mehizta, a divider. We were urged to be quiet and demure. And we were expected to cover up. The high school girls taught us little girls a song, to the tune of the march from The Bridge Over the River Kwai:

Tznius, it is our battle cry!

Pritzus, halakhah‘s do or die

Tznius, cover your knee-us

Your collar, your elbow, your toe!

In my school, Noah Cyrus’s semi-clothed dance moves would have caused mass seizures. Today, I view these little girls through the distant lens of momdom, and I’m horrified. But as a liberal Jew who chafed at the confines of my rabbis’ definitions of women’s roles, I’m hesitant to issue fatwas about how other people should dress and behave. As Nessa Rapoport pointed out in the Fall 2009 issue of JOFA Journal, the magazine of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, the social exhortations of tznius have always been disproportionately aimed at young women. “Rather than help young Jewish women view their bodies as exemplifications of the Creator’s work,” she wrote, “the edicts further objectify them, reifying their bodies solely into potential temptation for young Jewish men.” Exactly.

In that same issue of JOFA Journal, Naomi Marmon Grumet, who received her doctorate in sociology from Bar-Ilan University, wrote about her doctoral fieldwork; she interviewed American and Israeli Modern Orthodox women about their experiences of tznius. For many, the repercussions included “feeling ill at ease with one’s own body, being embarrassed that others should see it, feeling afraid to engage in bodily pleasures, and being unable to enjoy doing so.” For many years, in many cultures, girls’ bodies have been constrained and controlled under the guise of “this is ennobling; this helps you achieve the full flower of your womanhood. It’s not oppressive; it’s freeing!” I don’t buy it.

Yet I wonder if liberal Jews could have their own guidelines for tznius, a kind of modesty for our immodest age that isn’t, in practice, all about rules for women and girls.

Before we can begin to think about this new agenda for modesty—let’s call it tznius 2.0—we have to know what it is that we don’t want. We don’t want the kind of modesty conservative thinkers like Wendy Shalit have in mind: long sleeves, long skirts, covered hair for all the married ladies. Those are the same tired, shaming rules. We need to help girls feel at home in their bodies, but in a way that celebrates them instead of hectoring them. Because the damages caused by reducing them to how they look are serious.

According to a recent report by the American Psychological Association on the increasing sexualization of girls, the objectification of young women is linked to three of the most common mental health problems for girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression. Sexualization, says the APA, views a girl as “a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making.” No one wants girls to internalize that message.

The problem, however, isn’t limited to women. In our secular culture, men and boys are increasing sexualized, too. They’re under more pressure than ever to be hip, thin, fashionably dressed. And it starts early. I once saw a onesie for baby boys that read, “Hung like a five-year-old.” Tznius for today should encourage boys not to view girls as objects, but not to buy into their own objectification either.

Maybe we can all agree that one kind of modesty worth embracing is one that preserves childhood—when children are unashamed of their bodies and think “hot” only refers to the temperature of the bath water—as long as possible. Tznius 2.0 would involve keeping newborns away from spike heels (Heelarious high heels for babies, I’m talking to you!) and toddlers away from Bratz dolls. It wouldn’t stuff little boys into outmoded gender roles by discouraging play with “girly” toys. And nobody would wear a Huggies Thong.

Still, you can be completely covered—or a boy—and be wearing an outfit that flaunts values that are plenty non-tzniusdik. A key element of tznius 2.0 would involve discouraging cynicism and snideness, in clothing and in life. “If you don’t like my attitude, quit talking to me,” says one little-kid t-shirt I saw recently. “Caution: Zero to Brat in 2.5 seconds,” says another. “Isn’t it cute that you think I’m listening,” says a third. When you’re a parent, smirking at your kid’s disrespectful or dismissive behavior isn’t cute or cool. And it should be considered immodest, not something to boast about in bubble letters on cotton.

My version of tznius would also encompass materialism. Designer labels aren’t modest. And princesses aren’t great role models. Sure, there are wonderful books about empowered, self-rescuing princesses out there, but we all know that to a 3-year-old, the Arbah Imahot, the four biblical matriarchs, are Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Belle from Beauty and the Beast. And

only Belle has a real spine or any sense of agency. I’m not humorlessly saying we have to deprive little girls of their dress-up gowns—my 3-year-old niece would hate me forever—but I am saying we should turn our tznius energies toward making sure our kids don’t think being pretty, having a castle, and being well-swathed in taffeta are the most important things in the universe. This means we do not get to take them to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, the beauty salon in Walt Disney World, where a preschooler can choose from three hairstyles—Fairytale Princess, Disney Diva, or Pop Princess—and where for $189.95 your kid gets a hairstyle plus “shimmering makeup,” a manicure, five photos in a princess-themed holder, The costume of the child’s choice, and a dwarf retinue. OK, I lied about the dwarves.

Ultimately, I think, the pinnacle of this new modesty would involve teaching our kids to value themselves for who they are rather than what they wear, whether that’s a floor-length denim skirt or a micro-mini. Of course, we want our kids to know they’re more than their looks. I’m just not sure how we achieve that. It’s easy to be horrified at the little Noahs and Suris. But more nuanced struggles with self-expression aren’t easy for anybody.

I had been wearing slouchy clothes since long before I had kids. I favored men’s oversized garments that hung loosely from my body and had never much cared for fashion or trends. For the most part, I spent little to no time on my appearance. From the time I was 19 until I turned 32, I devoted my time to studying, writing a thesis, and starting a family. But the acting itch never completely abated and I had decided to pursue it again rather than stay in academia. The actor’s life I want to pursue gives me more time to raise my children, rather than hand them over to a nanny. Getting a makeover seemed like a great opportunity to put together a new look that I could use on future auditions.

The WNTW producers asked if I have any clothing restrictions. Deep breath. “I don’t wear pants,” I told them. “I prefer skirts.” You see, I am what I guess you’d call a Conservadox Jew. I started embracing certain aspects of Jewish modesty, or tzniut, before my second son was born, and although I know many Orthodox women who don’t observe tzniut, the boundaries and framework of privacy it provides appealed to me.

I was raised in a traditional Reform household, the grand-daughter of poor Orthodox immigrants from Eastern Europe. For them, success in America came at the seemingly small price of relative assimilation. Growing up, I lived a pretty normal life; I had my own prime-time network TV show from the ages of 14 to 19, which meant my physical appearance and clothing choices were dissected on a weekly basis in gossip magazines and on television. I was pretty impervious to media critiques of my style. I had no real sense of my own physicality and took for granted the feminist idea that I should be able to walk around naked without harassment. But I soon learned that not everyone was a feminist.

After graduating from public high school in Los Angeles, I went to college at UCLA, where I met the man who’s now my husband. Knowing we wanted a traditional wedding ceremony, we started studying Judaism together to prepare for it. At first my lessons with an Orthodox instructor were almost anthropological—I was curious as to how Judaism viewed marriage and sexuality, but I did not really intend to increase my level of observance. The more I learned, however, the more my previous distance from traditional Judaism disappeared. I was also a serious person in general, and chose a wedding dress that reflected my serious attitude about marriage. Entering a sacred covenant before G-d, I wore an ankle-length, high-necked Victorian dress with sleeves past the elbow and a heavy veil, reminiscent (I hoped) of the matriarchs Leah and Rebekah.

During the days of the sheva brachot, the seven traditional feasts celebrated in the days after the chuppah ceremony, I tentatively covered my head with scarves and crocheted hats, trying on my new status as a married woman. Beyond wearing a ring, my lifestyle didn’t have a means of representing the change from single to married, and I was cautious about challenging the feminist ideals I’d previously embraced. But I liked feeling a physical representation in my new life as a married woman. In synagogue, I began covering my head with tichels (decorative scarves) from trips to Israel—just as my Orthodox cousins who I used to consider submissive and trapped in an archaic lifestyle taught me to wrap them—and fashionable hats. No flowers allowed. Too Blossom-y.

As my life progressed, tzniut became a bigger part of it and I started appreciating what it means to keep your sexual appeal for yourself and for your partner. I came to see that not everything that makes me beautiful, sexy, or desirable needs to be on display.

In the world of acting, though, maintaining a degree of modesty has been a challenge. I stopped wearing pants outside of the home in November 2007. (I still wear them at home or under dresses.) These days, I am more comfortable in skirts rather than the baggy saggy pants I used to wear. Personally, I feel more attractive and more put-together in a skirt. Tzniut doesn’t mean making yourself less attractive; it means highlighting your strengths within limits.

But my definition of limits and that of the folks at WNTW differed. On and off the set, I discussed my skirt preference with the show’s producers. When the hosts showed me pants as a possible option in my wardrobe, I pointed out that I don’t much wear them. I didn’t claim to be the spokesperson for tzniut; after all, I still wear shirts above the elbows and don’t cover my head regularly.

I got wonderful new clothes, jewelry, and vegan shoes (one of my other preferences). When we filmed me revealing the final outfits they picked, I gently pointed out that skirts above the knee are not something I’d wear, and that I wouldn’t wear sleeveless shirts or dresses without something to cover my arms once I left the set. When the show aired, I saw that my qualifications and explanations did not survive the cutting room.

I don’t wish to claim that there is an “immodest agenda” on WNTW. It’s a show for the average American, who is most likely not Jewish, and if she is Jewish, she’s most likely not observant. In spite of the fact that the hosts kept telling me that I needed to be “sexy” and not “hide” in my clothing, I loved being a part of the show. They were right to encourage me to wear clothing that was my size, and to emphasize my figure where it needed emphasizing. But sexy doesn’t necessarily mean scantily-clad.

The week after WNTW was filmed, I auditioned to play a Hasidic woman on Saving Grace. When the call came in, I laughed, pulled a salvaged Israeli ankle-length dark denim skirt from the floor of my almost bare closet, threw on a WNTW-purchased tank, cardigan, and simple flats, and applied some lovely understated make-up. I booked the part.

Mayim Bialik starred in NBC’s Blossom from 1990 to 1994. More recently she has appeared on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Saving Grace and, this fall, will have a recurring role on The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

Click here to view the poster

An outsider visiting Crown Heights might be forgiven for thinking that the women in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood represent the height of modesty. But some in the Brooklyn community, where the Chabad-Lubavitch movement is based, are concerned that modesty standards are slipping, and have launched a campaign to counter the trend.

Thus far, the effort—organized by a woman named Sheyna Goldin, with the approval of Chabad’s women’s organization, N’Shei Chabad—has involved putting up 500 posters encouraging adherence to modesty laws. But not everyone in the organization agrees with Goldin’s approach, and a frisson of disagreement has broken out over it”and whether the declining standards are even anything new.

“It’s Not Just a Good Idea, IT’S THE LAW!” proclaim the posters, which appeared recently on Kingston Avenue and other neighborhood thoroughfares. The fliers go on to list the laws of tznius, or modesty (modest dress must begin at age three; shirts must cover collarbones; skirts must cover knees) and their talmudic sources. Fine print at the bottom explains the spiritual rewards for modest dress and the consequences for disregarding it.

Even in Crown Heights, such public pronouncements of religious law are unusual—which was the point, Goldin argued.

“Everything is out in the street now; it’s kind of corresponding to the times,” she said, in an interview with Nextbook. “In the shuls, not everyone would see it. It’s more emphatic, like we really mean business.”

“You have to set the standard, not lower yourself to it,” echoed Esther Rochel Spielman, who coordinates subscriptions for N’Shei Chabad’s newsletter. Spielman said that she was seeing more short or slit skirts and tight clothing on young women in the community.

“There is a decline in the men also, the teenagers,” she added. “A lot of them will think it’s cool to go without tsisis [ritual fringes].”

But even some who agree that modesty standards are slipping find Goldin’s approach too aggressive.

“Modesty standards have been declining for decades,” said Bronya Shaffer, a mother of 10 who teaches and lectures in the community on Jewish family life. Shaffer, who was sitting in her dining room surrounded by hundreds of religious books, picked up a copy of the New York Times Magazine that was lying on the table beside a copy of a Chabad magazine and gestured disapprovingly at a risqué Chanel advertisement on the back cover. But the posters also made her wince.

“The medium itself is antithetical to the very essence of modesty,” she said of the posters. “It’s not the Chabad way. I cringe at the specter of kids, young boys and girls, reading in huge letters, in bold technicolor, about uncovered legs and necklines and tight clothing.”

Goldin said that the posters are directed toward both Lubavitchers who live in the neighborhood and visitors to the community.

“The darkness in the world is very great and influences everybody,” Goldin said. “The posters are a fortification and a reminder that this is really not just a nice thing, but a total law from the Torah.”

Sara Labkowski, the dean of a school for young women in the process of becoming more religious, said that because Crown Heights, unlike more isolated ultra-Orthodox enclaves, is “a very open community” located in the heart of Brooklyn, the posters would help to remind young Lubavitchers in the neighborhood of the modesty laws. She helped to distribute flyer-sized versions of the poster at a vigil for the Chabad emissaries killed in the recent terrorist attack on Mumbai.

For Spielman, the decline in modesty is just another sign of what she believes is directly on the horizon.

“I guess we’re getting very close to the moshiach,” she said, using the Hebrew word for messiah. “The satan [devil] tries to attack in any ways he could.”