Mother’s Milk: Essays on Child-Rearing, the Household, and the Making of Jewish Culture

This book engages with an age-old question: What accounts for the persistence of Jewish culture through the ages? Despite significant variations, how were Jewish cultural elements sustained over the millennia?

Mother’s Milk: Essays on Child-Rearing, the Household, and the Making of Jewish Culture proposes that we include the earliest phases of child-rearing in the history of Jewish cultural production. Author Deena Aranoff argues that some of the most enduring aspects of Jewish culture are produced in the context of household and family relations.

Mother’s Milk examines how Jewish practices, including rabbinic halakhah, are derived from household custom and unfold within the context of family life. Aranoff proposes a revised genealogy of Jewish culture that emphasizes the interplay between everyday life and formal Jewish practice.

Deena Aranoff teaches Jewish history, culture, and mysticism at the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. She also serves as a scholar at Wexner Heritage Foundation programs throughout the United States.