Mother’s Milk: Deena Aranoff and Naama Sadan in Conversation

How has Jewish culture endured for thousands of years – across continents, upheavals, and dramatic change? In her new book, Mother’s Milk: Essays on Child-Rearing, the Household, and the Making of Jewish Culture, Deena Aranoff proposes an intimate answer: look to the everyday life of the household. 

Deena’s book reveals how Jewish culture has been nurtured and transmitted through family  – feeding, caring, teaching, and raising children. From rabbinic law to family custom, she argues that Jewish culture has always been sustained by the rhythms of the household. 

In conversation with Naama Sadan, Deena will explore how parenting, feminism, ritual, and daily practice shape Jewish memory and identity. Together they’ll illuminate how the ordinary becomes sacred: how milk, meals, and moments of care have sustained an entire civilization. 

See this CBI flier with program and registration information:

Deena Aranoff is Faculty Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. She teaches rabbinic literature, medieval patterns of Jewish thought, and the broader question of continuity and change in Jewish history. Her recent publications engage with the subjects of childcare, household life, and the making of Jewish culture. 

Naama Sadan is a postdoc at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and an affiliate of the Ardoin Socioecology Lab. She is a former high-school teacher and current researcher working on fostering cultural shifts toward sustainability in institutions. Originally from Jerusalem, Israel, she completed her Ph.D. at the Hebrew University, conducting fieldwork in California as a visiting student researcher at UC Berkeley. In addition to writing, she finds joy in other creative outlets as a permaculture designer, translator and teacher of mystical texts, and floral artist.