Book Talk at Pardes Institute, Jerusalem

Mother's milk cover with Deena headshot

Join Deena for a talk about her new book, Mother’s Milk, at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem. This talk will be part of a book talk series hosted by Pardes during its summer program. Details forthcoming.

Museum at Eldridge Street: Virtual Lecture

Mother's milk cover with Deena headshot
 
 

In conjunction with the Museum at Eldridge Street’s current exhibition, First Light: Birth in the Jewish Tradition, join author Dr. Deena Aranoff on Thursday, April 30th at 3pm Pacific Time/6pm Eastern Time on Zoom to discuss key themes of her new book, Mother’s Milk: Essays on Child-Rearing, the Household, and the Making of Jewish Culture (Indiana University Press 2025), which asks the question: how were Jewish cultural elements sustained over thousands of years, across continents, upheavals, and exiles?

Deena Aranoff proposes we look to the everyday life of the household for the key to Jewish cultural survival. In this lecture, Deena will explore how daily household practices shape Jewish memory, identity, and culture. We will uncover together how the ordinary becomes sacred: how milk, meals, and small acts of care steadily nourished the trajectory of the Jewish people through the ages. This talk will highlight the spiritual and cultural power of everyday household practices, often overlooked in typical narratives, and invites reflection on how care, attention, and domestic labor carry culture across generations.

In conjunction with the Museum at Eldridge Street’s current exhibition, First Light: Birth in the Jewish Tradition,  join author Dr. Deena Aranoff on Thursday, April 30th at 6pm Eastern Time on Zoom to discuss key themes of her new book, Mother’s Milk: Essays on Child-Rearing, the Household, and the Making of Jewish Culture (Indiana University Press 2025), which asks the question: how were Jewish cultural elements sustained over thousands of years, across continents, upheavals, and exiles?

Deena Aranoff proposes we look to the everyday life of the household for the key to Jewish cultural survival. In this lecture, Deena will explore how daily household practices shape Jewish memory, identity, and culture. We will uncover together how the ordinary becomes sacred: how milk, meals, and small acts of care steadily nourished the trajectory of the Jewish people through the ages. This talk will highlight the spiritual and cultural power of everyday household practices, often overlooked in typical narratives, and invites reflection on how care, attention, and domestic labor carry culture across generations.

https://fareharbor.com/embeds/book/eldridgestreet/items/696763/calendar/2026/04/?flow=918844&full-items=yes&back=https://www-eldridgestreet-org.filesusr.com/html/c310b5_15c6ca89d1dee2a57265c0f3f64d74d3.html

Mother’s Milk: A conversation with Deena Aranoff and Elissa Strauss

Banner art for May 13 2026 talk
Mother’s Milk: A conversation with Deena Aranoff and Elissa Strauss
 
In celebration of Mother’s Day, please join us in taking a deep dive into the critical role of family relations and maternal care in the history of the Jews. Deena Aranoff will share insights from her new book, Mother’s Milk, a book that explores the central place of the household in Jewish history. She will be joined in conversation by writer Elissa Strauss, whose book about care brings the essential and spiritual dimensions of care from the margins to the center of the human story.
 
Bio:
Elissa Strauss has been writing about the politics and culture of parenting and caregiving for more than fifteen years. Her work appears in publications like The Atlantic, The New York Times,  Glamour, ELLE, TheWeek.com and elsewhere, and she was a former contributing writer at CNN.com and Slate. Her book, When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others, came out April 2024 from Gallery Books.

Mother’s Milk, Salon Book Event

Mother's milk cover with Deena headshot

How has Jewish culture endured for thousands of years – across continents, upheavals, and dramatic change? In her bold 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. 

Mother’s Millk 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 Professor Leah Hochman of Hebrew Union College, Aranoff 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. 

This event will be hosted by Professor Sarah Bunin Benor of Hebrew Union College and the University of Southern California. Venue information provided upon RSVP.

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. 

Leah Hochman is associate professor of Jewish Thought at Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. Before coming to Hebrew Union College/Los Angeles in 2008, she was assistant professor of religion and Jewish studies at the University of Florida and taught in the Great Books program at Boston University. At Hebrew Union College, she teaches classes in medieval and modern philosophy, American Judaism, modern history, and food ethics. At USC, she teaches classes on contemporary Jewish literature, Jewish identity, and the academic study of Judaism.

She is the author of The Ugliness of Moses Mendelssohn: Aesthetics, Religion and Morality in the Eighteenth Century (Routledge, 2014) and the editor of Tastes of Faith: Jewish Eating in the United States (Purdue University Press, 2017). 

Â