The BiG Story

magine keeping a strict no-milk,
first two had died soon after birth.
no-wheat diet while you are
Mann worried about what she
breast feeding your eighth child
would say to the woman. "All I
— not because the baby is allergic
could think of was to ask her if
but because you are supplying milk
there was anything I could do to
for a stranger's infant.
help," she recalls.
Imagine expressing milk for some-
The woman begin to weep
one else's child when your own
uncontrollably. Mann soon under-
was stillborn, or,delivering a daily
stood that the woman attributed
portion of mother's milk form a
her babies' deaths to her inability
donor in Jerusalem to a
to breast feed. If only she
baby hours away across
could
get mother's milk,
Bracha M arm:-
the desert.
she
knew
this baby would
'No one n eeds
These are everyday sto-
live.
convincing.
ries from the Mother's Milk
"I had no idea if she
These women
Bank, run out of crowded
understand the was fantasizing or speak-
Jerusalem apartments in the value of saving ing from medical knowl-
city's most religious neigh-
edge," Mann says. "But
a life. '
borhoods.
she was so distressed, and
The recipients don't have
I felt terrible for her. I heard
to be observant or even Jewish
myself promising that she would
just babies in need.
have mother's milk for her baby by
There' are a small number of
the end of the day.
babies for whom no synthetic sub-
"When we got outside my dough-
stitute can replace mother's milk; it
ter said she was shocked I could
can't be bought, and the epoch of I make such a rash promise. After all,
wet nurses has long passed. A
: I wasn't nursing and I couldn't pro-
decade ago, if the baby's mother
vide any milk. Where would I get
was unable to breast feed, the
some? I was determined that if I
baby was doomed.
had to go down the streets of
Enter Bracha Mann, 53, an
Meah Shearim with .a shofar and a
ebullient, devout mother of 13
megaphone, I'd have milk by that
evening."
whose family has been in
Jerusalem for 10 generations. She
Mann began knocking on doors
lives in a large apartment building
n
i Orthodox neighborhoods, asking
in the Mekor Baruch neighbor-
if a nursing mother was in the
I
house.
hood,
where
the
girls
playing
out
;
wear long skirts, white stockings
"Many religious women have
and count in Yiddish. The books on
arge families and the chances are
Mann's shelves are all Torah related.
P retty good," she says.
The apartment complex has no TV
Many she asked were shocked at
antenna, but it does have its own
the request, but others were willing
1 to contribute, or sent her to a friend
synagogue in the basement.
Nine years ago Mann had never 1 who had just had a baby. Drop by
heard of a milk bank. A high-school I drop, Mann collected donations. By
graduate, she had no formal knowl-
evening she had filled her first flask,
edge of medicine or nutrition. Then
enough milk for two feedings. With
one of her daughters begged her to . relief that she had fulfilled her
come on a difficult get-well visit.
promise, she delivered it to the
grateful mothers.
The girl explained that her neighbor
had just had a baby, her_thircLthe . . .
Whether the milk was responsi-
ble or not, or whether its effect was
Barbara Sofer is the author of
psychological,
I'll never know,"
The Thirteenth Hour (Signet), a
Mann says. "I don't really care.
novel of modern Israel.

.

Jerusalem
Mil
Way

Barbara Sofer
Special to The AppleTree

3/13
1998

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