_.

.

The

convalescent home for observant
women.
"You're all happy and counting
your blessings," she would say. "But...1
there are mothers out there.weeping,
because they have sick babies and
need some of your milk." She
recruited so many women that a
commercial milking machined has
been installed to take the overflow.
Some babies are so allergic that
donors
had to stick to special diets::
',
no soy, no wheat, no chocolate or
milk products. Finding volunteers
was not a problem. "These women
1 ,don'tneed convincing," Mann
explains : "They understand the
value of saving a life."
1 Mann's usual no-nonsense voice
tbecome's heavy when she describes
a young woman who expressed
:milk for months after her own child
was delivered dead. "She told me
that she found relief in giving anoth-
er baby a chance at life."
Stacked next to pictures of her
own children and grandchildren,
1 Mann has an album of photos from
grateful parents. Requests come in
steadily, with about 10 babies at a
time in Israel who need the milk
1 bank's services.
Mann waves away the notion of
ever being too busy to do arladt of
1 kindness. "In life, you always have
1 time for what's really important,"
she says. "If a woman really wants
1 to work out or to have her hair
1 done, she finds time, right? You
need to make time for doing good
deeds, too."
The women who supply the milk ask
only for anonymity. Mann believes
strongly in such unconditional giving.
"Women have been made to feel
embarrassed today ... if they
indulge their impulse to give," she
says. "Never second-guess yourself
and ask, 'What am I getting out of
1 this?' Never underestimate the surge
of joy giving can bring." ❑

. 1 Thursday for the community collec-
What's important to me is that the
tion.
baby survived."
When Mann realized the need
She didn't give much thought to
for organization, she remembered
1 the event until a few weeks later. A
the first project. "I still had my old
physician phoned and wondered if
neighborhood lists from the food
Mann could help him get breast
collection,"
she says. "I wondered if
milk. He had heard a rumor that
1 she was running a private milk bank the same women would help out."
Harvesting
and had tracked
mother's milk
1 her down.
was
far more
Mann learned
complicated
there were
than frying fish.
I indeed babies
Mann consulted
who would died
physicians and
1 without the milk.
realized she
"I'd stumbled
needed pumps,
onto an unan-
sterile contain-
swered need,"
ers, freezers, ice
1 she says. "I
chests and dri-
I knew I couldn't
vers
to pick up
go house to
and distribute.
1 house for all
Many of the
these cases. We
world's milk
needed to get
banks, she
organized."
learned, had
Although she
closed
down
had never taken
because of pass-
a course, Mann
ing infections
1 had some practi-
It doesn't matter whether the babies like AIDS and
1 cal experience
in need are observant,
hepatitis B. (The
1 in administration.
or even Jewish.
Human Milk
1 A few years ear-
Banking Associa-
: her, she had
tion of North America lists only
I decided to do something in honor
seven in the United States.)
1 of a friend who had died suddenly.
Then Mann came up with a solu-
1 Each Friday, while preparing her
tion
to the infection problems.
1 own Shabbat food, she cooked an
Although she would give milk to
1 additional pot for the needy. The
any baby who needed it, she
single pot grew into many and
would collect in only from obser-
1 Mann's husband, Yaakov, a real-
;
vant
women who were shomer
estate broker, installed a new
Shabbat, went to the mikvah and
1- pantry to accommodate the industri-
covered their hair. The instance of
1 al-sized cooking pots. Inspired,
sexually transmitted or drug-related
1 friends began cooking extra por-
disease among such women is so
- I tions, too. Soon Mann had women
low that testing would not be nec-
1 in a .half-dozen neighborhoods
essary.
I fathering hundreds of weekly food
Of course, this meant the eligible
portions to be donated in her
donors
would be mostly mothers
01 friend's memory. At that point,
1 with large families, many of whom
1 Mann handed the administration
lived on stipends with no household
over to an established group and
1 help. Still, she found many eager
j went back to cooking Shabbat
1 This article first appeared in Hadas-
volunteers.
1 meals for one needy family — as
soh magazine.
Mann began visiting a postnatal
I well as frying 30 fish patties each

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• 3/13
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61