ease their pain. R. Mordekhai b. Hillel, in his comments on tractate Avodah
Zara states: “And on the Sabbath, if the Jewish woman has too much milk and
she is in pain, she is allowed to nurse the child of a non-Jewish woman.”^129
This ruling, in combination with those considered above, concerning the
sending of Jewish children to Christian homes, provides evidence of the inti-
macy of the daily contacts between Jews and Christians. If Jewish children
were cared for on a daily basis in Christian homes, then Jewish women must
have been somewhat familiar with the way these homes functioned.^130 If a Jew-
ish woman could nurse her Christian neighbor’s child when she had a surplus
of milk, then their relationship must have been a familiar one.^131
These relationships between Jewish and Christian women, even if they were
tinged at times with hostility and suspicion, cannot be dismissed as inconse-
quential. Recent work on the anthropology of breast-feeding has demonstrated
that giving a child to a wet nurse of a different religious or ethnic group has im-
portant social significance. In some cases, when the practice is reciprocal, this
is a way of furthering the relationship between the two groups.^132 While it is
not a formal connection between the groups, it is an informal link that en-
hances the contacts between them.^133 This idea was certainly not foreign to
Jews or Christians in the Middle Ages. It is the basis for medieval (and ancient)
Jewish laws governing employment of Christian wet nurses, as well as Chris-
tian objections to this practice. Jewish and Christian women who conversed
daily, whether as employers and employees or as neighbors helping each other
out in a bind, had ample opportunity to exchange opinions and information.
This shared knowledge was probably connected to child care, a topic of mu-
tual interest and concern. Although this kind of connection certainly did not
eliminate the fears we noted above of Jewish children being hurt or even killed
by Christian wet nurses, it does point to a relationship between Jewish and
Christian women that has received little attention to date. These opportunities
for contact illustrate the constant communication that existed between Jewish
and Christian women, as we saw in the case of the birth practices examined in
chapter 1.^134 The close quarters of the home certainly allowed Jewish and
Christian women many intimate moments for the exchange of opinions and
information.
Nursing Mothers, Small Children: Regulating InterestsOur discussion so far has dealt at length with wet nurses, their responsibilities
and lives. Investigating the world of wet nurses has also directed our attention
to the fathers of the infants, who were legally responsible for ensuring their
well-being. However, except for a brief discussion regarding the superiority of
maternal breast-feeding over hired wet nursing, we have only touched on the