“The Child Needs Milk and Milk Needs a Market”

Abstract

Before milk was incorporated into the Zionist project as a nutritional supplement for children, dairy was celebrated as agricultural produce. Milk had the ability to bring together a varied group of technical experts, who hailed the Milk in School program as a national triumph. Situating the milk program in its local as well as international contexts, this article shows how milk was imagined and presented in a way that tied together food, public health, Jewish physiques, and national goals. It does so by establishing the link between a nutritional program and its political economy within the Zionist aim of colonizing Palestine and normalizing the Jewish people into “a nation among nations.”