From Forbidden Fruit to Milk and Honey ─ A Commentary on Food in the Torah

Food retains a place at the heart of Jewish life and culture, which is based around the Torah. In From Forbidden Fruit to Milk and Honey, Diana Lipton combines these two central aspects of Judaism. Based on the Leket Israel Food & Torah project, From Forbidden Fruit to Milk and Honey includes short essays by 52 internationally acclaimed scholars and Jewish educators. Lipton then provides an even more in-depth commentary and analyzes references to the production, the preparation, and the eating of food found in the Bible. Examining the significance of food in biblical stories, including hospitality, social justice, deception, nurture, love, and life and death, From Forbidden Fruit to Milk and Honey provides unique biblical commentary on food.

Diana Lipton received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Bible at the University of Cambridge. After almost ten years as Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, she moved to King's College London as a Lecturer and then Reader in Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies. She is now an Adjunct Lecturer in Bible at Hebrew University's Rothberg International School. Her published works include Revisions of the Night: Politics and Promises in the Patriarchal Dreams of Genesis, Longing for Egypt and Other Unexpected Biblical Tales, and Lamentations Through the Centuries. Diana has a long history of voluntary work in the Jewish community, and this book emerged from her first project with Leket Israel. Diana has two sons, Jacob and Jonah, and she lives in Jerusalem with her husband, Chaim Milikowsky.