Some helpful resources for Nofia and Debbie, in dealing with a "breastfeeding ignorant religious leader": "Straight From the Heart: A Torah Perspective on Mothering Through Nursing" by Tehilla Abramov. Southfield, MI: Targum Press Inc., 1990. Distributed in the US by Philipp Feldheim, Inc., 200 Airport Executive Park, Spring Valley, NY 10977 Distributed in Israel by Nof Books, Ltd. POB 23646, Jerusalem 91235 The dust jacket of the book states that the author is IBCLC. This book contains endorsements by several Israeli Orthodox rabbis. It has many helpful hints for nursing, stated clearly and well. (I would like to see the author update her references and draw on newer resources in a new edition.) Also, for Debbie's collection of quotes: See The Talmud, Steinsaltz Edition, Volume X Tractate Ketubot, PartIV, pp 273 - 281 of the 1994 Random House edition. This contains a lengthy discussion of how long a mother should nurse (including a comment that "A sturdy child may continue to nurse until he is four years old, and a sickly child may continue to nurse until he is five,"). The text also covers nursing after a divorce; nursing twins; wet-nurses; at what age an infant recognizes its mother and will refuse to nurse from a substitue, so that the mother may be compelled to nurse to save the child's life even if she has vowed not to; how a blind child recognizes his mother ("by the smell and taste of his mother's milk.") and more. The Talmud, by the way, consists of Rabbinic commentaries on the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and I believe was written around the First Century. Anne Altshuler, RN, MS, IBCLC and LLL leader in Madison, WI