When Melanie Koloditzky talks about breast milk, she sounds part scientist, part artist and entirely mom.
The Buenos Aires native, who moved to Israel shortly after marrying her teenage sweetheart, has spent the last five years transforming breast milk into handmade keepsake jewelry for mothers across Israel and all around the world. For her, each piece is far more than a necklace, ring or pendant. It is a way of enshrining a fleeting chapter of life.
“I often say that I’m not only creating jewelry,” she says. “I’m preserving moments that can never be repeated.”
Koloditzky grew up in a secular Jewish family in Argentina with traditional roots. A twin with an older sister, she met the boy who would eventually become her husband when she was just 15 years old.
“As we grew up together, we shared the same dream: building our future in Israel,” she recalls.
After marrying, the couple celebrated with family and friends in what felt, she says, like both a wedding and a farewell party. Two weeks later, they boarded a plane and moved to Israel.
The move was exhilarating but not easy.
“I didn’t speak Hebrew other than ‘shalom,’ ‘todah’ and ‘mazel tov,’” she says, using the popular phrases for greeting, thanks and congratulations.
She spent five months studying at an immersive Hebrew language course on a kibbutz in northern Israel before gradually building a life for herself. Along the way, she worked a variety of jobs, including babysitting, and later worked at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Those experiences reflected two interests that had long existed side by side. She always loved science. Before immigrating, she had begun studying biotechnology and remained captivated by the remarkable capabilities of the human body. And at the same time, she nurtured her creative side, studying graphic and interior design and spending years making art and crafts.
Looking back, she says, breast-milk jewelry became the perfect meeting point between those two worlds.
“It combines my fascination with science and my love of creating things with my hands,” she says.
Another thread ran through her life: Koloditzky wanted to become a mother.
“Even as a little girl, I knew I wanted to be a mother one day,” she continues.
She welcomed her first daughter at 22 and quickly discovered that motherhood, while deeply rewarding, was not easy.
“Breastfeeding surprised me,” she says. “I had never imagined it could be so challenging.”
There was pain, deep frustration and tears. But the experience also sparked a deeper curiosity about breast milk itself — a curiosity that drew together her personal experience and scientific interests.
To Koloditzky, breast milk is one of nature’s great marvels.
“It isn’t simply food,” she says. “It’s a living substance that changes constantly according to a baby’s needs.”
Research has shown that breast milk adapts throughout infancy, altering its composition as babies grow and even increasing immune-supporting components when a child is sick.
“To me, that feels almost like a superpower,” she says.
The idea of preserving that experience first took root before she became a mother herself, when she saw a Spanish YouTuber wearing earrings made from her own breast milk.
The image stayed with her.
After experiencing pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding firsthand, she finally understood why.
“For me, breast milk jewelry is not simply about preserving milk,” she says. “It’s about preserving a chapter of life that passes so quickly, yet changes you forever.”
After the birth of her second daughter, she began creating keepsake pieces for herself. Eventually, friends and other mothers began asking for their own.
That personal project gradually evolved into Forever Moments, the business she runs today.
For the past five years, Koloditzky has created handmade breast-milk jewelry for clients throughout Israel and abroad. She also offers do-it-yourself kits for mothers who want to craft their own keepsakes at home.
Some of the most meaningful work she does, however, happens through a volunteer partnership with Magen David Adom’s breast-milk bank. For mothers who have experienced stillbirth and choose to donate their breast milk to vulnerable infants, Koloditzky creates commemorative breast-milk stones that accompany certificates of appreciation.
“These women go through an unimaginable loss,” she says. “Despite their grief, they choose to transform that pain into an act of generosity.”
It is work she describes as both humbling and deeply moving.
What stays with her most are the stories.
Behind every pendant, ring or stone, she says, is a family, a memory and a journey unlike any other.
“When I look at breast-milk jewelry, I don’t simply see a piece of jewelry,” she says. “I see strength. I see resilience. I see the incredible transformation that happens when a woman becomes a mother.”
