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A Manhattan synagogue explores the rich, surprising history of Jews and chocolate
(New York Jewish Week) — In 2006, Rabbi Deborah Prinz was on a trip to Europe with her husband, Rabbi Mark Hurvitz, when they wandered into a chocolate shop in Paris. While meandering about the store, Prinz picked up a brochure and read a line that, given her rudimentary French, she was sure she misunderstood: It claimed that Jews had brought the art of chocolate-making to France.
Prinz, who at the time was the congregational rabbi at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway, California, was stunned. That little morsel of information stayed with her throughout her 10-week sabbatical — and ended up being a defining moment of her life: For the next several years, Prinz followed the zigzagging trail of chocolate, from the rainforests of the New World to the cities of the Old World and, from there, to the American colonies, hoping to clarify the role that Jews played in the making, marketing and trading of chocolate.
Prinz, who now lives in New York, was fascinated by the connection between Jews and chocolate, and the overlap between the dispersion of the Jews and the expansion of the chocolate market across the globe. Her research culminated in a book, “On the Chocolate Trail: A Delicious Adventure Connecting Jews, Religions, History, Travel, Rituals and Recipes to the Magic of Cacao,” which she published a decade ago.
A second edition came out in 2018, with a new chapter about the controversies over chocolate likenesses of deities, as well as updated information about chocolate museums and factory tours around the world.
Now, an exhibit detailing the rich history of Jews and chocolate in this country, “Sweet Treat: Chocolate and the Making of American Jews,” is on view at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, where Prinz began her career as the Reform congregation’s first female rabbi. The exhibit is a pared-down, American-specific version of an exhibit Prinz co-created in 2017 with the Bernard Museum at Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side, ““Semi[te] Sweet: On Jews and Chocolate.”
Chocolate, and humankind’s love affair with it, dates to pre-Columbian peoples in Mesoamerica who used chocolate in their religious rituals. Jewish involvement in chocolate parallels the movement of the Jewish people, beginning with Sephardic Jews of Iberian descent in the 16th and 17th centuries, Prinz said by email. Sephardic Jews, she said, probably engaged with chocolate soon after the first European contact with it, which is said to have occurred during Columbus’ fourth voyage (1502-1504).
“Jews jumped onto the chocolate trail in the early phases of European interaction with the New World and they introduced the drink [of hot chocolate] in diasporic places such as New Spain (now Mexico), Oxford (England), Martinique, Amsterdam, Bayonne (France), Brabant (Belgium), New York and Newport (Rhode Island),” Prinz told the New York Jewish Week by email, adding that their action “created a path of business interests and appetites that continues in our time. These included chocolate entrepreneurs who fostered, perpetuated, and fed an appetite for the drinking chocolate of the day.”
Based upon Prinz’s years of research, the exhibit sheds light on some of the key Jewish players in the Colonial-era chocolate trade, including Aaron Lopez, a Sephardi immigrant, merchant and slave trader who became one of the wealthiest men in Newport, Rhode Island. Lopez, an observant Jew, gave chocolate as part of his tzedakah food packages to poor members of the Jewish community. He also helped build the historic Touro Synagogue, which today is owned and overseen by New York’s Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States, also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue.
The chocolate exhibit is a “micro history,” according to Rabbi Sarah Berman, Central Synagogue’s director of adult education. By examining the surprising role the Jews played in the chocolate trade in this country, the exhibit, which is on display at the Sanctuary Building, across the street from the synagogue, is “one way of understanding how Jews and Jewish culture came together in this country and began to define itself from the colonial period forward.”
As for the decision to mount an exhibit about chocolate at the Midtown synagogue, Prinz wrote in an email that Jews’ involvement with chocolate is “a sweet, yet little-known aspect of the Jewish experience. Also, a number of the stories are New York based. And finally, it offers up important themes of sustenance, resilience, opportunity and hope.”
On display is a facsimile of a map of 15th-17th century dispersions of Sephardi Jews and their relationship to historic chocolate centers. (Courtesy Rabbi Mark Hurvitz)
Among the items on display in the small exhibit is a map of the dispersions of Sephardi Jews in the 15th to 17th centuries, which shows how the areas where Jews settled correspond with early centers of the chocolate trade, as well as an image of Albert Einstein’s personal hot chocolate cup, which he brought with him when he left Germany for the United States in1933.
“In Jewish life and tradition, we often look to rabbinic texts to understand who we are and how we move through the world over time. Texts are wonderful, but they preserve the reality, the lived experience and the scholarship of a certain class of men in certain times and places,” Berman said, adding, “Objects in art tell a different story, maybe a fuller story about who we are.”
Also featured in the exhibit are Lopez’s cousins, the Gomez family, who were leaders of New York’s Jewish community and major donors to Congregation Shearith Israel. They, too, were involved in the chocolate trade: Rebecca Gomez, widow of Mordecay Gomez, may have been the only Jewish woman in the chocolate business in the late 1700s. On display is a facsimile of an ad for her chocolate business at 57 Nassau St. in Lower Manhattan that ran in The Royal American Gazette, a New York newspaper, on Dec. 3, 1782.
The exhibit also touches on more recent Jewish chocolate entrepreneurs in this country, including Stephen Klein, who launched Barton’s Bonbonniere in New York in 1940. Just before the outbreak of World War II, Klein, whose family members were candymakers in Austria, fled to this country and soon thereafter began selling chocolates door-to-door. From there, he eventually expanded to 3,000 shops across the country, creating iconic candies such as almond kisses and the chocolate lollipops known as lollycones. For many Jewish families in the 1950s and 1960s, Barton’s candy was the hostess gift for the Jewish holidays.
What’s more, as an Orthodox Jew, Klein used his candy business to further educate Jews and non-Jews alike about Judaism. Klein, said Prinz, was an “immigrant who helped other immigrants come over. He ran full page ads [in newspapers] with information about Judaism, holidays and Israel. Barton’s candy boxes included inserts about Judaism and Jewish holidays. Like the Maxwell House coffee company, Barton’s designed a Passover haggadah, too.”
Jewish chocolate products also influenced the most American of all beverages: fountain drinks. The story of the egg cream, which most people believe was created at the start of the 20th century by a Jewish immigrant, is detailed in the third part of the exhibit, “Ooey, Gooey, Chocolatey Treats.” The exhibit details how a Jewish family also created Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup which many consider essential to a proper egg cream. In the 1920s and ‘30s, Louis Auster, who is credited with creating this poor man’s soda drink, reportedly sold 3,000 egg creams a day 3 cents a glass — and up to 12,000 on sweltering summer days, according to Barry Joseph, author of “Seltzertopia.”
As a whole, the exhibit, which is on view until Feb. 9, 2024 and is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12:30-2 p.m. and Fridays after Shabbat services, presents a comprehensive look at the long history of both Jews and chocolate in this country. “Integration [of Jews] into wider society, the acculturation, the influence going back and forth from Jewish to American and back to Jewish cultures can all be traced through those early days,” said Berman, “and chocolate is an example.”
According to Prinz, looking at American Jewish life through the lens of chocolate helps us “understand the resiliency of Jews exiled from Spain and then immigrants from the Holocaust as they sought freedom, acclimated to new settings, and found new business ventures in America,” she wrote in an email to the New York Jewish Week. “Our ancestors overcame persecution and oppression, in part through chocolate. Their chocolate endeavors in America from its earliest days reminds us that Jews were part of the founding of our country.”
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The post A Manhattan synagogue explores the rich, surprising history of Jews and chocolate appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Criticizes Arab-Islamic Summit Statement, Flags Objections After Doha Meeting
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, attends the emergency Arab-Islamic leaders’ summit in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: Hassan Bargash Al Menhali / UAE Presidential Court/Handout via REUTERS
Iran has criticized the final statement of the Arab-Islamic Summit held in Doha on Monday as insufficient, in the wake of last week’s Israeli attack targeting the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Qatar.
In a statement released shortly after the summit, Iran reaffirmed its “unwavering support for the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination,” while arguing that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot adequately address the Palestinian issue.
According to the Iranian delegation, “the only real and lasting solution is the establishment of a single democratic state across all of Palestine, through a referendum involving all Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories.”
On Monday, Qatar held a summit of Arab and Islamic nations in the aftermath of last week’s Israeli strike on Hamas, with leaders gathering to express support and discuss regional responses.
The Sept. 9 strike targeting leaders of the Palestinian terrorist group in Doha marked a significant escalation of Israeli military operations, reflecting Jerusalem’s broader efforts to dismantle the terrorist group amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Expressing solidarity with Qatar, summit leaders condemned Israel’s strike, labeling it “cowardly, illegal, and a threat to collective regional security.”
In the final statement, the heads of state declared that “an assault on a state acting as a neutral mediator in the Gaza crisis is not only a hostile act against Qatar but also a direct blow to international peace-building efforts.”
Alongside the United States and other regional powers, Qatar has served as a ceasefire mediator during the nearly two-year Gaza conflict, facilitating indirect negotiations between the Jewish state and Hamas.
However, Doha has also backed the Palestinian terrorist group for years, providing Hamas with money and diplomatic support while hosting and sheltering its top leadership.
During the summit, Arab and Muslim leaders called for a review of diplomatic and economic relations with Israel while firmly opposing any attempts to displace Palestinians.
In the final statement, the heads of state also emphasized resisting Israel’s efforts to “impose new realities on the ground,” urged enforcement of International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for Israeli leaders over war crime allegations adamantly denied by Jerusalem, and coordinated actions to suspend Israel’s UN membership.
Although Iran participated in the summit and endorsed the declaration, its delegation issued a separate statement shortly afterward clarifying that doing so “must in no way be interpreted, explicitly or implicitly, as recognition of the Israeli regime,” reaffirming its rejection of the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Iranian leaders regularly declare their intention to destroy Israel, the world’s lone Jewish state.
The statement also stressed that the Palestinian people have the right to employ “all necessary means to achieve their inalienable right to self-determination,” emphasizing that backing this cause is “a shared duty of the international community.”
As the heads of Arab and Islamic states convened for a summit on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned he did not rule out further strikes on Hamas leaders “wherever they are.”
During a diplomatic visit to Israel, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed strong support for Israel’s position, even as Washington previously voiced concerns over the strike in Qatar, a US ally.
Speaking alongside Netanyahu, Rubio said the only way to end the war in Gaza would be for Hamas to free all hostages and surrender. While the US wants a diplomatic end to the war, “we have to be prepared for the possibility that’s not going to happen,” he said.
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“Your Name Was Included”: UC Berkeley Cooperating With Trump Administration, Admits to Disclosing Names
Students attend a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at University of California, Berkeley during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Berkeley, US, April 23, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is cooperating with the Trump administration’s inquiry into campus antisemitism, providing materials containing the names of some 160 people identified in disciplinary reports and other official documents.
As first reported by The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s official campus newspaper, the university’s Office of Legal Affairs notified every person affected by the mass disclosure, writing to them on Sept. 4.
“Last spring, the [US Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR]] initiated investigations regarding allegations of antisemitic harassment and discrimination at UC Berkeley. As part of its investigation, OCR required production of comprehensive documents, including files and reports related to alleged antisemitic incidents,” chief campus counsel David Robinson wrote. “This notice is to inform you that, as required by law and as per directions provided by the UC systemic Office of General Counsel, your name was included in report as part of the documents provided by OGC [Office of General Counsel] to OCR for its investigations on Aug. 18, 2025.”
He added, “These documents contained information about reports or responses related to antisemitic incidents.”
Anti-Israel activists told the Californian that the university is helping the Trump administration hunt witches.
“I think the message was sent to anybody has who has ever been accused of antisemitism, which of course, includes a lot of Palestinians,” one said, claiming that he has been falsely accused. “Whenever we teach about Palestine, it usually leads to an investigation. I think they flagged and sent all of that information to the federal government.”
Students for Justice in Palestine, infamous for its ties to jihadist terror organizations, also criticized the move, charging that the administration had promised to conceal their identities and thereby obstruct the government’s inquiry.
“Chancellor Rich Lyons should not have given assurances that he wouldn’t be giving our information to the federal government,” the group said. “Beyond that, he should never have bowed down so easily. I would think that a university that prides itself on being this liberal haven would at least stand up to a fascist like Donald Trump.”
UC Berkeley came under scrutiny in 2024 after a mob of hundreds of pro-Palestinian students and non-students shut down an event at its Zellerbach Hall featuring Israeli reservist Ran Bar-Yoshafat, forcing Jewish students to flee to a secret safe room as the protesters overwhelmed campus police.
Footage of the incident showed a frenzied mass of anti-Zionist agitators banging on the doors of Zellerbach. The mob then, according to witnesses, eventually stormed the building — breaking windows in the process, according to reports in The Daily Wire — and precipitated the decision to evacuate the area. During the infiltration of Zellerbach, one of the mob — assembled by Bears for Palestine, which had earlier proclaimed its intention to cancel the event — spit on a Jewish student and called him a “Jew,” pejoratively.
Other incidents, including the university’s employment of a lecturer who tweeted antisemitic images — one of which accused Israel of organ harvesting, a blood libel — the rewarding of academic benefits for participating in anti-Zionist activity, and the banning of Zionist speakers from Berkeley Law, have raised concerns about anti-Jewish hated on campus. In 2017, The Algemeiner ranked UC Berkeley as number five on “The 40 Worst Colleges for Jewish Students.”
In August, an Israeli professor sued the university, alleging that school officials denied her a job because she is Israeli — a claim its own investigators corroborated in an internal investigation, according to her attorneys at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
Filed in the Alameda County Superior Court, the complaint is seeking justice for Dr. Yael Nativ, who taught in UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies as a visiting professor in 2022 and received an invitation to apply to do so again for the 2024-2025 academic year just weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel.
A hiring official allegedly believed, however, that an Israeli professor in the department would be unpalatable to students and faculty.
“My dept [sic] cannot host you for a class next fall,” the official allegedly told Nativ in a WhatsApp message. “Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.”
Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD) later initiated an investigation of Nativ’s denial after the professor wrote an opinion essay which publicly accused the school of cowardice and violations of her civil rights. OPHD determined that a “preponderance of evidence” proved Nativ’s claim, but school officials went on to ignore the professor’s requests for an apology and other remedial measures, including sending her a renewed invitation to teach dance. After nearly two years, the situation remains unresolved.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Israel Issues Travel Warning Ahead of Jewish Holidays Amid Rising Attacks, Discrimination Targeting Israelis Abroad
A flag is flown during a protest in support of Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, outside the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, Nov. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Israel has issued a travel warning ahead of the upcoming Jewish high holidays and the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities, alerting citizens of heightened terrorist threats against Israelis and Jewish communities abroad.
On Sunday, the National Security Council (NSC) urged travelers to stay alert, cautioning that the two-year anniversary of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel could trigger attacks by Iran-backed or Hamas-linked terrorist groups targeting Jews and Israelis abroad.
“The recent period has been characterized by continued efforts to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets by the various terrorist organizations (most of them led by Iran and Hamas),” the NSC said in a statement.
“Oct. 7 may again serve as a significant date for terrorist organizations,” the statement read.
Israeli officials warned that the threat mainly stems from Iran and its terrorist proxies, which have increasingly targeted Jews and Israelis beyond Israel’s borders.
In recent months, the NSC reported that dozens of plots have been thwarted, even as violent incidents — including physical attacks, antisemitic threats, and online incitement — have continued to rise.
“With the war ongoing and the terror threat growing, we are witnessing an escalation in antisemitic violence and provocations by anti-Israel elements,” the NSC said in its statement.
“This trend may inspire extremists to carry out attacks against Israelis or Jews abroad,” it continued.
According to the NSC, Iran remains the leading source of terrorism against Israelis and Jews worldwide, acting both directly and through proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
“Iranian motivation is growing in light of the severe blows it suffered in the framework of ‘Operation Rising Lion’ and the growing desire for revenge,” the NSC said in a statement, referring to the 12-day war with Israel in June.
Amid rising tensions over the war in Gaza, Israeli officials have previously warned of Iranian sleeper cells — covert operatives or terrorists embedded in rival countries who remain dormant until they receive orders to act and carry out attacks.
In light of this reality, the NSC also warned that social media posts revealing ties to Israeli security services could put individuals at risk of being targeted.
“We advise against posting any content that suggests involvement in the security services or operational activities, including real-time location updates,” the statement read.
This latest updated warning comes amid a growing hostile environment and a shocking surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes targeting Jews and Israelis worldwide.
Across Europe, Israelis are facing a disturbing surge of targeted attacks and hostility, as a wave of antisemitic incidents — from violent assaults and vandalism to protests and legal actions — spreads amid rising tensions following recent conflicts in the Middle East.
On Saturday, a 29-year-old Israeli and his sister were attacked by three Palestinian men while on vacation in Athens, Greece.
According to local media reports, the two siblings were walking through the city’s center when three unknown individuals carrying Palestinian flags approached them, shouting antisemitic slurs.
The attackers assaulted the Israeli man, a disabled Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veteran, scratching him, throwing him to the ground, and striking him with their flagpoles, while his sister attempted to intervene and protect him.
October 7 is a global war against Jews & Israelis.
Pro-Palestinian radicals just attacked an Israeli man in Syntagma Square, Athens. via @N12News https://t.co/IZR2IdNrUI pic.twitter.com/9S2o4IjtO6
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) September 14, 2025
Greek authorities arrested all five individuals involved in the incident. According to the Israeli man’s father, his son was placed in a cell with 10 Arabs, where he was reportedly beaten again and feared for his life.
In a separate antisemitic incident earlier this year, a group of Israeli teenagers was physically assaulted by dozens of pro-Palestinian assailants — some reportedly armed with knives — on the Greek island of Rhodes.
After leaving a nightclub, the teens were followed to their hotel, where they were violently assaulted, leaving several with minor injuries.
In another example of rising anti-Israel sentiment and hostility toward Jewish communities, one of Britain’s most prestigious military academies, the Royal College of Defense Studies, announced Sunday that it will bar Israeli students from enrolling next year, citing concerns over the war in Gaza.
In Belgium, two IDF soldiers attending the Tomorrowland music festival were arrested and interrogated by local authorities following a complaint from the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), an anti-Israel legal group that pursues legal action against IDF personnel, accusing them of involvement in war crimes.
According to HRF, the soldiers were seen waving the flags of the IDF’s Givati Brigade, which they claimed has been “involved in the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza and in carrying out mass atrocities against the Palestinian population.”
In France, a 34-year-old Algerian man was sentenced to 40 months in prison for threatening passengers with a knife and making antisemitic death threats after boarding a train at Cannes station.
In another incident earlier this year, a Jewish man wearing a kippah was brutally attacked and called a “dirty Jew” in Anduze, a small town in southern France.