Jews and their relationship to chocolate

JORDAN MOSHE

Since the discovery of cocoa, Jews have been involved in the story of chocolate. The first Europeans to discover cocoa were crew members sailing to the New World with Christopher Columbus, some of whom were Jews.

Setting sail in 1492, the same year Jews were expelled from Spain, Columbus and his crew encountered strangely shaped almonds, and brought some back to Spain. It was, however, conquistador Hernán Cortés who carried the art of making the Aztecs’ xocoatl, or “bitter water”, to Spain. Considered a sacred drink associated with fertility, chocolate was served cold and flavoured with chilies.

The Spanish nobility adored the energising qualities of this chocolate drink, but disliked its bitterness. To please European taste buds, something new had to be created. The concoction of early sweet chocolate by combining three primary ingredients – cocoa, sugar, and vanilla – was actually pioneered by Jews.

Jewish brothers David and Rafael Mercado, living in present day Guiana, invented early machinery to process and refine sugar, and the first modern cocoa processing plant was the brainchild of Benjamin d’Acosta de Andrade, a Portuguese converso, who was secretly Jewish.

As Spanish and Portuguese Jews sought refuge from the broad reaching perils of the inquisition, some packed and took along with them the new-found chocolate tastes, techniques, and opportunities, supplying and extending chocolate to larger markets around the world.

In fact, it was thanks to Jewish refugees fleeing the Portuguese inquisition in France that chocolate as we know it came into existence.

Former Portuguese Jews were allowed to live in France as “new Christians”, and heavily restricted in their ability to travel, own land, and trade. One industry was open to them: chocolate manufacturing. Relying on contacts with other Jews and secret Jews in the New World, the French community imported cocoa and processed early chocolate treats.

However, Jewish commercial success bred resentment. The local chocolate guilds compelled the authorities to prohibit Jews from working in the chocolate trade.

The French instituted discriminatory laws, and the Inquisition spread to the colonies, forcing Jews to flee to Dutch territories such as Curaçao and New Amsterdam, the future New York.

The French restriction was rescinded in 1767, and the Jewish community near Bayonne resumed its chocolate production, selling new chocolates to an eager French public. By 1854, Bayonne boasted at least 34 chocolate companies, and was known as the premier chocolate producing city in France.

As for those Jews who had fled further afield, America proved fertile ground for furthering the development of chocolate. In colonial America, the chocolate trade was introduced and dominated by two Sephardi Jewish families, the Gomez family in New York, and the Lopez family in Rhode Island.

Cocoa trader Aaron Lopez, an ardent supporter of the American Revolution, wrote that the shortages incurred by the political climate were especially hard on kosher Jews, who were “forced to subsist on chocolate and coffee”.

Back in Europe, chocolate continued its rise to fame. The delicacy was indispensable for Austrian Minister Prince Klemens von Metternich, who had a penchant for food experimentation.

In 1832, the prince sought to impress dinner guests with a new dessert, and in the absence of his chief cook, the task fell to a 16-year-old Jewish apprentice, Franz Sacher.

The youth’s impromptu creation – a sponge chocolate cake layered with apricot jam and coated with chocolate icing, served with a swirl of cream – not only became known as Sachertorte, but Vienna’s signature dessert.

As time passed, the 19th century witnessed other innovations such as the introduction of powdered chocolate and, quite importantly, the mass-produced chocolate bar. It was in the 20th century, with the rise of Nazism, that the exodus of Jewish chocolate-makers from Germany resulted in European Jews bringing their chocolate-making skills to new countries.

Latvian chocolate factory owner Eliyahu Fromenchenko fled rising anti-Semitism to settle in pre-state Israel, where he founded Elite, the iconic Israel chocolate company whose products are recognisable anywhere thanks to the cow which appears on the wrapper.

Fromenchenko would inspire a new generation of chocolatiers to take chocolate to new heights in Israel. Over the past 20 years, Israel has developed a vibrant chocolate culture.

Business partners Max Fichtman and Oded Brenner helped launch another chocolate revolution in 1996, when they founded the store Max Brenner, intent on forging a new culture of chocolate in the Jewish state.

The chocolate industry remains unique in Israel, with high-quality chocolate manufacturers dotting the country, making chocolates with flavours such as pistachio, jasmine, even cardamom.

So entrenched has chocolate become in the Jewish homeland, Israeli scientists have even found reason to argue that eating chocolate cake for breakfast can be healthy, helping us to lose weight!

Clearly, the histories of Jews and chocolate are tightly interwoven. It is yet another achievement to chalk up, but the day we discover how chocolate can guarantee permanent peace for the Jewish homeland will be a sweet one indeed.