At this Central Synagogue Lunch & Learn, we will explore how to taste chocolate especially from a social responsibility perspective. There will be plenty of delicious chocolate to help us discern the best chocolate based on our Jewish values.
Everything Else
When A Rabbi Makes Ukrainian Wedding Bread
Lubow Wolynetz, Folk Art Curator at the The Ukrainian Museum in NYC, graciously welcomes a group of 20 participants into a utilitarian classroom adjacent to a small kitchen. Plastic place mats sit on the tables in front of each person. At the back of the room,...
On the Chocolate Trail in Bariloche, Argentina
In March, Mark and I finally extended our chocolate trail explorations in celebration of our special anniversary to Bariloche…via Miami, Buenos Aires, Ushuaia, Antarctica, and Buenos Aires again. There were international flights, a cruise, a couple of domestic flights...
Sunday Yeast Polemics: On the Bread Trail
Leavened bread or not? While some of us may think of Passover, the question applied to Eucharistic bread and created significant division in the early Christian Church. The leavened bread for Sunday use was often baked at home by women. Over time, preferences shifted...
How About Some Uterus Challah?
When Logan Zinman Gerber felt enraged about the loss of reproductive rights in the U.S., she baked challah. Not any challah. She shaped it into a uterus. It wasn't long after the birth of her daughter that Gerber, a longtime challah baker and staff member of the...
A Manhattan synagogue explores the rich, surprising history of Jews and chocolate
I'm grateful for this story written by Rachel Ringer, published at JTA/NY Jewish Week on December 20, 2023: (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...
Baking Prayers into High Holiday Breads
Every summer during the years I was a congregational rabbi, I pulled out my annual High Holiday checklist to help me plan for the season’s intensity. Amid the sermon writing, cue meetings, neither Mark nor I, with our respective rabbinic duties, had time for home...
Injera*
Enjoy this naturally fermented Ethiopian bread to scoop up foods or as an accompaniment to a meal. Ingredients: 4 cups/600 grams teff flour 5 cups/1135 grams water, plus more as needed Directions: Whisk the teff flour and water together in a large bowl until a smooth...
Digging into Biblical Breads
Jewish breads transport us to ancient times. Major Jewish ideas about humanity and the Jewish people hinge on biblical bread stories. They define humanity and the Jewish people through bread. The first appears at the beginning of the Bible with the expulsion of Adam...
Matzah – But, the Dough Did Rise!
The Jewish “starter story” of the Book of Exodus traced Jewish salvation from slavery to freedom through matzah which is perhaps the oldest type of bread in continuous Jewish consumption. The narrative recounted Joseph’s rise to power in Egypt through themes of...
Good Riddance Chameitz or, The Polemics of Passover’s Leaven
Israel’s Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz recently reminded Israeli hospitals of the 2020 ruling of the High Court of Justice that permitted hospital visitors and patients to bring chameitz (leavened foods) into hospitals. In protest Idit Silman, MK from the Yamina...
Forthcoming! On the Bread Trail
On the Bread Trail serves up explorations of heritage Jewish breads. Puffy yeast doughs, as expansive and mysterious as the survival of the Jewish people, mix with Jewish celebrations to yield surprising and diverse treats for all seasons. Feed your family and friends...
Chocolate Chip Politics
Chocolate chip cookies are on the menu at the Biden White House, part of its recipe for governing in 2021. Visitors to the Oval Office snag chocolate chip cookies wrapped with the Presidential seal. When first lady Jill Biden stopped at the U.S. Capitol immediately...
Why Is Challah On My Matzah Box?
It happened every Passover during my decades as a congregational rabbi. A curious small-print-reading synagogue member would ask why a recently purchased, certified for Passover, matzah box said: “CHALLAH IS TAKEN.” Odd. Everyone knows (and many complain) that...
Israeli Chocolate Spread
Ingredients:1 cup unsalted butter 1 cup sugar 3 large eggs* *1 teaspoon vanilla extract 5–6 heaping tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder Instructions:Cut the butter into small pieces and put in a blender. Add the sugar, eggs, and vanilla, and blend well. Add the cocoa...
December Media Stories
There’s definitely been interest in stories about Hanukkah traditions of doughnuts and gelt this past month. Thank you to the following for disseminating ideas based on On the Chocolate Trail and the chocolatebabkaproject: For The Forward story, “A Different Doughnut...
Zooming for Challah
Thank you to The Jewish Week's Food and Wine for running my story, "Zooming for Challah." The internet has been popping with real-time challah baking sessions since shelter in place began. These free pre-Shabbat meet ups nourish a hunger for recipes, relief, rituals,...
Panettone for Breakfast?
While we tend to think of panettone as a Christmas bread, Jewish food writer Edda Servi Machlin shared this version of panettone from her childhood experiences in Italy of eating it for breakfast. She provides an authentic yet simpler process than most panettone...
Pan de Calabaza: Pumpkin Challah
This bread brings fall ingredients to your festive meals and reflects the longtime usage of pumpkin among Sephardi Jews. See the Jewish Week for my story about unusual Rosh Hashanah breads, "Beyond Challah and Honey: Rosh Hashanah Breads From Around the World." Prep...
Recipe for Fancy Shapes in Dough: Shaping Dough
I used this shaping dough for the five symbols for the Sephardi "Seven Heaven Challah" for Shavuot: The tablets of the Ten Commandments, a Jacob’s ladder to recall the ascent and descent of angels to and from heaven, a hand or hamsa recalling the five books of the...
Cheese Babka Recipe
This celebratory, cheesy babka belongs on a festive Shavuot table, for sure. Read my story at the Jewish Week "Exotic Celebratory Breads for Shavuot" Adapted from Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Bible: 300 Favorite Recipes Yield: One large cake DOUGH 1 tablespoon active...
On the Chocolate Trail in Belize’s Jungle
Mark and I happily signed on for three distinct rainforest chocolate experiences within a 15 mile radius of our home base, the romantic Cotton Tree eco-lodge which is nestled among Mayan villages near the Caribbean in the Toledo District of Belize. Not only did Belize...
A Chocolate Cake for October’s Tricks: Devil’s Food
Heading into October and its culmination in Halloween, I find myself hankering for Devil's Food Cake, despite its initially derogatory name. Supposedly in 1690 Pilgrims traveled to Plymouth Rock via Amsterdam. They stayed in a house near the city’s biggest chocolate...
How About Some Mindful Chocolate Tasting?
These days comforting chocolate seems more necessary than usual. You could just grab a bunch and stuff yourself to help (maybe?) you feel better. Of course, you could add the chocolate in to your cookies, cakes, and ice creams. Or, you could taste chocolate with a...
Mothers and Survival by Chocolate
On the Chocolate Trail, I found amazing stories of mothers and chocolate from World War II. Immigrant Lisa Hoffman reminisced about how her mother insured she had the skills, including chocolate making, to survive. "I carried inside of me all of the lessons my mother...
Chocolate Exhibit Hits the New York Times
I heard from Florence Fabricant at the New York Times that she would be including the “Semi{te} Sweet: On Jews and Chocolate” exhibit in her “Front Burner” column a couple of weeks prior to publication date. I rushed a few photos to her team. The fact checker followed...
Announcing Second Edition: On the Chocolate Trail
Media attention, popular culture, audience questions, growing consumer awareness, and changes in the chocolate world sparked the new material in this second edition of On the Chocolate Trail. I am happy to offer up a totally new chapter, “Gods in My Chocolate,”...
That Time Jews Smuggled Chocolate to France — and a Recipe for Basque Chocolate Cake
Published July 13, 2016 at The Forward I happened into a chocolate shop, L’Atelier du Chocolat de Bayonne in Paris in 2006 with my husband. As we were tasting and browsing, I randomly picked up a company brochure. In my high school French, I slowly deciphered this...
Bat Mitzvah Wants Fair Trade Israeli Chocolate
There may be many chocolate themed Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties. However, only one Bat Mitzvah girl has actually challenged the global Israeli food company Strauss Group. The Strauss Group includes the iconic, red packaged Elite brand chocolate. Ashira Abramowitz,...
Chocolate Expo
Mark and I had a great time at the recent Chocolate Expo in the Meadowlands and look forward to participating in several more. It was a pleasure to be able to speak three times: about Heritage Chocolate and early chocolate making; about Holiday Chocolate particularly...
Minding Our Chocolate
How does chocolate help you? For me a piece of chocolate here and there smooths transitions from one project to another, one task to the next. At a congregational visit after the Senior Rabbi blessed the Associate on her last Shabbat, someone said, “we need chocolate...
Anschluss Launches Bartons Passover Favorites 77 Years Ago
Bartons Chocolate Pops. Bartons Almond Kisses. Do you long for these and other iconic Passover favorites made by Bartons Chocolate? They exist because of the March 12, 1938 Nazi accession of Austria (Anschluss) when Stephen Klein fled Vienna for his life. A Nazi...
Chocolate Signals
The Trappistine nun appeared to levitate as she welcomed us at the factory door with urgent questions about how to market chocolate for Father's Day, about aspects of kosher certification and about increasing their Chanukah sales. Sister Christa-Maria, in her Bavarian...
Can’t Live Without Chocolate?
It seems a given that many of us depend on chocolate. Everywhere I speak about On the Chocolate Trail (Jewish Lights), people confess: “I can’t live without it.” And they want reassurance that the popular headlines about chocolate’s health advantages are true....
Smiley Chocolate
We hit the mother lode. This chocolate factory came to us from Columbia, unlike the others we were fortunate to trek to in Belgium, England, France, Israel, Mexico, Spain, and Switzerland. To be precise to the David Zwirner gallery near the High Line in Chelsea. Oscar...
Saluting Military Chocolate
Memorial Day recalls the tangible and serious sacrifices made by members of the US military. Chocolate has played a part in that here, as well as in Israel and Britain. When I came across these stories as I was researching On the Chocolate Trail, I was...
Think Chocolate in Preparation for Passover’s Discussions and Eating
Several publications picked up my pieces about chocolate and Passover recently -- Huffington Post, Jewish Journal and Jewish Telegraphic Agency -- and I share them here, along with A Haggadah for a Socially Responsible Chocolate Seder and related rabbinic texts from...
Chocolate Coated Mallomars Turns 100
Do you want to eat a 100 year old chocolate covered, cookie framed marshmallow? The iconic Mallomars turned 100 today. That calls to mind its sibling concoctions from other countries and times, such as the Krembo in Israel. Other similar classic chocolate-covered...
Getting Good Chocolate Gelt
Who knew that quality chocolate Chanukah gelt exists? I thought it had to be waxy and tasteless and that it best decorated a table rather than my mouth. Only recently, with the publication of Marjorie Ingall’s comprehensive piece “Gelt Without Guilt” in Tablet,...
A Great ‘Funraiser’ Happened There!
Not only was it fun to share content from On the Chocolate Trail, West End Synagogue, NYC, made an entire evening and successful fundraiser out of it. Hot chocolate, chocolate beer and peppered-chocolate bits welcomed and warmed the guests. I shared nuggets about Jews...
Author, Rabbi, Author, Rabbi
The book launch party last week for On the Chocolate Trail brought together longtime friends, chocolate lovers, food writers, and rabbinic colleagues. Spirits and calendars were understandably subdued by Superstorm Sandy and by the Israel/Gaza conflict. Those able to...
4 Years for 1 Swiss Chocolate Bar
Submitted to Chocolate Chronicles by Dr. Howard Marcus I was the youngest of four children, the only boy. I had one Father and four Mothers. We owned one large Swiss chocolate bar. When World War I broke out in 1914, my Father showed us children the bar and said you...
Peruvian Cocoa Joins Israeli Homemade Ice Cream
Chips of 96% chocolate ground with salt and coffee beans adorned the amazing homemade chocolate ice cream we tasted the other day. It is the wonderful pairing of the ice cream making mania of foodie David Leichman and the passion for food grinding of Hilaf Menachem at...
Chocolate Charity
It all started in front of the TV on Susan Melowsky’s sick day. Chocolate featured on the Cooking Channel inspired Melowsky to dream up the first Cincinnati Chocolate Festival of 2010, which turned into a project of the Isaac M. Wise Temple Sisterhood. Others say the...
Recipe Testing
The chocolate batter splattered our studio’s microwave, the stove, and the floor as Hannah Gross energetically tested chocolate recipes constrained by my primitive and limited cooking equipment. Within two hours, this amazing sister of our wonderful daughter-in-law,...
Hurricane Chocolate
Anticipating Hurricane Irene, I reviewed my chocolate resources while most people stocked food, water, meds and other necessities. Some folks anticipated entertainment needs and laid in dvd’s and books; some kept phones charged and pulled out the crank radio. I...
Musings about Chocolate and War, July 4
Best selling author Kate Simon’s memoir, Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood, speaks to the potency of wartime chocolate. Her father preceded the family to America and she records her fantasies about his life in America and her reunion with him there. From grim...
Finding your bashert through chocolate matzah! It’s a family deal for Charles Chocolate
Mark and I met Charles (Chuck) Siegel, one of the sweetest guys in the sweet business of chocolate, at the New York Chocolate Show in 2007. We then visited his store and factory in December, 2007, when he not only showed us around his expansive kitchens then in...
The Chocolate Princess: Chocolate’s Arrival in Israel
The hot chocolate I tasted in December 2009 in Israel struck me as pretty flavorless. At Nona’s lovely chocolate boutique near the King David and YMCA in Jerusalem, the melted marzipan addition compensated for the chocolate deficit. That, in a proudly French style...
And Your Favorite Is…
“So, what is the best chocolate? What is your favorite chocolate?” they ask me. True, there are so many options, each wrapped in tantalizing packaging and full of calories. I explain that I do not really have a favorite brand so much as a preferred cacao percentage. ...