Chocolate and the Jews

Throughout history, Jews have been among the leaders in many professions and industries, ranging from music to science to film to medicine to finance to sports. What is less known is the role that Jews played in the spread of the spread of chocolate around the world. This would be of particular interest to Jews with Sephardic roots, since the expansion of chocolate use beyond Central and South America and the Iberian Peninsula began in the 16th century with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal.

Chocolate consumption is believed to have begun as early as 600 B.C., with the Olmec civilization in the southern Gulf of Mexico. Recorded history shows that cocoa beans were harvested by the Mayans, in the Yucatan peninsula in southern Mexico and used to make a spicy drink, dating from about 400 A.D. From there, the beans were traded to the Aztecs, further north in Mexico, who considered chocolate the drink of the gods. That’s the point at which chocolate began to spread elsewhere in the world. The Spanish conquistador, Hernan Cortez, attacked the Aztecs about 1520 and brought back to Spain the drink that until then was unknown to western civilization.

The Spanish considered chocolate a fashionable drink that was reserved for royalty, the rich and the priesthood. They kept the method of processing the beans a secret from other nations. But when Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition in the 16th century, some of them brought with them the secrets of processing chocolate.

The Spanish Inquisition was one of the most deadly in history, even though the Catholic Church and the Pope tried to intervene, but were unable to wrench this political tool from the hands of the Spanish rulers. The Spanish Inquisition reign of terror lasted until the early 19th century.

When it began in Spain, local tribunals judged the accused heretics – mostly Jews – who were forced to confess their sins. Those found guilty were killed publicly or mprisoned.

Some Jews converted to Catholicism in order to escape punishment. They were called Conversos or New Christians. Some escaped to Portugal and other countries, including Italy. After fleeing from Iberia, many Conversos who converted still practiced Judaism in secret. They were called Marranos. Some of the Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal moved to France and they brought the manufacture of chocolate with them.

Jews were not allowed to live in Bayonne, France until modern times, but many settled nearby in St. Esprit, across the Adour River and in Biarritz. That was the region that the manufacture of cocoa began in France. Jewish traders were responsible for starting the chocolate industry in France and in helping to spread it to the rest of the world.

Many Jews who were expelled from Portugal moved to South America and the Caribbean.

There were also Jews who were expelled by the Dutch in the mid-1600s. They came to Brazil and what is now the Republic of Guiana.

The native Indians had their own system of processing cocoa, but kept it secret from the Europeans. But the Indians liked and trusted the Jews and shared the secret with them. Cocoa and vanilla were not yet well known in Europe and Jewish traders in South America began exporting these products to other Jews in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Bayonne and Bordeaux.

The pioneer of chocolate growing and processing in Brazil was Benjamin d’Acosta de Andrade. Born as a Converso in Portugal, he returned to Judaism in Brazil. He moved to Martinique with a group of Jews in 1654 and established the first cocoa plant in French territory. He modernized the process and began making chocolate. Chocolate didn’t sell that well at first, but the trade grew and by 1684 more processing plants, mostly owned by Jews, opened in Martinique. As the chocolate industry grew over the years, many Jews were leaders in the field. One of them was Aaron Lopez, an influential trader who became the first Jew to be naturalized in the British colony of Massachusetts.

Another Jewish merchant in the 1790s was Levy Solomons of Albany, New York. His factory provided Dutch clients with chocolate for their hot drinks.

The names of Jews have been sprinkled throughout the history of chocolate. For example, Austria’s famous Sachertorte, a chocolate sponge cake, was invented by a 16-year-old Jewish boy named Franz Sacher. In 1938, Viennese chocolatier Stephen Klein moved to New York City and re-defined the kosher chocolate market by founding Barton’s. And Barton’s became noted for giving employment to many Jewish refugees from Germany.

Other famous Jewish-American chocolatiers were the late Robert Steinberg and John Scharffenberger, co-founders of Scharffen Berger Chocolate in California in the mid-1990s. And one of the noted names in chocolate preparation is Alice Medrich (nee Abrams), who founded the famed Cocolat stores in northern California. A new generation of chocolatiers is spreading the gospel of chocolate today in Israel. One of them is a chain of cafes called Max Brenner, founded by Oded Brenner and Max Fichtman, that is now selling its chocolate culture worldwide.

There clearly is a bond between Jews and chocolate. It can be seen in festive foods that are popular, such as Passover chocolate cakes, chocolate matzoh, chocolate latkes, chocolate blintzes, chocolate Mandelbrot and the most valuable treat of all – Hanukah gelt, the chocolate coins covered by foil that are distributed to children on that holiday.

Arnold Ismach

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