On A Chocolate Chai

Max Brenner’s was the first stop on the “Jews on the Chocolate Trail” walking tour.

Max Brenner’s was the first stop on the “Jews on the Chocolate Trail” walking tour.

by Randi Sherman

Rabbis Debbie Prinz and Mark Hurvitz have let their taste buds do the walking worldwide for many years in search of cultural cacao confections from France to Spain, Belgium to Israel. On Sunday, May 4, the couple and 10 friends old and new, from as far away as California and as close as Manhattan, followed the chocolate trail through Lower Manhattan with the first-ever “Jews on the Chocolate Trail” walking tour.
The trail started two years ago, when Rabbi Prinz was listening to a National Public Radio report by David Lebovitz on Parisian chocolate shops. Left hungry and inspired when the program ended, she bought Lebovitz’s “The Great Book of Chocolate” and plotted out a trip to Paris revolving around visiting the French shops the

author spent a whole chapter discussing. In between recommended shops, Rabbi Prinz and her husband found L’Atelier de Chocolate de Bayonne, where she made an unexpected discovery.
“Looking at their literature, in my high school French, I think it says, ‘Jews brought chocolate to France,’” Rabbi Prinz told the group on the first stop of the tour, brunch at Israeli-owned Max Brenner’s Chocolate by the Bald Man restaurant near Union Square. The town of Bayonne, in southwest France, maintains that Jews were responsible for bringing chocolate-making to the country. From there, even further interest in the Jewish chocolate connection was piqued.
While group members sipped Brenner’s Mexican Spicy Hot Chocolate, chocolate espresso with Irish cream and regular hot chocolate, Rabbi Prinz gave a mini-lecture on the historical connection between Jews and chocolate, starting in pre-Inquisition Spain. Inquisition records from Mexico show Jews were outed by neighbors and servants for drinking chocolate on Christian fast days. Jews expelled from Spain landed in the far-off shores of Martinique and Amsterdam, where they continued in the chocolate business and were often persecuted, at least in part, for their sweet success.
After indulging in the chocolate fantasy-come-true that is Max Brenner, the tour headed down to MarieBelle, a luxury chocolatier on Broome Street. The owner, Maribel Lieberman, is originally from Honduras and studied fashion at the Parsons Institute of Design. She got into the chocolate business after she married Jack Lieberman, an Israeli whose mother always kept Belgian chocolate out for guests. Combining her fashion skills and love of dessert, she silk-screens intricate designs on her company’s innovative treats, with flavors such as cardamom, rosemary and Caipirinha, a Brazilian lime drink. While there, guests sampled her slightly spicy Aztec hot chocolate and cardamom-accented iced chocolate. “Is it true that chocolate has no calories?” a member of the group asks. Unfortunately not.
For those who missed out, Rabbi Hurvitz will lead travelers along the Holy Land’s chocolate trail next February.

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