Lesson Plan I- Jews Brought Chocolate to the World
Lesson Plan I: Jews Brought Chocolate to the World (PDF download available)
For Grade 5 and above. Please feel free to adapt and modify to suit your needs.
This lesson accompanies Chapter 1: Did Jews Introduce Chocolate to France? This material may be used to supplement units about Jewish history, the expulsion from Spain, Sephardim, Jews in the Colonial Period in North America, Jews in commerce, or Jewish food.
By the end of the lesson my students will be able to:
• State two facts about the role of Jews in the chocolate trade in Europe
• Explain the term: Sephardim
• Name Aaron Lopez as a major Jewish trader of Newport, R.I.
Set Induction: (approximately 5-10 minutes)
1. What is this? (slides or photos) Early chocolate making items: a chocolate stone, tree, beans and pods. (see videos at howstuffworks.com)
2. (slide or board): In the early days of chocolate in Europe, Jews were expert chocolate makers and brought it to new countries. (Until the Spanish discovery of the New World, chocolate was known only to people living in Central America where it grows on trees with pods containing beans that are used for chocolate making).
Planned activities to make the lesson work
1. About the expulsion from Spain in 1492 (approximately 15 minutes)
• Jews who left Spain were called Sephardim
• Review the map of Sephardic Diaspora and Chocolate, showing where Sephardim settled. They remained connected to each other through family and business.
2. Jews and Chocolate (approximately 15 minutes)
Jews were known to have special chocolate beverage making skills in several places including: Bayonne, France; Martinique; London, England; Amsterdam, Holland; Newport and New York, America. Tell stories from Chapter 1.
3. Use the maps (approximately 15 minutes)
Track these places on the map, using different color pens. Notice the connection between the chocolate trail and the Sephardi dispersion trail. Read short excerpt about Aaron Lopez chocolate and other enterprises in Colonial America (chapter 3). Also there was a connection, even then, to Tzedakah and Pesach.
Distribute chocolate that approximates the texture and taste of chocolate of this seventeenth century period, either American Heritage Chocolate or Taza Chocolate, or a Mexican chocolate, or the closest example of chocolate of that period.
• Copies of On the Chocolate Trail
• Slide pack/photos/board: Cacao tree, pods, beans, grinding stone for chocolate making
• Copies of map of Sephardic Diaspora and Chocolate
• Chocolate samples reminiscent of chocolate from this period, which was mostly intended for drinking, from: American Heritage Chocolate or Taza Chocolate or a Mexican chocolate.
• See Glossary, p. 223
For further reading and research:
• Miriam Freund, Jewish Merchants in Colonial America (New York City: Behrman’s House, 1939.)
• Morris Aaron Gutstein, Aaron Lopez and Judah Touro: A Refugee and a Son of a Refugee. (New York: Behrman’s Jewish Book House, 1939.)
• Lloyd Alexander, The Flagship Hope: Aaron Lopez (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1960.)