On the Chocolate Trail

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, daughter of Reform Rabbi, Susan Silverman and her husband, Yossi Abramowitz, petitioned the company to make its popular chocolate lines slave free. Her Bat Mitzvah celebration at Kehilat Kol Haneshama synagogue in Jerusalem included Fair Trade chocolate caramel bars baked into the challot and Fair Trade Chanukah gelt from Divine Chocolate.

Ashira learned about Fair Trade from her older sister, Hallel, who traveled to Ghana with American Jewish World Service. Hallel returned to Jerusalem a committed Fair Trade consumer. Hallel taught Ashira what she had learned about the unfortunate child slavery on cocoa farms in West Africa. That launched Ashira onto her Fair Trade interest and then her Bat Mitzvah project/presentation during the Shabbat service.

Ashira reported by email to me just moments after her first formal conversation with the Strauss company:

I spoke with Daniela Prusky-Sion who is the International Corporate Responsibility Manager at Strauss Group. She was very friendly and assured me that they are using ethical chocolate but that their corporate social responsibility essentially ends at the suppliers of the cocoa … I spoke about the importance of not supporting child slavery, especially for Passover chocolates. She thanked me for wanting to help and wished me Mazal Tov on my Bat Mitzvah.

Ashira also invited Strauss Company’s chairwoman, Ofra Strauss, to the service. Unfortunately, neither Prusky-Sion nor Strauss, attended.

Send a sweet gift to the State of Israel on its 68th anniversary this Yom Haatzmaut by signing Ashira’s petition to Fair Trade chocolate in Israel.