On the Chocolate Trail

When I nibbled on chocolate at the Cyclones Game in Coney Island the other day, I felt as though I had hit a triple header of Jewish life in America. Not only was it Jewish Heritage Night at Maimonides Stadium (resonant of Jewish greats like Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax), but I was eating a product mixed in with the earliest Jewish experience in our country. Long before baseball existed, America’s first Jews, most of them Sephardim from Spain and Portugal sought religious freedom and economic opportunity. They arrived early in New Amsterdam, now New York City, where they contributed financially, civilly, and religiously to founding our country.

In these days of rising antisemitism, remembering America’s Jewish heritage becomes especially important. As President Biden wrote about those Jewish pioneers in his recent proclamation for Jewish American Heritage Month, 2023:

Early on, they fought for religious freedom, helping define one of the bedrock principles upon which America was built.

Fortunately, our government opposes the current anti-semitism and works to protect the Jewish community through the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, through the appointment of Deborah Lipstadt to ambassador level status to monitor and combat antisemitism, and through funding to heighten security at Jewish facilities.

Jews were here from the very beginning, a story told, in part, in my recent children’s book called The Boston Chocolate Party, co-authored with Tami Lehman-Wilzig. Our Jewish forebears in America supported each other in tough times. They proudly celebrated Jewish holiday and continued Jewish traditions. They contributed to new commercial enterprises, including the chocolate trade. When tea was deemed politically incorrect because of British taxation, they supplied their neighbors with the chocolate drink which was consumed at breakfast and supper. Indeed, the parallel stories of American and Jewish freedom coincided when the Boston Tea Party fell on the last night of Hanukkah in 1773. This month, we can dip into our past with pride in our Jewish resilience and our many contributions to American life.