Contact Debbie Prinz

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Press Packet On the Chocolate Trail

Lecture and Scholar-in-Residence Topics (download):

*General Audiences

*Jewish Audiences

Join Debbie on the chocolate trail for a gastronomic adventure. The next time you pick up a piece of chocolate, consider that you are partaking in an age-old passion for religion and food. Explore the surprising chocolate narratives and rituals of Pre-Columbians, Jews, Catholics, Protestants and Quakers. On the Chocolate Trail uniquely melds a popularity of chocolate with a fascination about religions. Those interested in the connectedness among peoples will crave this unique approach. Delight your mind and your taste buds as this book unscrambles the mysteries of religions and chocolate along a trail of economic development spanning cultures, countries, centuries, continents, and convictions.

Bio (download pdf)

Rabbi Deborah Prinz authored the trail blazing, best selling book On the Chocolate Trail: A Delicious Adventure Connecting Jews, Religions, History, Travel, Rituals and Recipes to the Magic of Cacao, now in its 2^nd Edition. It is used in adult study, classroom settings, book clubs, and chocolate tastings. 

Her newest book: 

•The Boston Chocolate Party melds themes of Jews in the chocolate trade, the American fight for independence, and Hanukkah’s messages of freedom. This picture book, written with award winning co-author Tami Lehman-Wilzig, is now available (Behrman House). Order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Target.

Her forthcoming book: 

•On the Bread Trail: A Delicious Adventure of Celebration, Religions, History, and Recipes serves up explorations of heritage Jewish breads. Puffy yeast doughs, as expansive and mysterious as the survival of the Jewish people, mix with Jewish celebrations to yield surprising and diverse stories for all seasons. Feed your family and friends from the spirit and creativity of our ancestors through their migrations and adaptations when you dig into the background of these diverse doughs. With approximately 25 recipes, it will be released in October, 2023 (Behrman House).

On the Chocolate Trail forms the basis for a museum exhibit, “Semi[te] Sweet: On Jews and Chocolate” at the Bernard Museum of Temple Emanu-el, New York City, which Prinz co-curated. The show travels around the world. It features historical and contemporary art, artifacts, and memorabilia portraying narratives of Jews and chocolate. 

Rabbi Prinz lectures in-person and virtually about chocolate and Jewish celebratory breads nationally and internationally. Prinz has blogged at HuffPost, The Forward, The Jewish Week, ReformJudaism.org, and onthechocolatetrail.org. 

She was awarded a Starkoff Fellowship and a Director’s Fellowship from the American Jewish Archives as well as a Gilder Lehrman Fellowship from the Rockefeller Library to pursue the research for the chocolate book. It stirs age-old passions for chocolate and religion using information gathered from travel to Belgium, Canada, England, France, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, and throughout the United States. The book spans several cultures, countries, centuries, and convictions. On the Chocolate Trail also explores how faith traditions share consumption, ritual, and business interests in chocolate.

Rabbi Prinz has held a number of leadership positions in the national and regional Reform movement, having served the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) as Director of Program and Member Services and the Director of the Joint Commission on Rabbinic Mentoring. In addition she has also mentored rabbinical students through the Mayerson program at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) and was a Senior Fellow at HUC-JIR’s Center for the Study of Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems (2015-2016). She has consulted for HUC-JIR, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), and other organizations. Prinz was honored to conduct the worship services at regional and national biennials of the URJ. Elected by her colleagues, Rabbi Prinz held each office of the Board of the Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis including President.

The Rabbi Emerita of Temple Adat Shalom, San Diego County, California, she was its Senior Rabbi for almost twenty years. Prior to that she was, for seven years, the Rabbi of a synagogue in Bergen County, New Jersey, and also the Assistant Rabbi of Central Synagogue in Manhattan.

During her almost thirty years in congregational work, Rabbi Prinz contributed to the local Jewish community as well. She served on the Executive Committee, including as President, of the San Diego Rabbinical Association. In her position as a member of the Steering Committee of the United Jewish Federation’s Task Force on Jewish Continuity and Co-Chair of the Interfaith Committee, she was instrumental in bringing the Pathways program (outreach to interfaith children and families) to San Diego. In 1991, she was named “Woman of the Year” by Brandeis University National Women’s Committee. Together with other community leaders, she successfully worked to change the calendar of the Poway Unified School District to avoid the conflict of the first day of school falling on Rosh Hashanah. Temple Adat Shalom, under her leadership, participated in a local dialogue with the Lutheran Church of the Incarnation of Poway and with Chabad of Rancho Bernardo. Along with an Episcopal colleague in Teaneck, she developed an interfaith dialogue program which included an interfaith tour to Israel. She has led many trips to Israel.

The author of several articles, she has published in scholarly, professional, and popular journals such as The CCAR Journal, The Hebrew Union College Annual, Reform Judaism Magazine, and The CCAR Yearbook. Articles about and interviews of Rabbi Prinz have appeared in the national and local media. She has delivered many talks to community organizations.

Rabbi Prinz is married to Rabbi Mark Hurvitz. She is the delighted grandmother of Amiel, Pele, Ziv, Lior, and Yonah.

• Deborah R. Prinz’s Amazon Author Page.