From Purim to Pesach, Let’s Talk Chocolate

On Passover, we celebrate the Jewish story of our release from bondage.  Our seders often conclude with the sweet taste of chocolate.  How bitter to think that much of the world's chocolate comes to us via dangerous child labor practices around the world akin to slavery.   By eating Kosher for Passover Fair Trade chocolate on the holiday, we heighten our awareness about an issue deeply bound into the fabric of our people. 

Rabbi Aaron Alexander, Associate Dean, Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University, gave a Rabbinic psak (decider) on March 15, 2013 (and confirmed for 2014) that specific Equal Exchange chocolates may be purchased before Passover and consumed on Passover. These chocolates are now included on the Conservative Rabbinic Passover List 2014. 

Please click on this link to learn more about chocolate and child labor, and to order Kosher for Passover Fair Trade Chocolate (from Fair Trade Judaica).

May you have a sweet and thought-provoking seder. Hag sameach.

Sandra, a Wexner Heritage Alumna (Oakland), is President of XenoQuest Media, a specialty film company.  XQM currently has a series running nationally on PBS co-produced with NASA featuring research in astrobiology.  Sandra headed international marketing and communications for d.light design, a social enterprise developing portable solar lanterns for the developing world. Sandra serves on the Fair Trade Judaica Advisory board and has served on many Jewish community boards in the San Francisco Bay Area including the New Israel Fund and the Volunteer Action Center of the Jewish Federation of Greater East Bay.  A former Berkeley City Commissioner, she remains active with a number of conservation and science museum boards.  Sandra can be reached at sancurtis@comcast.net.