13 Feb
2009 May-June, Food

The Mostly Sweet Tale of Jews and Chocolate

Convinced he would encounter Jewish traders on his 1492 journey, Christopher Columbus brought along a Jew as a Hebrew interpreter. Although he met no Jews in the New World, he did find oddly shaped “almonds” that were highly valued by the natives—cacao beans. It was conquistador Hernán Cortés who carried the art of making the Aztecs’ xocolatl, or “bitter water,” to Spain. Considered a sacred drink associated with fertility, chocolate was served cold and flavored with chilies. The Aztec emperor Montezuma was said to have downed many a golden goblet of the drink each day, especially before visiting his wives. The Spanish nobility swooned over the aphrodisiac and revitalizing qualities of chocolate, but disliked its bitterness. To appease European taste buds, it was loaded with sugar and later blended with hot milk. A delectable drink for the...

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06 Feb
2009 May-June, Ask the Rabbis, Israel, Issues, Religion

Ask the Rabbis // How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?

Independent Although we need to take every precaution against fanatical Muslim Arab terrorism in and outside our homeland, we need to cease forcibly displacing peaceful Arabs like Bedouins, destroying their homes (even their mosques!) for the crime of not filling out forms. We were told that we were to apportion land to those living among us, whether Arab or Martian: “And you shall divide up this land...also to the strangers who sojourn amongst you...and they shall be to you like native citizens amid the Children of Israel… says God” (Ezekiel, Chapter 47). It is tragic enough that we cut down healthy olive trees tended by non-militant Palestinian farmers. It is far more tragic that we continue to impose a very un-Jewish, Occidental European model of government on a culture that is deeply tribal and Oriental, thereby alienating even...

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18 Jan
2009 May-June, Israel

Can Israel’s Electoral System Be Fixed?

Try as he might, David Ben-Gurion could not reform Israel’s electoral system, which gives extraordinary power to small parties. Today, a new generation of reformers takes on the challenge. There was a reason that Israel’s wild-haired, hardheaded founding father and first prime minister named himself Ben-Gurion, Hebrew for son of a young lion. Born David Grun, the charismatic Polish-born leader with a forceful personality and a streak of realpolitik was accustomed to confronting difficult problems—and having his way with them. One of the greatest challenges he faced was transforming the fledgling country’s political system. The electoral process aroused in Ben-Gurion more anger and annoyance than any other institution he took part in creating. “In our electoral system,” he said in 1954, “the citizen has no right to choose his representatives. The candidates are selected not by the...

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