Dear Friends, 

In September 1951, Barton’s Bonbonnieres announced a new concoction to help celebrate the upcoming Jewish New Year. The chocolatier Stephen Klein, Barton’s founder, told reporters of a new Rosh Hashanah candy assortment that featured a chocolate rendering of the “Gezer Calendar,” the first known Hebrew timekeeping device. Klein beamed with pride as he showed off a sweet, miniature replica of the calendar dated from King Solomon's reign; the unsweetened real limestone version was on display at Jerusalem’s Archeological Museum. 

With Forest Gump-like wisdom, Stephen Klein shared a vision of how a box of chocolate might explain Jewish living.  

By the 1950s, Barton’s chocolate was a relative sensation, especially among America’s Jews. The company owned 50 candy shops and distributed its wares to countless other stores. Klein’s chocolate factories, first established in 1940, were the first to introduce mechanical assembly lines that mass produced geometrically precise candy pieces from complex molds. Other chocolate manufacturers used a hand-dipped technique that couldn’t replicate Barton’s artful design and was much more expensive to produce. 

Klein liked to whip up something extra special for the Jewish holidays. Barton’s released limited-edition tins and playful, chocolate shapes for Passover and Hanukkah. But Rosh Hashanah and its motto of a “Sweet New Year” was Klein’s favorite season to indulge his creative genius.  

The 1951 ad campaign was particularly meaningful for Klein. Ads in the newspapers offered patrons a chance to “Sweeten Lives in Israel.” The Rosh Hashanah assortment, complete with the chocolate Gezer Calendar, could be gifted to friends and family in Israel for the cost of production. Klein pledged to manufacture the chocolate in Israel (thereby providing income to Israeli workers) and deliver the candies for no additional charge. 

There’s a lot packed into this small historical anecdote. Barton's 1951 Rosh Hashanah initiative was a break-even operation meant to pull on American Jews’ heartstrings and coalesce several core values. Barton’s “highbrow” chocolate made into crisp holiday shapes reflected a burgeoning self-confidence in Jews’ foothold in American culture. The “ancient” Solomonic calendar bespoke Jewish sovereignty, a reminder of Zionism’s recent achievements after the horrors of the Holocaust. The incentive for American Jews to bestow presents to their Israeli counterparts symbolized the economic relationship between Jews in the Holy Land and the Diaspora. 

It was a kind gesture with cultural and political overtones that cohered with popular sentiment. 

Today’s news cycles—much more frightening than whimsical—touch on very similar notions for Jews around the world. Yet, these are presently contentious issues that tend to divide us much more than unite us. But perhaps for the upcoming Rosh Hashanah season, we might find in the ritual, the customs, and the treats, a spark of togetherness that inspired so much pride in Jewish living not too long ago. 

Zev Eleff