Passover: The Rest of the Story
Maxwell House Haggadah
Of the 7,000 known versions of the Passover Haggadah, not to mention the countless homemade editions, there is one that is used more than all others combined. Since 1932, the Maxwell House Haggadah has dominated American Jewish ritual.
In the 1920s Maxwell House noticed that coffee sales among Jews fell considerably during Passover because the newly immigrant and observant Eastern European Jews believed the coffee bean was a legume and not kosher for Passover. In stores in Jewish neighborhoods the grocers would set the coffees aside during Passover and not sell them. Maxwell House tasked the Joseph Jacobs Advertising Agency to convince American Jews that they should make coffee, rather than tea, the drink of choice after Seders.
Jacobs hired an Orthodox rabbi in 1923 who declared the coffee bean was “actually a berry or a fruit” and therefore acceptable under the holiday’s dietary restrictions. Ads were run in newspapers, particularly the Yiddish Jewish Daily Forward proclaiming the rabbi’s certification that coffee was OK to drink during Passover. The creation and distribution of the Haggadah started nine years later in 1932 as an effort to dispel whatever remaining doubts there were about the status of coffee. It came free with the purchase of a can of Maxwell House, telling Jewish shoppers that “we’re so much a Passover coffee that we’ll give you the Haggadah.” In fact, the ad in the newest edition of the Haggadah, published in 2011 describes Maxwell House as “the original Passover coffee” and used in the first-ever White House Seder in 2009. The Maxwell House Haggadah is one of the longest-running sales promotions in advertising history. At least 50 million copies have been distributed free at supermarkets.
Manischevitz/Mogen David
“A seder without sweet Manischevitz,” the comedian Jackie Mason once said, “would be like horseradish without tears, like a cantor without a voice, like a shul without a complaint, like a yenta without a big mouth, like Passover without Jews.” To the uninitiated, Passover wine is an ethnic curiosity, or a culinary ordeal. To those who grew up drinking it, it has the taste of ‘Jewish tradition’. Not so much “Jewish”, it is however, a thoroughly “American” beverage.
Jewish law stipulates that kosher wine be produced and handled only by Jews. It was a requirement that initially proved difficult to meet in North America. Native grape species were poorly adapted for wine-making, and imported grape vines succumbed to cold, mildew, and fungi. Into the 1800’s, the few Jews who could afford it, imported wine from Europe. Others relied on a loophole in the law that if wine was not available for Passover, Jews could substitute other alcoholic beverages. In early America, the four cups were often filled with hard cider or clear Jamaican rum.
Jewish immigrants from Europe soaked raisins in water and boiled down the liquid, producing an ersatz wine. It was thicker and sweeter than wine from grapes, and was non-alcoholic. Some made raisin “wine” at home, but production also migrated to small shops and basement wineries. By 1890, the six leading vendors in New York alone sold 40,000 gallons of this Passover raisin wine.
Enter the Concord grape. It was developed by an eccentric Yankee named Ephraim Wales Bull, who was determined to breed a grape hardy enough to thrive in New England. In 1849, after six years of labor, the Concord grape went on sale, and rapidly spread throughout the country. Horace Greeley in 1866 named it the best grape for general cultivation, awarding it a $100 prize and declaring it “the grape for millions.” Bull was immensely proud of having developed a “native grape.” The Concord helped create the category of table grape, and proved well-adapted to jellying. In New Jersey, a Methodist dentist named Thomas Welch decided to pasteurize its juice, to produce a non-alcoholic beverage for sacramental use. Churches friendly to the temperance movement soon embraced Dr. Welch's Grape Juice, which was also touted for its health benefits.
Much to the dismay of its early backers, though, the Concord produced disappointingly sour wines, and required the addition of sugar, making the wine “somewhat palatable, although by no means of great merit.” But to Jewish immigrants, the Concord grape promised an attractive alternative to Passover raisin wine. It was fairly cheap, abundant, and most important of all, local. California wines arriving in eastern markets were controversial: rabbis questioned whether they could really be trusted. Concord grapes could be harvested, and turned into wine, under local rabbinical supervision. The wine also had another key advantage: shelf-life. It never went bad.
The first commercial kosher winery in New York opened in 1899 fermenting Concord grapes from upstate New York into a fortified, syrupy, highly alcoholic wine that soon took the name of the proprietors--Schapiro's. Others followed. In the postwar years, kosher wineries struggled to hang onto their rapidly assimilating clientele, so in 1947, promoting Jewish nostalgia, the Wine Corporation of America took the name of its leading product, Mogen David, and began to market it as “the wine like Grandma used to make.” One rival proclaimed that, “For generations, New Yorkers have preferred Schapiro's.” By 1952, Mogen David was among the most popular wines in the Midwest, selling more than 5 million gallons.”Manischevitz is everybody's wine,” a 1958 ad insisted. Two years later, the company hired Sammy Davis Jr. to croon the praises of its Sweet Concord White, reviving its radio-era slogan: “Man-o-Manischevitz.” Despite many varieties of kosher and kosher-for Passover wines from America, Europe and Israel, for most of America it’s Mogen David or Manischevitz Concord grape.
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola has been on the market since 1886, but only since 1935 has it been certified kosher, including kosher l’Pesach. Rabbi Tobias Geffen, an Orthodox rabbi who served Atlanta’s Congregation Shearith Israel from 1910 until his death in 1970 at the age of 99, is responsible for kashering Coke. Rabbi Geffen, because he was the senior Orthodox rabbi in Atlanta, received letters in the early 30’s from Orthodox rabbinic colleagues around the nation, asking whether it was halachicly permissible to consume Coca-Cola. Drinking Coke symbolized for 1st and 2nd generation immigrants that they were ‘fully American.’
Rabbi Geffen went to Coca-Cola headquarters asking for the ingredients and to inspect the processing, and the Coca-Cola Company made a corporate decision to allow him access to the list of ingredients in Coke’s secret formula provided he swore to keep them in utter secrecy. Geffen agreed to the terms. The company did not tell Geffen the exact proportions of each ingredient, but just gave him a list of contents by name. Geffen saw that one of the ingredients was glycerin made from non-kosher beef tallow. So the company’s research scientists looked a substitute for tallow-based glycerin and discovered that Proctor and Gamble produced a glycerin from cottonseed and coconut oil. When they agreed to use to this new ingredient, Geffen gave his approval for Coke to be marketed as kosher.
The second problem occurred when Coca-Cola switched to corn-syrup sweetener in 1985 making it chametz, forbidden at Passover for most Ashkenazic Jews. So today, Passover Coke (and Passover Pepsi) substitutes sweeteners produced from beet sugar and cane sugar—marked by a yellow cap.
Maxwell House Haggadah
Of the 7,000 known versions of the Passover Haggadah, not to mention the countless homemade editions, there is one that is used more than all others combined. Since 1932, the Maxwell House Haggadah has dominated American Jewish ritual.
In the 1920s Maxwell House noticed that coffee sales among Jews fell considerably during Passover because the newly immigrant and observant Eastern European Jews believed the coffee bean was a legume and not kosher for Passover. In stores in Jewish neighborhoods the grocers would set the coffees aside during Passover and not sell them. Maxwell House tasked the Joseph Jacobs Advertising Agency to convince American Jews that they should make coffee, rather than tea, the drink of choice after Seders.
Jacobs hired an Orthodox rabbi in 1923 who declared the coffee bean was “actually a berry or a fruit” and therefore acceptable under the holiday’s dietary restrictions. Ads were run in newspapers, particularly the Yiddish Jewish Daily Forward proclaiming the rabbi’s certification that coffee was OK to drink during Passover. The creation and distribution of the Haggadah started nine years later in 1932 as an effort to dispel whatever remaining doubts there were about the status of coffee. It came free with the purchase of a can of Maxwell House, telling Jewish shoppers that “we’re so much a Passover coffee that we’ll give you the Haggadah.” In fact, the ad in the newest edition of the Haggadah, published in 2011 describes Maxwell House as “the original Passover coffee” and used in the first-ever White House Seder in 2009. The Maxwell House Haggadah is one of the longest-running sales promotions in advertising history. At least 50 million copies have been distributed free at supermarkets.
Manischevitz/Mogen David
“A seder without sweet Manischevitz,” the comedian Jackie Mason once said, “would be like horseradish without tears, like a cantor without a voice, like a shul without a complaint, like a yenta without a big mouth, like Passover without Jews.” To the uninitiated, Passover wine is an ethnic curiosity, or a culinary ordeal. To those who grew up drinking it, it has the taste of ‘Jewish tradition’. Not so much “Jewish”, it is however, a thoroughly “American” beverage.
Jewish law stipulates that kosher wine be produced and handled only by Jews. It was a requirement that initially proved difficult to meet in North America. Native grape species were poorly adapted for wine-making, and imported grape vines succumbed to cold, mildew, and fungi. Into the 1800’s, the few Jews who could afford it, imported wine from Europe. Others relied on a loophole in the law that if wine was not available for Passover, Jews could substitute other alcoholic beverages. In early America, the four cups were often filled with hard cider or clear Jamaican rum.
Jewish immigrants from Europe soaked raisins in water and boiled down the liquid, producing an ersatz wine. It was thicker and sweeter than wine from grapes, and was non-alcoholic. Some made raisin “wine” at home, but production also migrated to small shops and basement wineries. By 1890, the six leading vendors in New York alone sold 40,000 gallons of this Passover raisin wine.
Enter the Concord grape. It was developed by an eccentric Yankee named Ephraim Wales Bull, who was determined to breed a grape hardy enough to thrive in New England. In 1849, after six years of labor, the Concord grape went on sale, and rapidly spread throughout the country. Horace Greeley in 1866 named it the best grape for general cultivation, awarding it a $100 prize and declaring it “the grape for millions.” Bull was immensely proud of having developed a “native grape.” The Concord helped create the category of table grape, and proved well-adapted to jellying. In New Jersey, a Methodist dentist named Thomas Welch decided to pasteurize its juice, to produce a non-alcoholic beverage for sacramental use. Churches friendly to the temperance movement soon embraced Dr. Welch's Grape Juice, which was also touted for its health benefits.
Much to the dismay of its early backers, though, the Concord produced disappointingly sour wines, and required the addition of sugar, making the wine “somewhat palatable, although by no means of great merit.” But to Jewish immigrants, the Concord grape promised an attractive alternative to Passover raisin wine. It was fairly cheap, abundant, and most important of all, local. California wines arriving in eastern markets were controversial: rabbis questioned whether they could really be trusted. Concord grapes could be harvested, and turned into wine, under local rabbinical supervision. The wine also had another key advantage: shelf-life. It never went bad.
The first commercial kosher winery in New York opened in 1899 fermenting Concord grapes from upstate New York into a fortified, syrupy, highly alcoholic wine that soon took the name of the proprietors--Schapiro's. Others followed. In the postwar years, kosher wineries struggled to hang onto their rapidly assimilating clientele, so in 1947, promoting Jewish nostalgia, the Wine Corporation of America took the name of its leading product, Mogen David, and began to market it as “the wine like Grandma used to make.” One rival proclaimed that, “For generations, New Yorkers have preferred Schapiro's.” By 1952, Mogen David was among the most popular wines in the Midwest, selling more than 5 million gallons.”Manischevitz is everybody's wine,” a 1958 ad insisted. Two years later, the company hired Sammy Davis Jr. to croon the praises of its Sweet Concord White, reviving its radio-era slogan: “Man-o-Manischevitz.” Despite many varieties of kosher and kosher-for Passover wines from America, Europe and Israel, for most of America it’s Mogen David or Manischevitz Concord grape.
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola has been on the market since 1886, but only since 1935 has it been certified kosher, including kosher l’Pesach. Rabbi Tobias Geffen, an Orthodox rabbi who served Atlanta’s Congregation Shearith Israel from 1910 until his death in 1970 at the age of 99, is responsible for kashering Coke. Rabbi Geffen, because he was the senior Orthodox rabbi in Atlanta, received letters in the early 30’s from Orthodox rabbinic colleagues around the nation, asking whether it was halachicly permissible to consume Coca-Cola. Drinking Coke symbolized for 1st and 2nd generation immigrants that they were ‘fully American.’
Rabbi Geffen went to Coca-Cola headquarters asking for the ingredients and to inspect the processing, and the Coca-Cola Company made a corporate decision to allow him access to the list of ingredients in Coke’s secret formula provided he swore to keep them in utter secrecy. Geffen agreed to the terms. The company did not tell Geffen the exact proportions of each ingredient, but just gave him a list of contents by name. Geffen saw that one of the ingredients was glycerin made from non-kosher beef tallow. So the company’s research scientists looked a substitute for tallow-based glycerin and discovered that Proctor and Gamble produced a glycerin from cottonseed and coconut oil. When they agreed to use to this new ingredient, Geffen gave his approval for Coke to be marketed as kosher.
The second problem occurred when Coca-Cola switched to corn-syrup sweetener in 1985 making it chametz, forbidden at Passover for most Ashkenazic Jews. So today, Passover Coke (and Passover Pepsi) substitutes sweeteners produced from beet sugar and cane sugar—marked by a yellow cap.