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The Great Chocolate Heist
Kids in Israel are raised on Hashahar
chocolate spread, traditionally, since the beginning of time, spread
thickly in pita bread. It is taken to schools, consumed in front of
the TV, served in kindergartens and at birthday parties, and more.
For years, other major chocolate producers have tried to compete
with the little company from Haifa Bay, but to no available – you
cannot trick the kids, not with advertising campaigns, free
giveaways, or popular children’s celebrities. Hashahar has always
remained number one for a vast majority of the kids of Israel.
And then, as if in a Passover fairytale,
six weeks before Passover, as the workers of the 60-year-old family
plant were working full speed to get the kosher for Passover
chocolate spread ready (it goes very well with matza), the factory
was broken into and 100 tons of chocolate spread were stolen from
the factory’s warehouse. The chocolate was loaded onto six trucks
and whisked away after the security cameras had been switched off.
Hashahar hired 30 private investigators
to find the missing chocolate. This small army of investigators
managed to find one ton in the grocery store of the Arab village of
Kabul. The grocery store owner was taken in for questioning by the
police and revealed a chain of Arab chocolate thieves, who still
have to be apprehended.
Hashahar produces about 1,000 tons of
chocolate for Passover and the missing 100 tons will be hard to
replace. Is there a moral to this story in which Arab bandits chose
to steal 100 tons of kosher for Passover chocolate spread or is this
just another Passover story?
Yadin Roman
ERETZ Survey, April 2008
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