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The Real Thing

Credit Kosher For Passover Coke to the perseverance of a filmed Atlanta rabbi.

BOB MENAKER

Contributing Editor

Remember
When

From the The Jewish News pages this
week 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago.

"20147,Vemem-
RqtStPeAgr

The Michigan Department of
Commerce announces that it will
award a $75,000 operating grant to
the Holocaust Memorial Center in
West Bloomfield.

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Atlanta
t happens every spring. Coca-Cola
fanatics start searching the supermar-
kets for Coca-Cola that has been certi-
.
feed kosher for Passover.
Kosher for Passover Coke has been out for
a few weeks now, and it usually disappears as
soon as cans marked "OUP" and bottles with
bright yellow caps hit the shelves.
"We're selling palette after palette" of the
stuff, said Steve Gilmer of Quality Kosher
Emporium in Atlanta's Toco Hills. And "lots
of it is being bought by non-Jews who make a
special trip here."
What's the attraction? For one thing,
kosher for Passover Coke is made with real
sugar instead of corn syrup — which is for-
bidden for Pesach. If you keep kosher and
want to guzzle Coke throughout Passover, it's
the only thing.
Many people — Jews and gentiles — also
believe that Coke simply tastes better when
real sugar is used.
"It's closer to the original Coke," one fan,
Trevor Hilst of Minneapolis, wrote via e-mail.
Another fan swears by kosher for Passover
Rabbi Tobias Geffen
Coke — as long as it is bottled in New York.
"When New Coke came out years ago, my
brother put in a two-year supply," Rabbi Tsvi Kilstein of
expanding their market
decided to show Rabbi Geffen
Boca Raton, Fla., wrote in an e-mail. "It went bad on him.
the formula, but not the proportions of each ingredient.
What a nut."
As the rabbi studied the list, he noticed the presence of
Coca-Cola has been around since John Pemberton, an
glycerin made from non-kosher beef tallow. Sorry, he told
Atlanta druggist, mixed the first syrupy brew in 1886. But
Coca-Cola, your product isn't kosher. So Coca-Cola scien-
it was not until 1935 that Coke was certified kosher for
tists found glycerin made from cottonseed and coconut oil.
Passover. That, too, is an Atlanta story.
When the company agreed to use it instead of tallow-
Old-time Atlantans probably know the tale. But given
based glycerin, Rabbi Geffen gave Coke his hechsher
the tens of thousands of Jews who have moved here since
(kosher certification) allowing the soda to be labeled
the 1970s, it's a story worth retelling.
kosher.
Rabbi Tobias Geffen, who served Shearith Israel in
That's not the end of the story. Rabbi Geffen also
Atlanta from 1910 until he died in 1970 at the age of 99,
noticed that Coke contained trace amounts of alcohol
is the story's hero. In the 1930s, he began receiving letters
made from grain. That small bit of chametz (leavened or
from other Orthodox rabbis asking whether it was possible,
fermented grain) meant Coke could not be labeled kosher
halachically speaking, to drink Coke, which was growing in for Passover.
popularity.
That sent Coke scientists back to the lab, where they
Rabbi Geffen, who was concerned that it was becoming
came up with a formula that used cane or beet sugar
a problem to "induce the great majority of Jews to refrain
instead of grain-based sweeteners. Thus was born kosher
from partaking of this drink," asked Coca-Cola for a list of
for Passover Coke.
Coke's ingredients, unaware that the recipe was — and still
So if you raise a glass of Coke during Passover, say a
is — one of corporate America's most closely held secrets.
silent "thank you" to Rabbi Geffen, a revered leader who
According to the American Jewish Historical Society, the
played a large role in shaping our community and our
nabobs at Coke — then, as now, keenly interested in
tastes. ❑

I

3/29

2002

44

United Jewish Charities President
Joseph H. Jackier announces that a
substantial gift from the Morris
Adler Memorial Fund to the Henry
Butzel Senior Citizens Village and
Conference Center in Ortonville
will finance_the construction of a
chapel and family camp programs.
The Alfred Taubman Facility for
Environmental Carcinogenesis, a
research wing at the Meyer L.
Prentis Center of the Detroit
Medical Center, is dedicated.

Alexander . Goldberg, president of
Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology in Haifa, will address
the Annual Science and Technology
conference in Detroit.
Congregation Shaarey Zedek in
Southfield hires Somerstein
Caterers of New York as the official
caterers of the synagogue.
The Greater Detroit Council of
Pioneer Women announces the for-
mation of its 17th chapter in the
area, Whitehall, sponsored by Mrs.
Jacob Wilk.

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American Women for Bar-Ilan, the
only American University in Israel,
celebrates its first anniversary at the
Jewish Museum in New York City.
Wayne State University Press
publishes Detroiter Irving Katz's

Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War.

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Adas Shalom, originally known as
Northwest Hebrew Congregation
and Center in Detroit, dedicates its
newly completed synagogue.

— Compiled by Holly Teasdle,
Archivist The Rabbi Leo M. Franklin
Archives Temple Beth El