Fermented Grape Juice Has Long Been a Part of Jewish Tradition
Wine has long played an integral role in Jewish culture, central to many Jewish religious practices. The Passover Seder calls for four cups of wine to symbolize different features of redemption. A cup of wine with the Kiddush blessing commonly ushers in Shabbat. Wine is featured during Purim and is traditionally used to sanctify a Jewish marriage. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that shows that wine has been a part of Jewish culture for at least five millennia, with the remnants of prehistoric wine presses found in digs across Israel.
The Earliest References to Wine in Jewish Culture
In what appears to be the first mention of wine in the Torah, in Genesis 9:20, it’s reported that Noah, after the flood, plants a vineyard, drank of the wine “and was drunken.” In the book of Numbers, when Moses sends 12 spies into the promised land, it’s reported that they returned with a cluster of grapes so large that it required two men to carry it. In Ecclesiastes, dated at around 300 B.C.E., the author notes that “wine makes life merry” (Ecclesiastes 10:19).
Historical research confirms the continued growth of Jewish winemaking from the days of Moses until the 8th century C.E., when Muslims conquered the Holy Land, imposing a ban on the production and use of alcohol, thereby killing what was a thriving wine industry.
Jewish Wine in the Middle Ages
After a century of rule, the Muslim rulers relaxed the rules governing wine, allowing for its consumption by Jewish people. Because alcohol was still forbidden under Islam, the Muslim leaders gave Jewish merchants and craftsmen almost total control the wine industry. By the time of William the Conqueror (who claimed the English throne in 1066 after his victory at the Battle of Hastings), virtually all of the vineyards in France were owned and operated by Jewish merchants.
Most of the trade in wine throughout Europe for the next five centuries was controlled by Jewish vintners. With the advent of the Inquisition, Jewish wine merchants and growers in Spain and Portugal, expelled from those countries, took their business to cities in Northern Europe and North Africa.
The Revival of Winemaking in Israel in the 19th Century
For more than a thousand years after the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land, winemaking virtually disappeared from Israel. In the early 1800s, a Jewish philanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore, became interested in establishing wineries in Israel and put up the money to build two wineries there. In 1875, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli of Britain, a known wine connoisseur, referred to a Palestinian red wine as comparable to something his doctor would prescribe for a cough. In response, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, owner of Chateau Lafite Rothschild donated approximately 60 million francs to develop wineries and improve the winemaking business in Israel, the precursor to the Holy Land’s now-burgeoning wine industry.
Modern Jewish Wine Merchants
In the 1880s, two of the most storied purveyors of Jewish wines started their American story. In 1882, vintner Frederick Rosenbaum bought and planted 16 acres of grapes just north of St. Helena, California, establishing what is now known worldwide as the St. Clement Winery. Later that decade, a Lithuanian rabbi, Dov Behr Abramson, bought the passport of a dead man to secure passage to the United States. When he arrived here, he started a small matzah business, keeping the dead man’s name—Manischewitz.
The Sacramental Wine Exemption during Prohibition
At midnight on January 17, 1920, with the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution going into full force, America embarked on a 13-year abstinence from the sale of beer, wine and liquor. Well, not entirely…the Volstead Act, which set forth the regulations governing the sale and use of alcohol, allowed for certain exempted purposes, among them certain medicinal and industrial uses. Another key exemption to the Volstead Act allowed for both the production and the use of “sacramental” wines for religious purposes. The exemption applied to both Catholic mass and Jewish religious rites and led to the growth of such well-known brands as Manischewitz. In fact, many scholars believe that the sacramental wine exemption under the Volstead Act almost singlehandedly saved many of the storied wineries and wine regions of the United States.
The Explosive Growth of the Jewish Wine Business after World War II
In 1948, Eugene Herzog purchased the Royal Wine Company and eventually turned it into the world’s largest producer and distributor of kosher wines. Less than 10 years later (1954), a young Jewish man named Marvin Sands sold his first bottle of Wild Irish Rose, a dessert wine. A half a century later, the company he started became the world’s largest vintner, with some of the planet’s best-known wines, including Robert Mondavi, Clos du Bois and Ravenswood.
Gutterman’s and Gutterman Warheit—Serving the Jewish Community for Over 130 Years
At Gutterman’s and Gutterman Warheit, with funeral chapels in New York and Florida, we have provided comprehensive and compassionate funeral and burial services to individuals and families in the Jewish community for more than five generations. We understand the unique funeral and burial customs within each Jewish tradition and can offer assistance and guidance on any matter, from the order of service at the memorial or the selection of a casket or monument to the details of sitting Shiva or the preparation of a Yahrzeit calendar. We will also work directly with the Chevra Kadisha to ensure proper preparation of the body according to Jewish law.
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