The scoop on a new pro-Israel food

Good news in the Waiting For Moshiach department: He’ll be here any day.

That’s not an official announcement, but it’s a logical conclusion following the report this week by JTA that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream operation in Israel is bringing out a new flavor – “Milk and Honey,” named for the biblical description of the Jewish homeland. The product will feature ingredients supplied by Israeli cows and bees, and its chocolate fudge pieces will be shaped like Stars of David.

For the dozen glideri’ot in Eretz Israel that bear the Ben & Jerry’s name, this made-in-Israel decision is a major departure for a firm whose owners have shown a consistent political hostility to the Jewish state.

The Israeli branch of the company, which split from its U.S. counterpart five years ago, names its new frozen offering “Milk and Honey” … the “most Israeli flavor ever.” In the wake of Hamas’ October 7, 2003 bloody terrorism in Gaza, it’s a “symbol of hope, rehabilitation and positive action.”

Strictly speaking, the new flavor is not the product of Ben (Cohen) and Jerry (Greenfield), the resolutely progressive Jewish entrepreneurs who met as seventh-grade and Hebrew School classmates in Merrick, Long Island, six decades ago, but of Ben & Jerry’s, the business firm that was taken over by British-based international food manufacturer Unilever in 2000 for $326 million. Unilever agreed then to retain an independent board of directors who would carry on Ben & Jerry’s tradition of engaging in the founders’ “critical, global economic and social missions.”

Cohen and Greenfield, who remained as brand advisers with Unilever, later accused Unilever of reneging on the promise.

Unilever in 2022 sold its Israeli division to American Quality Products (AQP), which now has the exclusive license to sell Ben & Jerry’s products in Israel and the Palestinian territories

The symbolism of the “Milk and Honey” ice cream – which includes a “Fields of Light” wrapper designed by a southern Israeli artist – remains. It’s a tacit refutation of the socially conscious Ben & Jerry’s business, which has been vocally critical of Israeli actions for a long time, predating October 7.

In announcing the new flavor, AQP stated that “Milk and Honey,” whose milk and cream come from Alumim, a Gaza-border kibbutz infiltrated by Hamas terrorists, and whose honey comes from the beehives of nearby Yad Mordechai, reflects “a responsibility to take an active part in the region’s recovery process.”

This raises a question …

If Ben & Jerry’s is supporting Israel, can Moshiach (Hebrew for messiah) be far behind? Not according to a “Ben and Jerry’s has a new Zionist ice cream” headline in Haaretz.

The business, which began as a single outlet in Burlington, Vermont, in 1978, offering such iconic flavors as Cherry Garcia (named for Grateful Dead Jerry Garcia), expanded to Israel in 1987. Quickly successful and profitable, Ben & Jerry’s supported several liberal causes – including gay rights, abortion, affirmative action, prison reform, racial equality, and the “Defund the Police” movement – through the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, which earmarked 7.5 percent of the firm’s pre-tax profits for such recipients.

This type of activism is “a really Jewish experience,” Greenfield said.

The public faces of Ben & Jerry’s, Cohen and Greenfield, who no longer control the company but serve as its public faces, call themselves “pro-peace … proud Jews.”

Over the years, Ben & Jerry’s work has not been just desserts:

• In 1998, the firm announced that it would no longer purchase water from an Israeli company in the Golan Heights because of what it called the country’s “illegal occupation” of the area conquered from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.
• In 2021, the firm announced that it, in line with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, would end sales in the West Bank (“Occupied Palestinian Territories”), whose “settlements” – i.e., Jewish communities – it called illegal under international law. “A disgraceful capitulation to antisemitism, to BDS, to all that is evil in the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish discourse,” said then-Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
• In 2022 Ben & Jerry’s claimed that Unilever broke a promise to end the ice cream’s sales in the West Bank.
• Three months after October 7, with international criticism of the IDF’s actions in Gaza to root out Hamas mounting, the Ben & Jerry’s board called for a “permanent and immediate ceasefire.”
• In 2025, Ben & Jerry’s independent board accused Unilever, in violation of the 2000 merger agreement signed, had prevented Ben & Jerry’s from making posts on social media in support of Palestinian refugees, and for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza. The board also said Unilever had blocked Ben & Jerry’s donations to Jewish Voice for Peace, and to the Council on American-Islamic relations. Citing censorship for blocking the development of a flavor that called for peace in Gaza, Greenfield left Ben and Jerry’s that year.
• Cohen, who has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza, launched a “Palestine-theme” sorbet after Unilever would not let Ben & Jerry’s release it under the Unilever brand. And Cohen announced that he planned to independently produce a black-and-red-and-green “protest flavor for Palestine” – the watermelon colors match the colors of the Palestinian flag – after Unilever blocked Ben & Jerry’s from making it.

“Our brand,” Cohen wrote in an essay in Time magazine, “cannot be separated from its values.”

To me, this is not just a symbolic, geo-political issue. It’s also personal.

A few decades ago, after Ben & Jerry’s took a particularly offensive anti-Israel action, I spent a few weeks in Israel on a working vacation. I had arranged to meet in Jerusalem the U.S.-born leader of a prominent Jewish organization whom I frequently interviewed there. This time, no interview; I just wanted to catch up on his life and activities. We’d get together, mid-afternoon, for a snack – not a full meal.

Ice cream sounded like a good idea. Would a Ben & Jerry’s in Jerusalem be OK?  Neither my friend nor I wanted to spend our money at a business we considered anti-Israel – even one in Israel. We debated the various pros and cons, until we reached what we considered an equitable conclusion – while we would not buy Ben & Jerry’s products in stores, or patronize Ben & Jerry’s outlets outside of Israel, we could, in good conscience, go to a Ben & Jerry’s in Israel, since we would be supporting an Israeli business.

We enjoyed our time at the Ben & Jerry’s in Jerusalem. Where I went subsequently when I was in the mood for some glida in the capital.

I plan to visit Israel one of these days. If our schedules permit, I’ll meet my old friend for an ice cream again. At Ben & Jerry’s.

Moshiach can join us.