Sanitation workers who were called to find out why sewers in the religious township of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv have been blocked for the past 10 days solved the mystery. Somebody dumped about a ton of chocolate syrup down the drain and it solidified. Bnei Brak Mayor Rabbi Moshe Orenstein is trying to find out who to sue.
The cost of removing the substance is estimated at about $100,000. Municipal officials speculate that the chocolate was found to be defective and the truck driver assigned to take it to a dump some miles away decided to pour it down the nearest manhole.
The chocolate may or may not have come from the Elite Coffee and Confectionery Co. which produces most of the country’s chocolate. Its general manager, David Moshevitz, said he was “shocked.” He said tainted chocolate “is usually burned as a solid, not disposed of in solution.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.