Ice cream (illustration)
Ice cream (illustration)Thinkstock

Ben & Jerry's Charoseth flavored ice cream is in high demand as Pesach approaches.

Charoseth – a paste made of fruits and nuts that is eaten at the Pesach Seder – is meant to recall the mortar which the Israelites used when they were enslaved in ancient Egypt.

While the Charoseth flavored ice cream has been around for at least three years, it became a viral Facebook sensation in recent days and according to Ben & Jerry's Israel, is flying out of the supermarket fridges.

Ben & Jerry's Israel Director, Avi Singer, told Army Radio that Pesach has always been a problematic month for the Israeli branch of the firm, since most of the raw materials they use come from abroad and are not kosher for Pesach.

A few years back, he said, a Matza Crunch flavor – with pieces of chocolate-covered matza – was produced, and proved successful. The firm decided to try its luck again and produced the Charoseth flavor: “We made charoseth from apples, with some wine and cinnamon, and spread it out inside the ice cream. To our surprise, hysteria has developed around it. People uploaded pictures of it to the web, and folks are convinced that it is available in the US and Europe as well, so we get requests from everywhere. The firm in the US receives queries asking where it can be bought. We weren't ready for something like that.”

US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, increased the buzz around the flavor when he also uploaded a photo of a charoseth ice cream container and wrote – “It's going to be a happy Passover.”

A Channel 2 street survey indicated mixed reactions to the flavor, and Singer admitted that in taste tests, children were markedly unenthusiastic about it. He promised to try and make a more child-friendly version for next Pesach.