What the War Didn't Take

In 2016, in a kitchen in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Isam Hadhad was making chocolate.

His friends tasted it the same day. Then the family sold the little pieces at the town's farmers' market. A long line formed at the table.

These were not Isam's first chocolates.

In the 1980s, in Damascus, Syria, he taught himself the trade. He borrowed cookbooks from the library. By the early 1990s, his chocolate factory had about 30 employees. His sweets travelled across the Middle East and as far as Europe.

Then came the war. Bombs destroyed the factory and the family home.

His son Tareq put it simply: in the blink of an eye, the family lost everything.

They fled to Lebanon. They lived there as refugees for almost three years.

In 2015, the news came: the family was among the Syrian refugees Canada would welcome. Tareq arrived first in Antigonish, in the depths of winter. The rest of the family followed.

A few months later, Isam was back at his trade, in his kitchen.

Around him, a small town got to work. The sponsorship group raised $25,000. About fifty volunteers built a shed beside the house the family was renting. Plumbers, electricians and carpenters gave their time. Local people even lent money to buy supplies.

By August 2016, the shed had become a small chocolate factory. The family called it Peace by Chocolate.

In September 2016, at the United Nations in New York, Canada's prime minister told their story.

A town cannot repair a war. But it can help someone light their oven again.

In 2022, the company made more than 60 confections. They were sold in two stores in Nova Scotia and in grocery stores across the country. Eight members of the family lived and worked in Antigonish.

In October 2021, the last member of the family became a Canadian citizen.

Isam Hadhad speaks this way about the group that welcomed them, and about one of its members, Frank:

The war took the factory, but not the know-how, nor the joy of sharing. Here, neighbours gave a man back something money cannot buy: a place among them.