Monday, March 29, 2010

The market for matzot

The Passover holiday is a time to think about matzah, whose plural is matzot. A little market history: Thoroughly Modern Matzah

"In 1888, Behr Manischewitz, an astute and pious immigrant from East Prussia, opened a matzah factory in Cincinnati. Soon facing local competition, he cut costs, improved quality, and burnished his image. His factory introduced the first square matzot, unmistakable products of industrial automation. Advertising his technology to English readers, he simultaneously won rabbinic endorsements in Yiddish and Hebrew periodicals.
Over time, Manischewitz and his competitors—Streit, Horowitz-Margareten, Goodman—created a distinctively American matzah for a a distinctively American Passover: a holiday coming to be seen less as the birth of a particular nation than as a celebration of freedom in general."

Some further background here: Those Magnificent Men and Their Matzah Machines*

Chag Pesach sameach, y'all. Let's all try to excel at being free.

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