The Matzah Bakery of Dnpiro

As I write these words, the war in Ukraine continues, producing images harrowing, terrifying, and at times inspiring. The outcome, at this point, is uncertain. Yet I am certain that this Passover, as I sit at the seder, one image will be on my mind. It is a video of a Jewish bakery in Dnipro, Ukraine, with the war already begun, working to produce shmurah matzah, the unleavened bread eaten at the seder Passover evening, bread that is still baked by hand. The Jerusalem Post profiled the bakery, explaining that these Jews bake not for themselves, but for the Jewish world. “The bakery was established more than 20 years ago in the city of Dnipro in the Dnipropetrovsk region, bordering the separatist province of Donetsk,” the Post reported. “A few months ago, a branch of the Ukrainian Matzah Bakery was also opened in the city of Uman.” It continued:

“The two bakeries employ about 90 people, most of them members of the local Jewish community,” said the new branch manager, Mendy Stumble. “The bakery’s target this year is 100 tons of handmade matza. Most matzahs are exported to the former Soviet Union, Western Europe and other countries. A small portion of the Matzah are intended for use by the 160 communities united by the Jewish Federation of Ukraine.”

The story highlighted simultaneously the crisis in which the several hundred thousand Ukrainian Jews now find themselves—along with everyone else in the country—but also the miracle that is the rebirth of religious fortitude, and Jewish faith, in a land where once all such faith was forbidden.