Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

April 16, 2025

Baking Matzah in War-Torn Ukraine

Despite ravaged wheat fields and a naval blockade, exports continue.

Since 2002, the Ukrainian city of Dnipro has been home to a large factory for baking shmurah (literally, “guarded”) matzah, the round, handmade unleavened bread produced under especially stringent conditions for use at the seder—and, for some Jews, for exclusive use during all of Passover. Thanks to favorable economic conditions, the factory was able to export its matzahs to Israel, the U.S., and Europe. That all changed when Russia invaded central Ukraine in 2022, as Mendy Wineberg writes:

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