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The second the water touches the flour, time is ticking to get this shmura matzah made.
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MATZAH BAKERY COMEBACK
(ILTV)
“This is where the magic starts,” said Yedidya Harush, who shows us how the water-flour combination gets kneaded together to create a dough and is passed on to the next person in the assembly line.
“It weighs 15 kilos or roughly 30 pounds,” Harush explained, as we watch the employees knead the dough with a large iron pole by doing a jumping motion with their body. “The dancing you can see helps him lifting this because it’s very heavy.”
At Emunah Matzah Bakery in Netivot in the Gaza Envelope, each shmura matzah is handmade from start to finish, each one completed in 18 minutes—a required Jewish law and custom to keep it kosher for Passover. Harush, who has owned the bakery for almost 3 years, walks us through the step-by-step process. He’s waited more than a year to get this place back up and running normally.
“The bakery was supposed to open on October 8th. Unfortunately, on October 7th, we went through one of Israel’s most hardest days in modern history and together with the entire Gaza envelope and 55 loyal employees went through horrors of that day,” said Harush.
It’s hard to imagine this fast-paced bakery was shut down for nearly 2.5 months last year since the area was evacuated from the war. But as they tried to reset later in the season, Harush was called up to serve in the reserves in the IDF.
“I had to take personal loans. I was in the middle of Khan Yunis when I had to take a loan back in February, and I came out in March 1 to find out we didn’t even sell one maztah,” he said.
The bakery lost $500,000 worth of sales last year but was able to mobilize and sell to some people in the United States and Israel and donate to soldiers. They’re hoping to recoup some of the loss this season as the process goes on.
“These are the openers who are opening the dough,” he said. “These are the professionals, who usually get paid the most. They are the finishers they make the matzah into the round matzah you.”
The meticulous, cautious process is done step-by-step in a seamless assembly line system. Once rolled out, the matzah is then transferred onto special paper that keeps the level of kashrut extremely high, while on this stick that goes into the oven.
“We decided this year, that we want to have the most highest kosher certificate, so any Jew, it doesn’t matter how specific they are about the kosher certificate, can eat it from the most religious to the most secular. They all can accept our matzah,” he said.
Depending on the humidity and day, sometimes the matzah is baked for only 10 seconds. It’s then transferred to a rack where it’s touched to ensure it’s not wet. Harush explains that a special blessing is made over the matzot before it gets dried for an additional 10 minutes and eventually moves into packing.
“Our matzah is matzah with a mission, it’s matzah with a purpose,” said Harush. “Where wheat grows in the Gaza envelope, water comes from the springs of Jerusalem, and you get the prefect taste to the roots and also the land of Israel.”
The bakery makes 3,000 matzahs in one day.
“Being in Israel after 2,000 years of being in the diaspora, and making this matzah as a free nation, with an army and a country, this is true freedom we are proud to deliver,” he said.
For more information about the matzah and bakery, head to https://emunahisrael.com. To donate matzah for IDF soldiers, head to https://my.jnf.org/halutza/matzah.