Holy Rolling: Making sense of baking matzo Eve Jochnowitz "Well, now I start getting ready for Pesach." sighed an attractive Bobover matriarch as congregants poured out of the Besmedresh in the early hours of the morning after Purim. Indeed, this young woman, along with all other traditional Jewish women, would require just about every day of the entire month between Purim and Passover to complete the rigorous cleaning, searching and kashering of their homes in honor of the holiday. As stringent as the everyday observances of orthodox and Hasidic Jews appear to the casual observer, they are several orders of magnitude removed from the full fledged hysteria that accompanies the preparation for the Passover holiday. There would be screaming, crying, dishes breaking. The maids would run out of the house and into the street in tears. (DB) We are commanded not to become too overwrought in carrying out mitzvas, but for Passover, you can go crazy. (BE) Every week, month and year has its own particular holy days in the cycle of a Jewish life. So many so that one of every three or four days is a day of sacred celebration of some kind (Dobroszycki and Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 80; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1982, 1). Each of these special days is framed by its own set of observances, and marked by its own unique foods, none more so than Passover -- the beginning and center of the Jewish year. (While Jewish New Year is celebrated in the fall, the months are counted beginning in the spring with Passover.) Furthermore, Passover, the feast in celebration of the Exodus from Egypt, is the only Jewish holiday that is present in all other Jewish holidays, including the sabbath. The very first ritual for every Jewish holiday, and for sabbath as well, is a blessing over wine called "kiddush." The kiddush for every holiday contains the words "in memory of the Exodus from Egypt" even if the event commemorated by the holiday occurred well before or well after the Exodus from Egypt. Kashres, or the Jewish dietary laws, are the laws that most fully sculpt the aesthetics of the everyday life of observant Jew. Every bite of food at any time of day recarves the law into the very body the diner, so that she carries it with her always. The cryptic and complicated prohibitions of Leviticus regarding animal food have been expanded by centuries of rabbinic commentary to apply to almost any food one might encounter. Any food that has been handled, processed or packaged must be subject to strict rabbinic supervision, and even raw fruits and vegetables, theoretically the kosherest food there could be, must also be meticulously examined for bugs and dirt (Nitra, 1-11). The animals which are kosher to eat are those who are true to their type. If they live on land, they should walk; if they live in the sea, they should look like fish; if they fly, they should be birds (Douglas, 55). Animals who do not fit neatly into any of the above categories are not "fit" or kosher to eat. The blessings said over food at table have the twofold function bringing religious ceremony to the act of eating and putting all foods into their proper categories. Mary Douglas has commented that the dietary laws are signs which "At every turn inspire meditation on the oneness, purity and completeness of God" (57). A vast literature exists of commentary expounding the actual practice of observation of the laws of kashres. Every detail related to the preparation and handling of food that can be thought up is discussed not just in sacred texts written by Talmudic scholars but in the introductions to cookbooks that will be used by the women who cook the food themselves. No amount of rabbinic supervision can make food kosher if the cook who finishes it is the least bit ignorant or careless. In the Jewish home, it is the housewife who is the final mashgiakh (Supervising rabbi). As strict and comprehensive as the everyday laws of kashres are, they do have one escape hatch: If a miniscule speck of unkosher food should accidentally come into contact with kosher food it is ruled to have "lost it's nature" in fact, to have vanished from existence. (LWO 1981, 10) No such escape hatch exists for the dietary laws associated with Passover, when even foods that have passed the highest standards of kashres must be banished from the home for the eight days of the holiday. No amount of hametz (Leaven) is permitted on Passover, not one part in sixty (the cut-off point for everyday kashres) and not one part in sixty thousand. The narrowest definition of hametz is grain that has been in contact with moisture for more than eighteen minutes, but more broadly, hametz refers to any grain product at all except matzo itself, any oils or derivatives from any grain product, including the starches and glues in many paper plates, any dried bean or legume, which can be used to make a flour-like powder including the peanut, any leavening agent, any alcoholic beverage except wine or brandy made specifically for Passover, and any food or utensil that has come into contact with any of the above. Another category of food avoided during Passover is food that is not specifically permitted for Passover -- a potentially huge class of foods: A couple of years ago, someone posted the story of how bananas became unkosher in St. Louis because a new rabbi, just over from Europe, who had never seen a banana asked "For eight days you can't live without this?" I wouldn't be surprised if the whole kitnioth issue arose in the same way. (DR) Banning bananas, to be sure, is an extreme case, but it is not without parallels in contemporary Passover literature. The Spice and Spirit of Kosher-Passover Cooking (LWO 1981, 19-23) states "It is the custom not to use any garlic, fresh or ground." and "It is the custom in many communities not to use spices." If you can find a community that forbids a particular ingredient during Passover, it is considered safest and most inclusive to follow along -- when in doubt, throw it out -- Since the holiday is only eight days long, no prohibition is all that cumbersome. The holiday is proceeded by a thorough search of the home and any other property where hametz might possibly have been left. Hametz has been reported found in fuseboxes, in the little compartment near the fuel tank for automobiles and, in what is one of the best bits of hametz folklore I know, in a thermostat driven air conditioner. The air conditioner had not turned itself on all winter, and on the unusually warm night of the seder, it turned on and blew cheerios (tm) onto the table (MW). Once the cleaning of the house is complete, and every part of the house has been searched for hametz, a ritual search is performed by all members of the household on the evening before the first night of Passover. The search party finds a small amount of hametz which has been left out for just this purpose and burn it the following morning after reading a declaration that any hametz that has not been destroyed is nullified (Fredman, 14). These restrictions might give the impression that Passover is a time of hardship or deprivation analogous to Lent, Ramadan or any period of fasting and penitence, but nothing could be further from the truth. Passover is a joyful and very auspicious holiday when the inconveniences of being deprived of everyday food are more than offset by the excitement and anticipation associated with Passover food, and by far the most important, relevant, polysemic and even delicious of these is matzo. MATZO After the preparations for Pesach are complete, and the house cleaned of all chometz, we are ready to usher in the Yom Tov of Pesach, with its many special laws and customs. Of all the laws of Pesach it is the mitzva to eat matzo which truly encompasses the teachings of Pesach, reflecting both the history of the holiday and our own personal involvement in the Yom Tov. (LWO, 19) The Passover seder itself begins and ends with the eating of matzo, and only these two mitzvas, the first bite of matzo (motzi-matzo)and the last (tzafon) are absolutely indespensible for the observance of the seder. (Blumenkrantz, 8-13) People who are severely allergic to wheat may eat oat matzo, which is made by the Satmar matzo bakery. The use of special matzos is strongly discouraged except for people who face serious health risks from wheat matzo. What are called Jewish foods are almost always the regional foods from areas where Jews have settled in large numbers. These Jewish foods may be different from the local non-Jewish food, but they bear moreresemblance to non-Jewish food of their own region than to Jewish food from far away. Most of Jewish cuisine could in no way be inferred from the laws of kashres. The exception is matzo, which varies little from region to region since the laws of matzo manufacture are so very specific. For most of Jewish history, matzo was eaten exclusively by Jews and exclusively on Passover. Before 1857, when machine made matzo was first invented, it was simply too expensive. In 1918 Horowitz Brothers and Margareten began promoting the use of matzo year round by both Jewish and non-Jewish customers. (Cooper, 195) Joan Nathan goes so far as to say that Matzo is the only really Jewish food there is. (Nathan 1994:i) It is in the baking of shmura (guarded) matzo that all of the aesthetics associated with Passover are most perfectly performed: The care and meticulousness, the seriousness and purity, the speed and urgency, the love and devotion, and most of all the intention. It is intention supplies the difference between behavior and action (Fredman, xix). A good introduction to the baking of shmura is the educational videotape "Lets bake matzos" by Sholom Goldstein. Goldstein is a Lubavitcher, and the rabbis and bakers filmed for the video are all Lubavitchers but the tape is intended for a very general audience and does not mention Lubavitch by name. At the end of the tape, when the narrator mentions Jewish hopes for the speedy arrival of Moshiach, the tape shows a painting of the temple courtyard, not the Rebbe (zts"l). Matzo baking is a natural subject for an educational videotape, because it has a beginning, a middle and an end, and it is a great show. Documentary makers and museum curators choose Matzo baking to appear again and again whenever Jews are being displayed, because it subsumes so many Jewish issues -- kashres, the yearly cycle, ritual and intention. Even the planners of the 1939 New York World's Fair wanted to include a working matzo bakery as one of the food demonstrations to be exhibited in the World of Tomorrow. (See Jochnowitz, Feasting on the Future.) The video begins with a shot of a rabbi in yarmulke and frock coat standing in an undulating field of golden wheat, carefully examining the grains of one stalk. The narrators voice explains that the wheat selected for matzo must be dry and fully ripe. As the wheat is harvested (by tractor) and poured into bins the narrator explains that matzo is unleavened and any moisture at all would start the leavening process. Another rabbi leans over into the enormous bin of wheat to examine the grains. The action then shifts to a grist mill, one that is not used exclusively for matzo. Before the millers can begin grinding the grain, they scrub every trace of old wheat off both sides of the stone, and scrub the entire interior of the mill. While festive Jewish music plays in the background, the grains are inspected one last time before being threshed and ground. The words "extra care" are used in every stage of production. A shot of a winding country road takes us back to the shmura matzo bakery in Crown Heights. Here the narrator speaks of the remarkable skill of the workers at every stage. They are indeed skilled, but in the five years since this video was made, they have improved enormously. The video shows flour and water being mixed and kneaded, rolled into matzos, docked, or "redled" and rolled off the stick into the oven. The narrator emphasizes that the matzo are finished baking less than eighteen minutes from when the flour and water were first mixed. There is also video of the mashgiakh examining the tables, the tools and the actual hands of every worker. The film ends with a painting of the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem and the wish that Moshiach will soon end the exile of the people of Israel. "Let's bake matzo" is a terrific source for background, and the shots of hasidim in the wheatfield are priceless, but it fails to give a clear picture of what the inside of a matzo bakery is really like, or to deal with the issue of intention. I had the good fortune to visit two matzo bakeries and a matzo importer, and the remarkable good luck to work one day in the Lubavitcher matzo bakery while writing this paper. MAKING MATZO The Dubrowsky and Tennenbaum Matzo Bakery at 460 Albany Avenue in Crown Heights is surely the most famous and accessible shmura matzo bakery in the world. This year it was shown on at least two television programs, One radio show, and featured in the food section of the New York Times. (Nathan, 1994: Television; Today in New York: Television; New York Beat: Radio; and Nathan, 1994: New York Times) The greatest source of exposure for the bakery, however is the guided tour of all the Lubavitcher landmarks in Crown Heights every Sunday by Rabbi Beryl Epstein. The tour is somewhat flexible. It may or may not include 770 Eastern Parkway, the Lubavitcher World Headquarters, the mikve, a butcher shop, and an art gallery. For the half of the year when matzo is baked, the tour never skips the matzo bakery, the undisputed highlight of the tour. Here, for fully six months out of every year, sixty or so men and women work full time to make a product that will be of value for eight days. The tour group enters through an unmarked doorway on Albany Avenue and passes through a narrow wrapping and office area where packages of finished matzo are put together and sold to locals, tourists, and shoppers who have traveled to New York just to buy this very matzo. The first person visible upon entrance to the factory proper is the kneader. This medium sized man is built like Popeye with disproportionately large forearms from kneading all day. The kneader stands between two isolation booths (see diagram), one for flour and one for water. The inside and outside walls of both booths are covered with brown wrapping paper, and this same paper covers every horizontal surface in the entire bakery. When an eighteen minute cycle begins first the man in the flour booth opens a little speakeasy type window in his booth and drops a measured portion of whole wheat flour into the freshly polished stainless steel bowl of the kneader. The flour dispensed is about twelve cups or three pounds. When the flour man closes his little door, the man in the water booth can slide open his little speakeasy door and pour a pre-measured quantity of water onto the flour. Immediately the kneader pronounces "L'shem matzo mitzva" (In the name of the Mitzva of matzo) and kneads the dough into a ball. When no scraps of dough are left sticking to the sides of the bowl, the big dough ball is hustled into the next room, where there is a long table of women with rolling pins. A new dough ball is started as soon as the bowl is empty. A man stands at the center the rolling table and acts as a coxswain, making sure every worker has a piece of dough, or teygle, to work on. The women roll the dough into disks one thirty-second of an inch thick. This is even harder than it seems because the ice-cold dough is just barely kneaded and has very little gluten. When a disk of dough is thin enough it is taken to the docking, or redling table.. There are a few ways to get the matzo to the docking table. A roller can just reach over and roll the matzo off her stick if she is close by, or she can trade a stick with matzo for a freshly cleaned stick, (This is the easiest way) or she can hand off a stick with matzo and holler for a new stick, or she can flip the matzo from her short stick onto the medium-length stick that a runner will carry to the docking table (This is the hardest way). The women work as fast as they possibly can, snapping teyglech out of the air, shouting "I need stick! STICK!!" when they have to wait more than five seconds to start rolling again, and whapping their sticks loudly on the table if a new teygle does not come flying over immediately. At the docking table a cylinder with hundreds of rows of tines is run twice over every sheet of matzo. The docker sweeps over the matzo so fast that the disks fly a few inches into the air. A second docker catches the matzo in mid-air and lays it on one of the long sticks that will be carried into the oven room. This is practical as well as showy -- by now the matzo is so very thin it is very hard to pick up with the fingertips. When a long stick has six or so matzos, a runner will carry it into the oven room and the matzos are unrolled onto the floor of the oven, which is heated to twelve hundred degrees. Fifteen seconds later the matzo is fully baked. The trip from raw flour and cold water to fully baked matzo takes not the eighteen minutes permitted by law, but just about three minutes. Six complete dough cycles can be started finished in one eighteen minute cycle. At the end of eighteen minutes a buzzer sounds near the kneading station. It is the kneader who sets the pace for all the workers. The kneader stops, washes his hands and changes his apron. He thoroughly cleans and polishes his bowl. Fresh clean brown paper is unrolled onto all the surfaces of the station. The rollers have now finished the last of their dough as well. They wash their hands and change their aprons while fresh paper is rolled onto the rolling table. The dockers wash, change and repaper their table. They also clean out the docking cylinder with an elaborate spinning brush. All the rolling pins are sanded by machine. The medium and long stick are sanded by hand. The baker takes the last matzos out of the oven and throws in a few extra logs. By the time the wave of purification has reached the end of the bakery, a new cycle has already started up at the beginning so that there is no point at which all production shuts down. The mashgiakh examines in turn the hands of all the workers before they return to work; there is an entirely new bakery to work in and the wave of purification has rolled through the whole bakery in just about one minute. The tourists, prompted by the man who sands the long poles, burst into enthusiastic applause and edge their way back to the corridor in front of the bakery to buy their matzo. Brooklyn is home to other matzo bakeries run by other hasidic groups. With some variation, production in the matzo bakeries I visited follows the same patterns as that at the D&T bakery. The Charedim bakery is associated with Belzer hasidim, who bake matzo for four months a year. At night they rent the facilities to other hasidim to bake matzo. The well for water is right on the premises. The Shatzer Matzo Bakery, also associated with the Belzers, ships matzo all over the United States. They need to use only their own truckers to insure that the matzo boxes never get wet. Not all shmura matzo sold in Brooklyn is made there. The Belzer Hasidim also have a very famous bakery up in Montreal, and thousands of hasidim choose to buy Montrealer matzo every year. The importer, who packs his apartment with over five thousand pounds of Montreal Matzo to sell in New York told me: It is much better. There is no comparison. It is made with better flour. (BH) The podraden, or matzo factories of Poland described by Beatrice Weinreich were places of hard work and antic good times. The women workers would frequently sing during their eighteen hour workday except when a supervisor approached. A child dispensed well water that had been drawn the previous evening and kept still overnight. Customers could come in to watch their matzo being baked, or they could join the regular workers to bake the matzo they would take home. (Weinreich, p.335) Field report At 7:30 in the morning I stand outside the locked Matzo bakery at 460 Albany avenue. No one is in sight, and I really wonder if business will begin on time. Soon dozens of Russian women pour out of the grocery store next door. Apparently, that is where they wait for the boss, Rabbi Dubrowsky, to arrive. I huddle close with the women and an old Rabbi (Rabbi Dubrowsky himself, it turns out) asks if I am the woman Rabbi Epstein has told him about. I am. Rabbi Dubrowsky does not say anything about whether I can stay or not, so I take cues from the other women and go downstairs to hang up my coat. A narrow flight of stairs behind the docking station leads to a low-ceilinged basement with tables and coat racks. Back upstairs, women put on their plastic aprons and I take one too. I tell an older woman that I am here to help. She looks happy but skeptical, and asks if I know how. I tell her I have made bread. All the woman workers are cheerfully humming, talking and joking in Russian. R. is clearly the center of attention, telling jokes that make the others roar with laughter. "For mitsve?" she asks, and beams. I think I am doing OK so far. "How many children do you have?" R. wants to know. Here we go. "I'm single." Raised eyebrows. Rabbi Epstein does not recognize me at first with my apron and turban. When he sees me he is very surprised and impressed. He really did not think I would pull it off. When Dubrowsky comes back upstairs, Rabbi Epstein explains that I am the woman they discussed. With studied indifference, he shrugs "Yeah, yeah" says Dubrowsky. (that I what all his employees call him: `Dubrowsky' usually hollered at the top of their lungs. `DUBROWSKY!' They will scream, at this white bearded old rabbi, whenever they need his attention.) "can she stay and roll?" "yeah, yeah" or words to that effect, and a shrug. The mashgiakh examines our hands after we wash them thoroughly and Rabbi Dubrowsky gives each of us the ritual ablution. I tore several pieces of dough during the day, and I dropped my rolling pin several times (this was the most embarrassing thing) but I am proud to say that I did not flunk handwashing once! The other workers are all in by eight -- The men who work the flour and water stations, the man who kneads the dough, Borya, the coxswain of the rolling table, who brings over the dough and sees that every roller always has a "teygle" or ball of dough, the men who work the docking station, David, who sands the poles on which the matzo dough is transported, and who puts on the best show for the frequent tour groups, cutting up like a character from Fiddler, and Reuven, who works the oven station. Reuven, as rabbi Epstein will inform every tourist and reporter who comes to the bakery, risked his life for the sake of baking matzo in the old Soviet Union. In addition to the workers are the mashgiakhs who will supervise every step of the baking. Today there is also a group of Yeshiva students coming in to work. They have paid for the time to work in the bakery so that they can buy matzo they have personally supervised. Many different groups of hasidim choose to do this. At eight, production begins -- a pile of wooden dowels of one and a quarter inch gauge and eighteen inches long is dropped on the long, central rolling table. Each roller takes a "stick" as the pins are called. The women test the sticks and try to pick out a good one, but there is no way I can distinguish one stick from another, and I grab the one nearest to hand. The women point to a spot at the table where I should stand, on the left side of the table toward the far side of the room as one enters so that I am facing the wall rather than the room. (see floor plan.) Women on the right side of the table have boxes to sit on in our short breaks, and get to make eye contact with the tour groups. They seem to be the most skilled and senior rollers. Rosa is on the right side. Borya takes his position at the center of the table on the left side and Dubrowsky stands at the head of the table with his back to the entrance. He has a notebook with many columns. I guess he is keeping track of who makes how many matzos. He does not speak at all. This , in fact, is the first time I have noticed he is there after four tours. My first piece of dough is in front of me -- time to start rolling. The whole wheat dough used to make matzo is very hard. The first step is to knead the teygle into a round seamless ball so that it can be evenly rolled. I cannot get this right at first and someone else gives me a neat little disk of dough to work with. I drop my stick on the floor almost immediately, and almost bend over to pick it up. Another no-no. Nissan, who gets matzos from the rolling table to the docking table, gives me a new stick. I drop this one too. There is a bar that runs parallel to the table about two inches away from it so that we do not belly up directly to the table, and this is where my stick are falling. I roll a piece of dough into a boomerang shape. It is just thirty seconds before I drop my third pin on the floor. I roll a piece of dough into a passable circle and one of the ladies finishes it. I drop my fourth pin. It is time to wash our hands for the next eighteen minute cycle, barukh Hashem. Rosa indicates that I should stand by her during the next cycle. I stand opposite Rosa and directly to the right of Borya. Rosa tells me I am doing very well for a first time and shows me how to make a circle without letting the dough stick to the brown paper on the table. I do not drop a single stick during this cycle or the next. The workers at the table speak and joke around in Russian as they work. They work very hard and remarkably fast but everyone is having a good time, some of it at my expense, I suspect, but I have no reason to complain about that. The matzo people are not only putting up with my presence, but also being very kind and helpful. They deserve a few laughs. I am getting much better, although I still cannot finish a matzo. A finished matzo is about a thirty-second of an inch thick, almost as thin as paper. For the next cycle I go back to the far end of the table. I drop another stick but continue to improve. At ten we go downstairs for our break. I have a cup of hot water with two heaping spoons of sugar and two dunks of the communal teabag. Normally, there are teabags to go around, they just happen to have run out that day. There is a mechitza, or at least a makeshift wall in the dressing room downstairs, but both men and women sit at all the tables. We eat bread, but do not wash and bentsh (say grace.) I think the break is about fifteen or twenty minutes. I feel great when we go back upstairs. I can't wait to make more matzo. "We are all speaking only Russian here." Rabbi Dubrowsky says to me before we begin again. I cannot tell from his tone whether he is apologizing that I cannot understand or complaining that I cannot make myself understood. The kneader, the man who reminds me of Popeye, actually spends his breaks smoking a straight corncob pipe. At irregular intervals, Rosa shouts "Ale Tsuzamen" (All together) and we all say "L'shem matzo mitzva" (In the name of the commandment of matzo) Sometimes we do this more than once in a cycle, and I think there are some cycles when we do not say it. There are other signals that I cannot understand. Rabbi Dubrowsky has a bell that he sometimes rings, and Borya has many different birdlike whistles that he does. I cannot tell what is indicated by the bird calls or bells and no one can explain. I am thrilled when I finally finish my first complete matzo. S. who is working at the very end of the table directly to my left asks me how many children I have, if I was married, for how long, and what went wrong. S. then speaks loudly in Russian to the table at large for several minutes, giving them what must be a highly elaborated version of my story. By the end of the cycle, they have come up with a solution. During the next hand-washing break, S. tells me "I have boyfriend for you. I know him six years. Good man. He was also married (here she made some very emphatic hand gestures, which I think indicate his troubles.) Very good man. This man." She points at the person the matzo ladies have chosen for me. I feel terribly ungracious to decline the match. How can I deprive S. of the chance to do this mitzva? For the lunch break, Rosa says to buy instant soup across the street. There is an urn of hot water downstairs to mix it. I try to sneak out because Rosa has already told me she will get money from Dubrowsky for my lunch, and I think I can avoid taking it. Rosa has anticipated this is waiting for me. She takes me in hand to the grocery store and we get the soup. After lunch some of the women do a bit of cleaning up. When we begin working again, I can feel for the first time that my hands hurt and I am very tired. At least the Yeshiva students are gone. The ladies are curious about Craig, who comes in before the tour and again at the end. I hardly notice the tours at all. How many cycles until the day is over? One more. I am the last one left at the table, but I get the final matzo out on time. MAKING SENSE? Before I leave I thank the impassive Rabbi Dubrowsky effusively and indicate that I want to buy some matzo. He asks me to wait so he can give me some made that day. My cup runneth over, but there is more to come. "This is Rabbi Tennenbaum, my partner." I nod my head up and down with my hands clasped firmly behind my back. The biggest gap between this culture and mine just might be the absence of the handshake. Other women from our class have also displaced the handshake onto other parts of their bodies, either nodding their heads, or bouncing on their heels. I speak briefly to Rabbi Tennenbaum, whom I have not seen until now. While I am waiting, many matzo buyers come in and out. None are hasidic, and some might not even be particularly religious. For them this matzo might be the whole ball game. The overwhelmingly Jewish crowds who show up every Sunday for Rabbi Epstein's tours of Crown Heights have a mixture of romance and revulsion for the hasidim they are visiting. They want to make some connection with their Jewish lives, but are at a real loss as to how to do this. Anything that would involve learning the Hebrew language, as almost all ceremonies would, is really out of the question. But anyone can eat matzo, which is after all quite possibly the most important mitzva of the most important holiday of the year. The same tourists who are made edgy and ill-at-ease by the ceremonial requirements of Hasidism are satisfied and comforted by the matzo. In some cases, the ceremonial is rendered entirely culinary (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1990,98). There are striking similarities between the shmura matzo bakeries in Brooklyn today and the bakery described by Beatrice Weinreich of matzo baking in Poland nearly a century ago, down to the detail of the illicit singing (Weinreich, 334), (Orthodox men are forbidden to hear the voices of women singing). The tours also fulfil one vestigial function that was also required in the old country. They bring non-Jews in to witness every step of matzo manufacture. Bakeries in Europe right up until the eve of the second world war all employed at least one non Jewish baker, who could be called upon to testify, if necessary, that no blood was used in the baking of matzo (MS). It may be absurd to suggest that there is any danger of Blood Libel in Brooklyn of 1994, but it is no more absurd than the unspeakable and unmotivated crimes that have been committed against Lubavitchers in the past year. In this light, the task of the matzo bakers is of profound importance. While preparing most essential food of the year, they are also showing the world their very basic decency. The bakers who make matzo are protecting their community from murder as well as from hametz. Enthusiastic thanks to my research partner Craig Rosa -- Among tourists a sage. Informants Cited BE Rabbi Beryl Epstein, guide of Crown Heights tour BH Belzer Hasid. A matzo importer. DB A woman who grew up in an orthodox home in Turkey. DR An engineering student from Oregon and frequent poster on soc.culture.jewish. ES A young man of about 25 who works in the oven room at the Charedim Matzo Bakery. MS Morris U. Schappes, Activist and magazine editor born in The Ukraine, 1907. MW Frequent poster on s.c.j., a mathematician at Penn. TJ Lubavitcher teacher and guide at the Crown Heights Mikve. Bibliography 1950 Batist, Bessie W. , ed. A treasure for my daughter: A handbook for the Jewish home. Montreal: Ethel Epstein Ein Chapter of Montreal Hadassah, WIZO. 1994 Blumenkrantz, Rabbi Avrohom The laws of Pesach: A digest. New York: Bes Medresh Ateres Yisroel. 1993 Cooper, John Eat and be satisfied: A social history of Jewish food. Northvale, New Jersey and London: Jason Aronson, Inc. 1977 Dobroszycki, Lucjan and Barbara Kirshenblatt- Gimblett Image before my eyes: A photographic history of Jewish life in Poland 1864-1939. New York: Schocken. 1966 Douglas, Mary Purity and Danger: An analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo. New York and London: Routledge. (Routledge edition 1991) 1981 Fredman, Ruth The Passover Seder: Afikoman in exile. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1989 Goldstein, Sholom "Let's Bake Matzo" (Videotape) New York: NTSC. (Duplication is forbidden by Halacha) 1989 Kaplan, Rabbi Aryeh The Torah anthology: The Passover Haggadah (Sephardic.) New York and Jerusalem: Moznaim Publishing. 1982 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara "Performance of precepts/precepts of performance: Hasidic celebrations of Purim in Brooklyn" Prepared for "Theater and Ritual Symposium, The Asia Society. August 23 - September 1, 1982 1990 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara "Kitchen Judaism" in Getting comfortable in New York. Braunstein and Joselit, eds. New York: The Jewish Museum. 1977 Nitra Ladies' Auxiliary The haimishe kitchen. Mt. Kisco, NY: Nitra. 1994a Nathan, Joan "Handmade Matzos are more than memories at Passover" in The New York Times. Wednesday, March 16, 1994. 1994b Nathan, Joan Jewish cooking in America. New York: Knopf 1994c Nathan, Joan Passover: Traditions of Freedom. Baltimore: Maryland Public Television. 1994 New York Beat with Curtis Sliwa (Radio) Episode: Friday, March 18, 1994. Interview by Curtis Sliwa of Rabbi Beryl Epstein. New York: WNYC-AM 1994 Today in New York (Television) Episode: Sunday March 20, 1994. New York: WNBC Channel 4. 1960 Weinreich, Beatrice "The Americanization of Passover" in Studies in Biblical and Jewish folklore. Frances Utley, Raphael Patai and Dov Noy eds. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.