'We are probably going to have a matzah deficit this year'

War in Ukraine threatens to put the crunch on matzah prices in US

The 20,000 pounds of the unleavened bread languishing in an Odesa port represents 10% of the country’s annual exports to the US, and a local rabbi thinks the market will feel it

  • Factories in Ukraine account for about 15-20% of the market share in the US for shmura matzah. (Courtesy of Meyer Stambler/ via JTA)
    Factories in Ukraine account for about 15-20% of the market share in the US for shmura matzah. (Courtesy of Meyer Stambler/ via JTA)
  • Ukrainian factories supply shmura matzah to Jewish communities in the entire former Soviet world in addition to their customers in the US, Israel and Western Europe. (Courtesy of Meyer Stambler/ via JTA)
    Ukrainian factories supply shmura matzah to Jewish communities in the entire former Soviet world in addition to their customers in the US, Israel and Western Europe. (Courtesy of Meyer Stambler/ via JTA)
  • A factory worker makes shmura matzah under supervision in Ukraine. (Courtesy of Meyer Stambler/ via JTA)
    A factory worker makes shmura matzah under supervision in Ukraine. (Courtesy of Meyer Stambler/ via JTA)

JTA — On February 24, two shipping containers laden with 20,000 pounds of shmura matzah were slated to head out of port in Odesa, Ukraine, on their way to Orthodox Jews in the United States.

Two hours before they were to be loaded onto a ship, Russia invaded.

The shipment was the last of 200,000 pounds of unleavened bread that Ukrainian matzah bakeries shipped to the US this year, in addition to what they ship to Europe and Israel.

Now, technically outside of Ukraine’s customs zone, it could neither be returned to the country nor travel on to the US.

Rabbi Meyer Stambler, head of the Chabad-affiliated Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine, estimates that his factories in Ukraine account for about 15-20 percent of the market share in the US for shmura matzah, the carefully “guarded” variety preferred by devout Jews during the seder.

Shmura matzah is handmade in small batches with a higher level of supervision than most other types of matzah. That already makes it significantly more expensive than the factory stuff. A single pound box of shmura matzah could go from anywhere between $20 and $60, the Forward reported in 2018. In contrast, Instacart offers at least three different brands of regular matzah that come in under $10 for a 5-lb. box.

“I think the US market will feel it,” Stambler told JTA. “I think we are probably going to have a deficit of shmura matzah this year.”

A factory worker makes shmura matzah under supervision in Ukraine. (Courtesy of Meyer Stambler/ via JTA)

An already over-extended shipping industry after two years of pandemic hasn’t helped the situation. Still, the impact felt by the missing matzah is a testament to Ukraine’s continued role in supporting Jewish life not just in Eastern Europe but around the world.

Barely over a month ago, Stambler would have said business was booming.

“This year, we even opened a new matzah bakery, another branch, in Uman,” he said.

Beginning baking around Hanukkah time, the Ukrainian factories supply shmura matzah to Jewish communities in the entire former Soviet world in addition to their customers in the US, Israel and Western Europe. They are sold in the US under the brand names Tiferes and Redemption, among others.

In Dnipro, the city where Stambler and his main matzah factory are based, long forgotten are periods of pogroms in the 19th century, which sent Eastern European Jews fleeing to the US. The Holocaust and even Soviet repression also seemed to be distant memories.

Ukrainian factories supply shmura matzah to Jewish communities in the entire former Soviet world in addition to their customers in the US, Israel and Western Europe. (Courtesy of Meyer Stambler/ via JTA)

Today, Dnipro — known until 2016 as Dnepropretrovsk — is the most Jewish city in Ukraine, boasting the massive Menorah Center, a seven-branched building designed to look like the sacred candelabra and filled with kosher restaurants, wedding halls, ritual baths and other amenities for a Jewish community.

Though he has an Israeli and American passport which would allow him to leave, Stambler has stayed behind to support the community, even after getting his family to safety.

“It’s very important to know that we’re staying here because we’re a part of the community, a part of the city. Just like President [Volodymyr] Zelensky said, each person has to fight on his own front. Our front is spreading Yiddishkeit,” Stambler said, using the Yiddish word for Judaism.

As Russian missiles struck the outskirts of Dnipro last Friday, dozens still gathered for Shabbat, including many refugees who had come from harder-hit regions.

“We’re helping people from the whole Ukraine,” Stambler said. “From Kharkiv, from Zaporizhia, from Mariupol. We had 70 families who came out of Mariupol.”

Factories in Ukraine account for about 15-20% of the market share in the US for shmura matzah. (Courtesy of Meyer Stambler/ via JTA)

Matzah production is still going on in town as well, though Stambler said about two-thirds of the factory’s staff had fled. Now they are making matzah just for Ukraine.

“We’re going to make a very big campaign to bring the seder to every Jewish home,” Stambler said.

Stambler has plans for the 20,000 pounds in port as well,

“The only way I can bring it back to Ukraine is if it’s for the needs of the army,” Stambler explained.

Ukrainian men between 18-60 are forbidden from leaving the country in case they are needed for the war effort. Many Jews have already joined volunteer self-defense units that are organizing across the country.

If the war stretches till Passover, Stambler said, there will be many Jewish mouths looking for matzah in the Ukrainian Army.

Most of it will stay in Ukraine, he said, but a last truck is still scheduled to bring some of the surplus out to the UK. It will be the last international shipment of Ukrainian matzah this year.

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