Matzah factory survives a Russian strike
As it prepared tons of matzah for Seder, the Tiferet Matzot bakery in southern Dnipro, Ukraine’s main matzah factory was shaken by drone attack.
When Jews around the world told the Exodus story during the Passover Seder last Wednesday night, they recalled God taking them out of Egypt “with blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.”
With the war still raging in their country, those same features – but from a very different source – marked Ukrainian Jews’ preparations for Passover.
As workers were preparing matzah in the Tiferet Matzot bakery in southern Dnipro, Ukraine’s main matzah factory, sirens in the central Ukrainian city sounded at 10pm, warning of another attack by Russian drones.
Though many of the Russian- and Iranian-made drones were intercepted, one slipped by the defenses and struck a factory next to the bakery.
Security camera footage from inside the bakery shows an orange flash that shakes the building, then darkness as electricity goes out.
According to the Federation of Jewish Communities in Ukraine, after the strike local Jews began preparing to remove equipment and hundreds of kilograms of matzah as the fire in the factory threatened to engulf the bakery as well. Ultimately, though, Ukrainian firefighters gained control of the flames, saving the bakery in the process.
The bakery returned to full operation, and continued preparing matzah for 50,000 households across the country right up to the hours before the holiday began, according to Federation chairman Rabbi Meir Stambler.
In Kyiv, the Matzakrania factory in the Podil neighborhood – which was founded as a semi-underground bakery in Stalin’s Soviet Union – was also hard at work. Production last year was suspended when the war broke out on February 24, as electricity became intermittent and many workers were recruited to assist in the war effort.
Other workers were stuck in Russian-occupied territory.
The factory bought its own generator this year, aiming to produce 100 tons of matzah, down from the usual haul of 250 tons in a normal year.
“We employ dozens of workers here, and besides the freshness of matzot that don’t need to be transported overseas – the costs are cheaper and our local production also helps support dozens of local families, including Jewish families,” said the bakery’s manager in a statement.
“The government in Kyiv also praises the reopening of the matzah factory, as a patriotic act that supports the economy of Ukraine,” he continued.
Dozens of Federation volunteers spent weeks baking and distributing the matzahs across the country, working in shifts that operate around the clock with the exception of Shabbat. With an expectation that Russian attacks would increase and would disrupt distribution, and learning from the lessons of last year’s Passover, the Federation was pushing to get the matzahs prepared and sent to Jewish communities as quickly as possible when the situation permits.
Packages include grape juice, Seder plates, tablecloths, candles, a Ukrainian-language Haggadah, and a guide to the laws of the Seder and holiday.
According to Stembler, who came to Ukraine as a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in 1991, there was increased demand for matzah and Seder items this year, as many Ukrainian Jews have drawn closer to local communities and synagogues in the 13 months since Russian forces invaded.
Stembler, whose his father used to bake shmurah matzah in secrecy in Tashkent when the Uzbek capital was still part of the Soviet Union, opened the Dnipro factory in 2003.
A Jewish vacation village
Leading government officials in Ukraine also recognised the religious and symbolic importance of Passover for the local Jewish community. In Kyiv Ukraine’s military chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi stopped by the office of top Ukrainian Rabbi Moshe Azman ahead of the holiday.
Azman gave Zaluzhnyi a box of shmurah matzah from the Dnipro factory.
In addition to hosting Seders for hundreds of Jews at the Brodsky Synagogue in Kyiv and delivering 3,000 Seder packages for those celebrating at home, Azman opened up Anatevka for free to Jews who want to spend the holiday in the Jewish village he founded outside of Kyiv.
The aim, said Azman, was to allow Jews who don’t live near organised communities to mark the holiday properly and to enable those who would like to enjoy a small vacation to do so. According to Azman, his staff will run activities for children and adults throughout the eight-day holiday, including Jewish education classes.
In Kharkiv, Rabbi Moshe Moskowitz and his family have been handing out 1,000 holiday packages that include chicken and sugar in addition to the Seder items.
Moskowitz told The Times of Israel that he expected around 500 people to participate in the synagogue’s Seders on Wednesday and Thursday nights.
He, too, has seen a noticeable rise in interest in participating in communal events by Jewish Ukrainians who had no connection to religious practice in the past.
“Since the community began giving help once the war broke out, they come in for humanitarian aid, then find out about classes and holiday activities,” said Moskowitz.
“Most people knew about Pesach because of the custom of eating matzahs, but they didn’t know there was something called a Seder.”
Last year, many of Moskowitz’s congregants observed the Seder alone at home, as Russian troops attacked Ukraine’s second-largest city.
“One lady told me she tried to do everything as she remembered from the rabbi’s house,” said Moskowitz. “One thing she didn’t do, she didn’t open the door for the Prophet Elijah because she was scared to. I told her, I can guarantee that he was with you at your Seder table.”
Moskowitz is hoping that the protection the Israelites received from above as they left Egypt will be granted to his country as well.
“We are praying that Leil Shimurim [the night of God watching over us] should start now,” he said. “It really feels like it’s going out of Egypt, and we have to end this war, we have to get out of this war.”
Times of Israel
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