At Brooklyn Bakery, Kosher Questions Arise Over Matzo

A handmade matzo factory in Brooklyn is facing questions over whether some of the ritual flatbread it produced is kosher enough for observant Jews to use at Passover seders. At issue is whether a former employee at Lubavitch Matzo Bakery, which each week produces thousands of pounds of round "shmura" matzo, is Jewish.

According to some rabbis, matzo used during Passover seders must be made by Jews who utter a Hebrew phrase before rolling each batch of dough. Matzo consumed at other times during the eight-day holiday need not be mixed, kneaded, rolled, or baked by Jews, according to those rabbis.

Last week, a court of Jewish law, the Beth Din of Crown Heights, ruled that while the bakery's matzo is kosher for Passover, some religious Jews should consider purchasing seder matzo elsewhere or from batches baked after the woman was laid off. Passover begins at sundown on Monday, April 2.

An inquiry into the woman's religious background is ongoing, said Yitzchok Tenenbaum, who has been an owner of the Lubavitch Matzo Bakery for more than 20 years. "We told her that until we find out for sure, we couldn't have her working here," he said.

Rabbis from the Lubavitcher group of chasidic Jews said Jewish law would not preclude a non-Jewish person from working in a matzo bakery, as long as the employee was not responsible for preparing hand-made matzos that would be used at a Passover Seder, "It's not like the custodian, or the person packing the matzo has to be Jewish, but making the matzo for the Seder — this is a particular task that cannot be fulfilled by a non-Jewish person," a Lubavitch emissary who runs a Lubavitch news Web site Shmais, Levi Hodakov, said

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is not illegal to make hiring decisions on the basis of religion, sex or national origin "in those certain instances where religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business."

The employee at the center of the controversy, a Minsk native, was hired in October, when the bakery begins preparing Passover matzos. Her employment was terminated about two weeks ago. "From the information we have, it seems like she's Jewish, but we still don't feel 100% comfortable saying for sure," Rabbi Zalman Osdoba, rabbinical coordinator of Crown Heights Kosher certification, said.

Rabbi Osdoba said he has fielded dozens of calls from people looking to clarify the kosher-for-Passover status of the matzos. "Rumors have been flying," he said. "We've had many phone calls from people who are worried. We asked people not to panic, and that a letter of clarification would come out."

But some are saying the religious court ruling has only stoked confusion in the fervently Orthodox community in Crown Heights. "That response is a cop out," a post on crownheights.info read. "It's either kosher, or it's not."

It's not that simple, given that kosher preparation, especially with respect to Passover, has certain central principles but can vary in details according to custom. Observant Jews refrain from eating leavened bread during the holiday, remembering the flatbread that the Jews ate during the Exodus from Egypt, when they did not have time to allow bread to rise. While many Jews eat machine-made matzo throughout the Passover holiday, others eat only hand-made shmura matzo— made from grain that has been supervised since it was harvested.

Despite the controversy, it was business as usual earlier this week at the Lubavitch Matzo Bakery, a cramped storefront adorned with photos of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. About 20 Russian-speaking women, their hair covered in kerchiefs, stood around a long rectangular table rolling flour-and-water matzo dough into paper-thin patties. They handed the uncooked matzos to student volunteers who perforated the dough. Patties were then placed in a 2000-degree wood-burning oven for about 30 seconds. The process — from mixing to baking — can take as little as five minutes.

If a batch takes longer than 18 minutes to complete, it's considered unkosher and must be discarded, Rabbi Osdoba said.