It is said that they, too, have used Yuma wheat.) (In a taste test, though, Vos Iz Neias?, a Jewish blog, chose neither, picking instead matzo made by the Pupa and Zehlem Matzoh Bakery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which is run by Hasidic Jews of the Puppa sect.
That opened a new front line in the competition for the most rigorous standards in the production of matzo.
Nonetheless, one segment of the Satmar sect, the largest Hasidic group in the United States, grows its wheat there, following seasonal weather forecasts to search for areas where rain is least likely to fall right before the wheat matures.įive years ago, another Satmar group began shifting its wheat-growing operation here, where rain is rare at this time of year. That can be a challenging task on the rainy East Coast. Ultra-Orthodox Jews have carried that practice several steps further, guarding the grains before the wheat is harvested to ensure they are not overripe or wet from rainfall. Tradition calls for keeping watch over the matzo from the time the wheat is milled. The goal was to prevent any natural fermentation from taking place in the grains before they were milled into flour and the matzo was baked, sometime in the late fall. Dust danced in the air as the wind blew, but unpaved roads could not be wet while the wheat was growing. Workers were prohibited from carrying water bottles in the field. “If it has, it’s not valid.”įor seven weeks, while the wheat grew in scorching heat under impossibly blue skies, two men clothed in the traditional black and white garments of the Hasidim stayed in a trailer overlooking the crop, to be able to attest that the wheat, once matured, had been untouched by rain or other moisture. “It is to ascertain that it’s not sprouted,” Rabbi Brody explained. Removing his glasses, he brought the grain close to his eyes and turned it from side to side, like a gemologist inspecting a precious stone. Yisroel Tzvi Brody, rabbi of the Shaarei Orah synagogue in Borough Park, Brooklyn, stood at the edge of one of the fields on Monday, stooping to rub a grain of wheat between his wrinkled thumb and index finger. It is not an everyday plant-and-pick operation, and the matzo made from this wheat is not everyday matzo. Wheat harvested on these 40 acres is destined to become matzo, the unleavened bread eaten by Jews during the eight days of Passover.
Here, on a Christian farmer’s land five miles from the Mexican border, lies the holiest of fields for some of New York’s most observant Orthodox Jewish communities.