Matzo, matzo, matzo, matzo! Courtesy of ChaiFlicks.Matzo. Matzah. Mazzah. It is a food that so clearly epitomizes Jewish cuisine. There is a lot of food we associate with Judaism; brisket, challah, kasha, gefilte fish, etc. Matzo, however, for me at least, always comes first. It doesn’t matter that it’s only related to the holiday of Passover. You say matzo, I scream, “JEWISH!” What is it about this strange-looking flatbread that is so intriguing? This past Pesach, I was away in Aruba with my non-Jewish friends. On the first night, I celebrated the holiday in spirit and made my friends – all of them Christian, I should add – try a slice of matzo while I said the blessing. They were…a little confused, to say the least.
“You actually like this, Matt?”
“Why is it so dry?”
“It has no flavor at all. It tastes like cardboard.”
I giddily recounted the story of Exodus and the purpose of matzo being unleavened bread and intentionally dry. There’s just something about this food that’s so powerful to me. Don’t be surprised if you come to my apartment and see boxes of matzo in the summer or winter. (One of my favorite lunches I consume way too much: vegan matzo brei.) For me, it’s less about enjoying matzo and more appreciating its value and history. Regardless of whether you believe in the story of Exodus or not, to imagine hundreds and hundreds of people who had to rely on this food alone for their own survival is just…wow. For this week’s blog post, I went back and reviewed a light-hearted documentary about a company you’ve probably seen a hundred times in the kosher section of a supermarket. STREIT’S: MATZO AND THE AMERICAN DREAM is obviously super Passover-themed and brimming with nostalgia, but it’s more effective than your usual “food doc.” Similar to The Automat (2021), another doc about a very Jewish establishment, STREIT’S is a sad yet hopeful reminder that things change. A business may collapse, but its memory perseveres in other ways. Sometimes we can’t fix it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the world.
Now, I admit that I had actually never heard of Streit’s until I Googled it and discovered the first matzo ball soup I ever made was by this brand. The history of this family-owned manufacturer spans more than 90 years. The film, which debuted in 2015, shows us the daily routines of its central location, a tenement building in the Lower East Side of New York. The factory looks hidden and practically closed. (There isn’t even a loading dock.) Inside, however, is a magnificent mechanical process that’s so satisfying to watch. We see pounds and pounds of flour and water getting mixed. We see the rabbi walking around to inspect that there is no chametz (leavened bread) in any of the products at the end. I don’t know about you, but food factories AMAZE me.
At 5 AM, a worker comes in to turn on the ovens which take two hours to heat. The majority of factory employees, all of different nationalities, have been there for years. Although 10-hour days making matzo again and again may sound exhausting, working at Streit’s feels like a mitzvah in itself.
“We’re fulfilling a role that goes back to biblical times,” says Alan Adler, co-owner of Streit’s Matzo.
Non-Jewish factory workers understand the significance of matzo. Working there is a paycheck but also a commitment to further honoring the legacy of the business. Adler’s great-grandfather was Aron Streit, an immigrant from Austria, who arrived at the Lower East Side in the 1900s. He had matzo-baking experience himself and started a hand bakery with a local rabbi around 1915. His son, Irving Streit, later opened a matzo factory out of financial necessity. Jack Streit, Irving’s brother, soon helped run the business as well. The family may have started Streit’s to pay their rent, but their actions sparked a mass increase in other Jewish-run businesses in the Lower East Side. In a neighborhood that was already becoming a melting pot of vast nationalities and religions, the Streits worked day and night in delivering this food to both Jews and interested people alike, even going so far as to shipping it to soldiers across seas during the Second World War.
Everything seems to be going fine at Streit’s until the reality of economics kicks in for the employees. There is a sad but truthful line someone says in the film about how nostalgia, no matter how special it is, can’t pay the bills. That’s the ultimate truth for this company and its refusal to modernize.
“We could make significantly more money in a modern factory,” Adler says. “But especially in this economy, it’s a mitzvah to support people and to keep production here in the United States.”
This is where STREIT’S really hit me hard. What upsets me the most is reading in the news about historic businesses forced to shut down. I love history so much, and when a famously historical landmark has to close, it’s a punch in the chest for me. We live in a world where we wish we could just take a place and keep its legacy and spirit alive. We may be able to for a while, but then we must face the fact that it can no longer live. Money gets in the way. Bills must be paid. Attendance wanes. A landmark may transform in a different way or move to a new location, but its original home will dissipate into thin air.
As we see in STREIT’S, this becomes a major concern across the board. In the neighborhood, Streit’s isn’t your typical place to visit when you’re in town. People go to bars and restaurants, but you won’t see many flocking to get their boxes of matzo like they used to in the 1900s. It’s a scary situation for Adler and the other owners of this legacy, but they never give up. This is a hopeful movie in that as heartbreaking as it may be for a landmark to stop functioning, it doesn’t mean it’s “dead.”
I won’t give away what happens at the end of this movie, but I think you may have an inkling already by now. Streit’s Matzo is still around, and that’s something we should be grateful for. We can’t bring back the snapshots of people racing to Streit’s Matzo to get their boxes in time for Passover like the good old days, but we can acknowledge that this company is still around performing mitzvot for people across the nation. Although it may look a little different, Streit’s Matzo is still the same as it always has been. Things change. It’s an annoying part of life, but it’s not always a bad thing.
STREIT’S: MATZO AND THE AMERICAN DREAM is now available to stream on ChaiFlicks.