Dov Behr and Nesha Manischewitz, n.d.

The Americanization of Matzah

For most of Jewish history, matzah (the unleavened bread used during Passover) was round, made by hand, and produced locally, often in the synagogue or in a communal oven set aside for this purpose. This was also true in America during the early years of the Jewish community. But as the Jewish population increased and synagogues diversified, independent matzah bakeries assumed this task. Dov Behr Manischewitz, an immigrant from Lithuania, entered the matzah business in Cincinnati in 1888. He soon introduced a series of improvements and inventions that revolutionized the process of matzah baking the world over. Building on machines that had been developed in Europe, Manischewitz yoked modern technology to the service of religion by introducing such newfangled ideas as the more easily controlled gas-fired matzah baking oven and the enormously important (and patented) "traveling carrier bake-oven," a conveyor belt system that made it possible to automate the whole process of matzah baking.