San Francisco Blog

I was also part of the Bay Area Jews Wandering for Matzoh last week. There was none at any of the Safeways I scoured in the Mission-Castro-Potrero Hill-Bernal Heights-Financial District areas. All they had was matzoh that was *NOT* kosher for Passover. WHY would anyone make matzoh that is not kosher for Passover??!! I asked a friend to check out stores in the East Bay, but also no luck.
Finally, late on Friday afternoon in a desperate cyber search, I typed "san francisco matzoh" into Google and up popped a list of 8 places to try. The first one I called, Israel Kosher Meats, on Geary near 21st Ave, had K for P matzoh *in stock* and were willing to put aside 4 boxes for me until I could get there after work.
As I rushed against the setting sun on the Friday evening before the first Seder, I was struck by the irony of hundreds if not thousands of Bay Area Jews unable to buy matzoh. Matzoh is perhaps the world's first convenience food, made because the Jews leaving Egypt did not have time to wait for the dough to rise. And now, in 2008, about 3200 years later, how is it that I don't have time to spend the maximum 18 minutes between mixing flour and water to get the dough in the oven, but instead spend several hours over the course of a week looking for a package of dried, hard crackers shipped from Israel? But perhaps more importantly, why is there any such product as matzoh that is not kosher for Passover and who actually eats it?