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A fifth question this Passover: what makes Trader Joe’s matzah different from all other matzah?
(JTA) — For millennia, Jews have eaten matzah. And for years, Jewish patrons of Trader Joe’s have been able to purchase matzah off the shelves of the tiki-themed grocery chain — which has gained its own quasi-religious following.
Now, for the first time ever, Trader Joe’s will be selling matzah under its own famous private label.
The question, even among the store’s diehard Jewish fans, is what makes Trader Joe’s-branded matzah different from all other matzah.
The grocery chain with more than 500 stores nationwide, and known for characteristically friendly, Hawaiian shirt-clad employees and a limited selection and high turnover of products, has gained a cult-like following in its 56 years of operation. An Instagram fan account boasts nearly 2 million followers; the internet is abound with memes about falling in love with Trader Joe’s cashiers; and dozens of Facebook groups with thousands of members each exist to cater toward the specific dietary needs of loyal shoppers.
Those loyalists include no small number of Jews who keep kosher. The store stocks a number of Jewish, Israeli and Middle Eastern foods — from an “everything but the bagel” spice mix to spicy zhoug sauce to kosher-certified turkeys ahead of Thanksgiving, and frozen latkes. Trader Joe’s caused a small uproar in 2012 when it stopped stocking kosher pareve semi-sweet chocolate chips. After a campaign by Jewish customers, the chain brought the product back to its shelves in 2021.
But whether that loyalty will extend to the store’s matzah is unclear. Some shoppers said they were excited about the new offering, while others wondered whether it would be any different from the matzah Trader Joe’s has sold in previous years. Still others said that by putting its name on one of the most quintessential Jewish foods, Trader Joe’s “signals that Pesach products have gone mainstream,” in the words of Susan Robinson, a member of Kosher Trader Joe’s, a Facebook group with more than 63,000 members.
The decision also demonstrates that Trader Joe’s takes its kosher-observant customers seriously, said Rachel B. Gross, a professor at San Francisco State University who teaches a course on U.S. Jews and the history of food.
“My understanding is that they’ve never wanted to do everything,” Gross said. “But they have had a really strong kosher game because that worked really well with the way they approached the niche markets in general.”
For years, Trader Joe’s sold matzah made by a brand called Holyland, and it’s unclear whether the chain’s new boxes hold the same old product. The company — which is secretive about who produces its private-label foods — told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency only that the new private label matzah is made by “one of the largest and oldest matzo-making bakeries in Israel.”
Whether the Holyland once sold by Trader Joe’s is made by the same company as Holyland Shmura Matzo — a circular handmade variety — is similarly unclear. But there are hints, beyond the name, that they come from the same company, which is based in Israel. Both share the same distributor, and both include a logo on the front bearing the web address NaturallyBetterWithYouInMind.com, a site that boasts “high quality, all natural, kosher foods.”
A representative of the distributor of both Holyland products, a New Jersey company called Kayco, did not know whether the current Trader Joe’s product is the same as the Holyland matzah. The new Trader Joe’s matzah box says only that it is distributed and sold by Trader Joe’s, which is headquartered outside of Los Angeles.
That confusion has led to an ambivalent reaction among some members of Kosher Trader Joe’s. Multiple members of the group shared photos of the new boxes at their local stores, encouraging each other to buy the matzah in order to press the company to produce it again next year.
Some commented on the new box design, while others remarked on the price — $2.69 per box, a slight increase over the $2.49 Trader Joe’s charged for the Holyland boxes last year, according to an Instagram fan page. (Name-brand boxes of matzah at the same weight cost slightly more at other retailers, ranging from about $3.22 for a 16 ounce box of Yehuda Matzos to $4.49 for Manischewitz’s version of the unleavened bread.)
“Trader Joe’s has sold Holyland Matzah for at least a decade, if not longer,” wrote one member. “I’m surprised that it has taken them this long to put it under the Trader Joe’s private label.”
Others were just happy to have access to matzah at all. Another member recalled that supply chain delays and restrictions related to COVID-19 led to shortages of Passover products, and that in Manhattan’s East Village, where he lives, “TJ – and the Holyland Matzo – became a Pesach saver. That’s what the commotion is all about.”
(Members of the group who adhere to strict kosher laws may not have tried the new matzah yet due to a tradition of not eating matzah between Purim and Passover, although a few customers remarked that it feels thinner than Holyland matzah.)
In addition to matzah, Trader Joe’s will sell Teva Glatt kosher-for-Passover Angus beef brisket and a few kosher-for-Passover wines including Sara Bee Moscato and Baron Herzog chardonnay and cabernet. The company will publish a complete list of its kosher-for-Passover offerings closer to the holiday, which begins the night of April 5.
Gross said the conversation over Trader Joe’s matzah fits in with the way Americans celebrate Passover, which she said is intimately tied to brands. She cited the proliferation of well-known Passover products like the haggadah published by Maxwell House coffee, which was first printed more than 90 years ago, or Manischewitz’s many Passover foods. The way the holiday has been shaped by brands, she said, is “in some sense, a traditional American Jewish experience.”
“Jews have really learned over the last 110, 120 years how to trust brands, and trust brands around kashrut, especially around Passover,” Gross told JTA.
“We know that the people who keep kosher are such a small minority,” she added. “And we know that the number of people who look for heckshers are not primarily Jews, which makes me wonder how many non-Jews buy matzah, or [how many] they expect to buy matzah.”
But for at least one member of Kosher Trader Joe’s, brand loyalty was not enough to make the new matzahs stand out.
“Most articles written about this Matza as well as online comments make it out to be something earth-shattering and revolutionary, and fail to mention that Trader Joe’s has carried matza around this time, in every single store, for years and years under the Holyland Brand,” wrote Yoseph Goldstein. “Have folks easily forgotten this? Is it really the ‘coolness’ of the box?”
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The post A fifth question this Passover: what makes Trader Joe’s matzah different from all other matzah? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
(JTA) — Viral video circulating after the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack showed an unarmed man racing toward one of the shooters and tackling him from behind before wrestling the gun from his hands.
The man has been identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed, the operator of a fruit stand in a Sydney suburb who happened to be in the area. He was shot twice but expected to survive.
“He is a hero, 100%,” a relative who identified himself as Mustafa told 7News Australia.
Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, the Australian state that includes Sydney, called the footage “the most unbelievable scene I’ve ever seen.”
He added, “That man is a genuine hero, and I’ve got no doubt that there are many, many people alive tonight as a result of his bravery.”
At least 11 people were killed during the attack on a Hanukkah celebration on Sunday night, with dozens of others injured.
The video shows al-Ahmed crouching behind a car before running up behind the shooter. After taking hold of the gun, al-Ahmed aims the attacker’s gun at him but not firing, as a second attacker fired on him from a nearby footbridge. No other first responders are visible in the video.
Moments after al-Ahmed takes hold of the long gun, a second person joins him. Then a man wearing a kippah and tzitzit, the fringes worn by religiously observant Jewish men, runs into the picture and toward the attacker, who is wearing a backpack. The Jewish man throws something at the attacker. The video does not make clear what was thrown or whether it hit its intended target.
After taking hold of the gun, al-Ahmed puts it down against a tree and raises his hand, apparently signaling that he is not a participant in the attack.
In his response to the attack, which killed a prominent Chabad rabbi among others, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese praised “everyday Australians who, without hesitating, put themselves in danger in order to keep their fellow Australians safe.” He added, “These Australians are heroes and their bravery has saved lives.”
The post Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed appeared first on The Forward.
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Bondi Beach witnesses, including antisemitism activist, describe grim scene after Hanukkah attack
(JTA) — Arsen Ostrovsky moved back to Australia from Israel two weeks ago to helm the Sydney office of AIJAC, the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.
On Sunday, he was one of scores of people shot during an attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. At least 11 people were killed, as well as one of the attackers.
Ostrovsky, who grew up in Sydney after leaving the Soviet Union as a child, was injured in the head and treated at the scene.
“It was actually chaos. We didn’t know what was happening, where the gunfire was coming from. I saw blood gushing from me. I saw people hit, saw people fall to the ground,” he told a local news station, his head bandaged with blood visible on his face and clothing. “My only concern was, where are my kids? Where are my kids? Where’s my wife, where’s my family?”
He said he had been briefly separated from his family before finding them safe. But he had seen
“I saw children falling to the floor, I saw elderly, I saw invalids,” he said. “It was an absolute bloodbath, blood gushing everywhere.”
The attack struck at a centerpiece of Jewish community in Sydney, home to an estimated 40,000 Jews, nearly half of Australia’s total Jewish population. At least 1,000 people had turned up for the beachside celebration on the first night of Hanukkah.
“There were people dead everywhere, young, old, rabbi — they’re all dead,” Vlad, a Jewish chaplain with the State Emergency Service, told a local TV station. “And then two people died while we’re trying to save them, because the ambulance didn’t arrive on time.”
He said the people who died were an elderly woman who had been shot in the leg and an “older gentleman” who was shot in the head.
“It’s not just people, it’s people that I know, people from our community, people that we know well, people that we see often,” said Vlad, who had covered his 8-year-old son with his body during the attack. “My rabbi is dead.”
The rabbi who was killed, Eli Schlanger, moved to Bondi Beach as an emissary of the Chabad movement 18 years ago. He was the father of five children, including a son born two months ago.
“He wasn’t some distant figure. He was the guy staying up late planning the logistics for a Menorah lighting that most people will take for granted. The one stressing about the weather. The one making sure there were enough latkes and the kids weren’t bored,” wrote Eli Tewel, another Chabad emissary, on X.
“He was just doing his job. Showing up. Being the constant, reliable presence for his community,” Tewel added. “And that’s where the gut punch lands: He was killed while doing the most basic, kindest, most normal part of our lives. It wasn’t a battlefield. It was a Chanukah party.”
The post Bondi Beach witnesses, including antisemitism activist, describe grim scene after Hanukkah attack appeared first on The Forward.
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I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
I grew up believing that Australia was one of the best places on earth to be Jewish. This country always felt like a gift: Extraordinary beaches, glorious wildlife, and a cultural temperament that values fairness and ease over hierarchy. For most of my life, my Jewishness in Australia was unremarkable. My parents and grandparents chose this place because it promised normality, and for a long time, it delivered.
So when I heard that there had been a mass shooting at Bondi Beach, at a Hanukkah event, my body reacted before my mind could catch up.
Gun violence is almost unthinkable in Australia. The country limited gun ownership after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in 1996, when we made collective choices about who we wanted to be as a nation. That a shooting could happen here, and that Jews were the target, feels like a rupture in something we believed was settled.
At the time I write this, at least 11 people are dead, including a rabbi. Dozens more are injured. I recognise some of the names being circulated in prayer groups.
Rising antisemitism in Australia
Historically, being Jewish in Australia was not something that required vigilance, it was something you simply were.
Since October 7, that certainty has begun to fray. I have had the persistent feeling that something fundamental has shifted, and that the country I love is becoming less recognisable to me.
Many in Australia’s Jewish community mark Oct. 9, 2023 as the moment the ground moved beneath our feet. The protest outside the Sydney Opera House, where there were open chants of “Where’s the Jews” and “F–k the Jews,” at one of our country’s most iconic sites, with no arrests and no charges, felt like a breaking point.
The months since have been relentless with Jewish Australians assaulted, hateful graffiti, doxxing, Jewish businesses targeted, and a steady drip of hostility that causes us to question whether something is irreversibly changing for Jews in this country.
We have repeatedly reached out to our government, telling them that we do not feel safe. And yet, it has often felt as though these concerns are met with procedural gestures like more security funding, that never quite reach the level of protection and reassurance we are seeking.
When Australia wants to take a zero-tolerance approach to anything, it does so with gusto, ask anyone who lived here during the COVID-19 pandemic. Australian Jews do not feel that the Australian government is taking its approach to antisemitism as seriously as it should.
And so, here we are.
Bondi Beach now symbolizes death and disaster
Images of bodies on Bondi Beach are now seared into my mind. Bondi, the shorthand for Australian ease and sunlight and openness, has become a shrine to death and disaster for Australian Jews.
For most of my life, being a Jewish Australian has felt like a profound blessing. Today I feel something colder. I find myself asking questions that feel both irrational and unavoidable.
Is it foolish to stay in a country where Jews can be killed in public for lighting Hanukkah candles? Am I clinging to a story about Australia that no longer matches reality? Is it naive to assume that Jewish life here will stabilise, rather than continue to narrow?
These thoughts are frightening, but what frightens me more is how practical they suddenly feel. I am a parent, and I take my children to community events. The idea that attending a Hanukkah celebration could be a life-threatening decision is not something I ever imagined I would have to consider in Australia.
This moment forces a reckoning I do not want. It asks whether Jewish belonging in Australia is conditional. Whether safety is fragile. Whether the country my ancestors chose, and that I still love deeply, is willing and able to protect Jewish life.
As I type these words I feel grief not just for the dead tonight, but for a version of Australia that felt solid and reliable, alongside a growing fear that something essential about the way Jews have always lived in this country has already been lost.
The post I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want. appeared first on The Forward.