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An 1859 fight over how to make matzah has lessons about the threat of AI today
(JTA) — In the last few months the world has been dazzled by an astonishing sequence of AI systems capable of performing all kinds of difficult tasks — writing code, composing poetry, generating artwork, passing exams — with a level of competence that rivals or exceeds what humans can do. The existence of these AIs has prompted all manner of soul-searching about the nature of humanity. It has also made many people wonder which human tasks are about to be taken over by machines.
The capabilities of these AIs are new and revolutionary, but the story of machines taking over human jobs is not. In Jewish history the most important story of that transition has to do with matzah, and it’s a story that carries important lessons for the present day.
Starting 164 years ago, dozens of European rabbis engaged in a furious debate that would not be fully resolved until the beginning of the 20th century. Matzah, which for millennia had been made by human hands in accordance with the narrow constraints of Jewish law, could now be processed with a series of machines that promised huge savings of time and money. As town after town adopted these machines, opposition began to rise, until it exploded in 1859 with the publication of “An Alert for Israel,” a collection of letters from prestigious rabbis, who adamantly argued that for anyone interested in following the laws of Passover a matzah made with a machine was no better than a loaf of bread.
The arguments for this position were many, but all will sound familiar to anyone following the AI conversation. Like today, some objected to the machines just because they were new and different, but most had more specific concerns. First, there was the matter of lost jobs. In many parts of Europe matzah was made by the poorest members of society, who were given the job as a way to help them raise money before one of the most cost-intensive holidays of the year. Ceding this job to machines would take work from those who could least afford it.
It takes about 20 seconds in a 1,300-degree, coal-and-wood-fired oven to bake shmurah matzah to perfection. (Uriel Heilman)
Beyond economics, there was concern that the machines just weren’t as reliable as people, especially given the rules around matzah-making outlined in Jewish law. What if bits of dough got trapped in the gears, quietly leavening for hours and unknowingly ruining whole batches of matzah in the process? What if the trays warmed the dough too fast? Without proper oversight, how could you trust your own food?
Finally, some objected to the loss of a literal human touch. Jewish law stated that matzah was supposed to be made by people who knew they were baking matzah. A machine, no matter how sophisticated, didn’t “know” anything. How could you eat matzah on Passover knowing that this most important food was made by a mindless machine?
The responses didn’t take long to arrive. “A Cancellation of the Alert,” a collection published the very same yearr, forcefully argued that machine matzah was perfectly fine — and possibly even better than the human product. No, inventions aren’t inherently bad. No, the machines wouldn’t harm the poor, because the machines made matzah less expensive for everyone. No, the machines weren’t prone to error — and they certainly weren’t more error-prone than lazy, careless humans. No, the machines didn’t know what they were doing — but the people who built them did, and wasn’t that enough?
The machines eventually won, but then something happened that I don’t think either side anticipated. With Manichewitz’s machine matzahs claiming most of the American market by the early 20th century, it was now the handmade matzah makers who were on the back foot; it was they and not the machines who needed to demonstrate that they were up to the difficult task of preparing this food with the efficiency and reliability of the machines.
The result is more than a little tragic. Matzah is the Jewish food with the deepest origins of all — deeper than brisket, deeper than latkes, deeper even than challah — and yet it is the ritual food most likely to be picked up at the supermarket and least likely to be made at home. While there are still communities today that exclusively eat handmade matzah, even this job is now largely outsourced to just a few companies that resemble their machine-driven counterparts in scale. While teachers will sometimes demonstrate how to make matzah for educational purposes, across the religious spectrum the era of locally made matzah is over.
Despite the fact that it’s hard to imagine a simpler baked good — matzah is just flour and water, and it’s literally illegal to spend more than 18 minutes making it — its production is treated as though it is only slightly less complicated than constructing a jet engine, and people are worried about shortages as though matzah were a natural resource or an advanced microchip. The transition has been so complete that we barely remember there was a transition at all.
Baked matzah coming out of the oven at Streit’s Matzo factory on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, date unknown. (Courtesy Streit’s Matzo)
Did the rabbis pushing for machine matzah know this was going to happen? Almost certainly not. The economic impact of machine labor is relatively easy to predict, but the psychological and cultural effects are a lot harder. There was probably no way of knowing how machines would change the way we thought about matzah in the long run, but today it’s clear that automating this ancient task has changed our own relationship to Passover’s central food — and because the change has resulted in a lot of alienation from matzah production, I’m not so sure it was a change for the better. Making matzah locally could have been a way to feel connected to the ancient Israelites, who left Egypt so fast that they didn’t have time to make anything else. Instead of emulating this ad-hoc food, we optimized it for cost and efficiency, in the process turning matzah into just another specialty cracker on the grocery store shelf. Was it really worth it?
It’s probably a bit much to say that OpenAI is just a modern Manischewitz, but the parallels between the debate about machine-generated matzah and the present debate about machine-generated everything are useful for considering how short-term policy choices around AI won’t necessarily capture all of the technology’s long-term effects on how human beings want to spend their time. When we relinquish an activity to an AI for economic reasons, we may eventually come to believe that humans are no longer qualified to do the task at all.
Then as now we must balance our economic needs against our ideas about what kinds of activities make for a good and fulfilling life.
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US-Israeli Attack Triggers Fear and Panic in Iran
Buildings stand, after Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, February 28, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iranians fled cities in search of safety, and long queues formed at fuel stations as an attack on Iran by the United States and Israel spread fear and panic throughout the country.
When the strikes began on Saturday morning, explosions rocked Tehran and columns of smoke rose into the sky, shaking the city at the start of the Iranian working week.
Residents reached by phone described scenes of chaos and alarm as they rushed to collect their children from school or made preparations to leave home for now.
“We are going to our hometown in Yazd, Tehran is not safe anymore. They said roads are safe, but I am worried,” said Gholamreza, a Tehran shopkeeper and father of two. “I am leaving everything behind in Tehran.”
It marks the latest upheaval for Iranians weeks after thousands of people were killed in a government crackdown on nationwide unrest, and comes just eight months after last year’s 12-day war with Israel, during which the United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites.
Iran’s top security body said it expected attacks to continue on Tehran and some other cities, and urged people to “travel to other cities where possible so that you may remain safe from the harm of these two regimes’ acts of aggression.” Schools and universities would be closed until further notice.
“We are scared, we are terrified. My children are shaking, we have nowhere to go, we will die here,” said Minou, a 32-year-old mother of two from the northern city of Tabriz, one of many areas where explosions were reported.
“What is going to happen to my children?” she said, crying as she spoke by phone.
US President Donald Trump said the operation would end a security threat to the United States and offer Iranians a chance to topple their rulers. The Pentagon said that US strikes against Iran were named “OPERATION EPIC FURY.”
An Iranian from the central city of Yazd said he hoped the attack would topple the clerical establishment that has run the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “Let them bomb,” the resident of Yazd said.
Samira Mohebbi, speaking from the northern city of Rasht, disagreed.
“I am against this regime, to hell with them. But I don’t want my country to be attacked by foreign forces, I don’t want my Iran to turn into Iraq,” she said, referring to the neighboring country that suffered years of chaos and bloodshed following the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
‘THEY FOOLED US AGAIN’
Security forces blocked roads in the area of Tehran that is home to the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and parliament, witnesses said.
The latest round of negotiations between the United States and Iran in Geneva on Thursday failed to secure a breakthrough over Tehran’s nuclear programme, though Omani mediators reported progress.
“They said the nuclear talks are going well. They fooled us again,” said a resident of Tehran.
Zohreh, 28, said she would leave the port city of Bushehr with her three-year-old daughter and go to her parents’ home in a village in northern Iran.
“Why are we paying this price? I want my daughter to grow up safe and in peace,” she said.
Western governments have long suspected Iran aims to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran has always denied this.
Witnesses said people were rushing to buy hard currency.
In Isfahan, another area where attacks were reported, some said they were unable to withdraw cash from ATMs.
Reza Saadati, 45, said he was taking his family to the city of Urumieh near the Turkish border. “If the border is open, we will cross and then fly to Istanbul,” he said.
Mohammad Esmaili, 63, speaking from the town of Ilam, some 500 km (300 miles) from Tehran, said he would leave the town with his family. “God knows what will happen to us. Pray for us,” he said.
“People are shocked, scared. What is going to happen to us? Save us please,” said a woman from Tehran.
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Prior to Iran attacks, CIA assessed Khamenei Would Be Replaced by IRCG Elements if Killed
Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attend an IRGC ground forces military drill in the Aras area, East Azerbaijan province, Iran, Oct. 17, 2022. Photo: IRGC/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
In the run-up to the US and Israeli attacks on Saturday, the US Central Intelligence Agency assessed that even if Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the operation, he would likely be replaced by hardline figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), two sources briefed on the intelligence said.
The assessments, which were produced over the past two weeks, looked broadly at what could occur in Iran following a US intervention and the extent to which a military operation could trigger regime change in the Islamic Republic — now a pronounced objective for Washington.
The IRGC is an elite military force whose purpose is to protect Shi’ite Muslim clerical rule in Iran.
The intelligence agency reports did not conclude any scenario with certainty, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
The Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment.
President Donald Trump has for weeks signaled the US was interested in seeing regime change in Iran, but has not given in any detail Washington’s thinking on who could lead the country.
In an early morning video address on Saturday, Trump described Tehran as a “terrorist regime” and encouraged the Iranian people to take over the government, saying the US military strikes would set the stage for an uprising.
The US and Israeli assault comes after weeks of deliberation inside the US government about whether to strike Iran following the deadly protests that broke out there in December.
US officials in recent weeks have tried to strike a nuclear deal with Tehran in an attempt to stave off intervention.
In a briefing last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told top congressional lawmakers known as the Gang of Eight that a US operation would likely move forward, but that Trump could change his mind, particularly if nuclear negotiations were successful. Those talks in Geneva did not result in an agreement.
Rubio notified the Gang of Eight on Friday night that the operation to attack Iran was likely to commence in the following hours but said Trump could still change his mind, two sources familiar with the matter said.
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US and Israel Launched Military Operation Against Islamic Republic: This Is What We Know So Far
Iranian mourners wave the country’s flags while participating in a memorial ceremony for IRGC commanders, nuclear scientists, and civilians killed in the Iran-Israel war at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in downtown Tehran, Iran, on July 2, 2025. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – It’s been just over ten hours since the US and Israel launched operations “Epic Fury” and “Roaring Lion” against the Islamic Republic. And while this is still a developing story, here is what we know.
Just after 8 am local time the US and Israel launched a series of strikes on Iranian military targets across Iran. The main targets were Iran’s leaders and IRGC senior commanders in Iran and some targets in Iraq.
The IDF says it struck hundreds of targets, including ready-to-fire ballistic missile launchers. While there is no official confirmation of any specific eliminations, Iran’s foreign minister confirmed that some senior commanders were eliminated.
As Israeli and US strikes continued, Iran launched numerous ballistic missile barrages across Israel, and against six Arab countries, namely Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain, who all condemned the Iranian strikes on their territory. Iran claims it targeted US military bases in the region.
The escalation also saw a rare sign of unity between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, who have suffered from tense relations in recent weeks.
Iran has vowed to continue its strikes across the region, with Israeli officials saying they expect the strikes against Iran to continue for at least a few days.
While Iran has already turned this into a regional conflict, it still has potential to expand further. So far, neither Hezbollah in Lebanon nor Pro-Iranian militias in Iraq have joined the fray.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam sent a warning message to Hezbollah not to drag the country into, quote, “adventures that threaten its security and unity.”