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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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BDS, Pro-Terror, and Anti-Israel Activism Are Still Happening at US Colleges and Universities
A pro-BDS demonstration. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Universities remain under pressure from market forces as well as the Trump administration regarding DEI, antisemitism, and funding. Polls also indicate that public trust in higher education continues to decline. The continued closure of smaller institutions such as Hampshire College and the elimination of courses and majors deemed unproductive point to the continuing consolidation of the higher education industrial complex across the US.
Foreign student enrollment has been reduced by US scrutiny of visa applicants, and the administration has proposed steep cuts to US research funding. A new report on academia’s narrowing donor base, where some 2% of donors provided 89% of the $78 billion given in FY 2024-2025, suggests another crisis. Despite these crises, analytical and anecdotal evidence indicate that universities have retained most DEI programs and staff under different labels.
Surprisingly, a report by Yale University faculty attributed plummeting public trust in higher education to institutions themselves, citing rising costs and lowering standards. Harvard president Alan Garber obliquely expanded this critique by noting the combination of student ignorance and arrogance regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Another tacit recognition that protests have damaged both campus safety and public image may be continuing restrictions on student commencement speakers, some of whom particularly in New York City area universities have excoriated Israel and the universities themselves since October 7th.
Amidst these structural changes Jewish students have continued to migrate to southern and southwestern institutions such as Vanderbilt and Clemson which are regarded as safer and more supportive. Active campaigns aimed at Jewish students by other institutions such as American University have touted safety.
Recent studies have suggested that institutions such as Yale and Harvard have deliberately reduced their Jewish populations to post- World War II quota levels as a function of both embracing DEI and globalization. As colleges seek to increase more Arabic and Muslim enrollment, it is undeniably clear that anti-Jewish sentiment has increased on campus. It’s fair to ask questions about whether there is a direct correlation — but critics try to stifle any attempt at an actual conversation or debate with charges of anti-Muslim prejudice.
Finally, reports indicate that the Qatar Foundation has hired two Washington, D.C. public relations firms to provide crisis communications regarding that country’s massive funding to American universities. The move came after a US House committee released emails it had subpoenaed from Northwestern University showing foundation executives consulting university officials regarding PR issues that arose immediately after October 7th.
Faculty misrepresentation of Middle Eastern affairs on campus — and in the press — continues to be a major problem. This was exemplified by an op-ed in The New York Times authored by University of California Berkeley faculty member Ussama Makdisi, in which he attacked Israel over its policy in Lebanon. Makdisi has a long record of troubling anti-Israel hatred. Makdissi’s appointment as the chair of a newly established program in “Palestinian and Arab Studies” at Berkeley institutionalizes and further legitimizes Palestinian grievance and antisemitism.
In a sign of European academic attitudes towards Israel, three Belgian universities conveyed honorary degrees on the deeply antisemitic and relentlessly hostile to Israel United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, who remains under US sanctions.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters and their allies continue to disrupt pro-Israel events across the country, including at Ohio State, the University of Connecticut, SUNY Buffalo, Florida State, the University of Minnesota, the University of Oregon, Stanford University, Rutgers University, and the University of Washington. SJP protestors also disrupted a trustees meeting at Bryn Mawr College. A pro-Hamas encampment was also created at Occidental College.
BDS resolutions and referendums continue to be considered by student governments. At Ohio University, a divestment referendum approved by the student government in March was overwhelmingly approved by students. Similar resolutions were passed at Colorado State, the University of Wisconsin, and San Diego State University. New divestment campaigns have also been launched at Rutgers University and other schools.
Student groups continue to showcase actual Palestinian terrorists in events. In one recent case the Berkeley SJP featured Israa Jabaris, convicted of attempting a car bombing outside Jerusalem in 2015. She was released from prison in exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Jabaris thanked students for their “solidarity.”
In another case at the University of Washington, Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return at UW (SUPER UW) co-hosted a fundraiser to support the “Lebanese resistance.” The university banned the group after a building takeover which caused several million dollars in damage. Reports now indicate the group is under investigation by the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice.
Support for those with terror ties was also expressed by the Georgetown SJP chapter, which held a letter writing campaign for “Palestinian prisoners” including those convicted in the Holy Land Foundation case and other “comrades caged by the US empire” including several convicted of arson and assault.
Student governments also remain in the lead in limiting other Jewish and Israeli events. The appearance of former Gaza hostage Omer Shem Tov at UCLA was condemned by the student government as the “selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of state violence” which shows a “troubling disregard for Palestinian life and contributes to a campus climate in which Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students are further marginalized, silenced, and harmed.” The university condemned the statement as did trustee Jay Sures who stated he was “disgusted and appalled” by the decision. Conversely, the student government at Stanford awarded the Muslim Student Union $175,000, more than all Christian groups combined or the marching band.
Finally, the role of teachers unions as key drivers of left wing politics inside and outside of classrooms was highlighted by a report that noted that since 2015 unions have contributed more that $1 billion to political activism and advocacy. Causes include “human rights” — which often means anti-Israel activism.
In a convenient illustration of teachers union attitudes towards Israel, New York City delegates of the United Federation of Teachers approved a resolution condemning Israel and demanding a US arms embargo. The measure will be voted on by members in May.
Alex Joffe is the Editor of SPME’s BDS Monitor and director of Strategic Affairs for the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). A completely different version of this article was originally published by SPME.
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How to Defeat Iran’s Strait Strategy
FILE PHOTO: Birds fly near a boat in the Strait of Hormuz amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, as seen from Musandam, Oman, March 2, 2026.REUTERS/Amr Alfiky/File Photo
Iran’s strategy to close the Strait of Hormuz has been well known for years. As long ago as 1993, Iran’s parliament passed a law giving itself the right — in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea — to close the Strait. This position was reiterated during the 12-Day War of June 2025, when the Iranian parliament voted to close the Strait — though at that time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) held off from doing so.
Iran has two navies, the regular navy (IRIN) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN). The IRIN is part of the Artesh (Iran’s regular military). Prior to the current conflict, the IRIN consisted of larger surface ships like frigates and corvettes, a few submarines, and a drone carrier. It is the older of the two maritime services, rebuilt after World War II and greatly expanded under the Shah, with ambitions that reached beyond the Gulf into the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Early in the Iran-Iraq War, the IRIN was able to establish sea control and strike Iraqi oil infrastructure. It is associated with the more traditional “fleet side” of Iranian sea power.
The IRGCN, on the other hand, is Iran’s specialized asymmetric naval force. Rather than functioning like a conventional blue-water navy, it is designed specifically for fighting in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, where geography, cluttered littoral waters, and short engagement ranges help offset US and allied technological superiority. The IRGCN is the “guerrilla warfare” side of Iran’s maritime services.
The IRGCN is built around shore-based anti-ship cruise missiles, naval mines, small agile boats called FAC/FIAC (fast attack craft and fast inland attack craft), and drones. The shore-based missiles are located in “missile cities” up to 500m (1,640 feet) underground and some sections are underwater, making US strikes difficult.
Iran planned to use both naval arms, the IRIN and the IRGCN, to attrit US naval forces until Washington tired of the conflict. From Tehran’s perspective, the logic was sound. The Strait of Hormuz is narrow, crowded, economically vital, and tactically favorable to a defender employing sea denial tactics such as mines and shore-launched anti-ship missiles. This plan also reflected the broader Iranian belief that the United States tends to lose interest in foreign conflicts when costs rise and victory is not clearly in sight.
The United States has been aware of Iran’s plans for the Strait for decades. In fact, Tehran’s deterrent logic depended on that awareness. Washington had to know the threat existed for it to influence American decision-making about whether to go to war with Iran in the first place.
In the opening days of the conflict, America’s plan to address this threat was revealed. Washington and Jerusalem opened the war at the theater level with decapitation strikes, the destruction of command and control, and the suppression of Iranian air defenses. Once Iran’s air defense network and command structure were sufficiently degraded, the United States could strike Iranian naval forces, missile infrastructure, drone facilities, logistics nodes, and other supporting assets with stand-off weapons and aircraft rather than send major surface combatants directly into the Strait. Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs), carrier aviation, land-based aircraft, submarine-fired torpedoes, and even long-range artillery were then brought to bear against Iranian targets without US forces entering the Strait.
By now, the IRIN is largely combat-ineffective if not sunk. The IRIN was meant to provide the IRGCN with conventional naval support. Its frigates, auxiliaries, and submarines provided sensors such as radar and sonar, support fire with missiles and guns, and extended operational reach through drones and helicopters, and it broadened Iran’s maritime presence beyond the Strait’s immediate approaches in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. In a Strait contingency, the IRIN was intended to support the IRGCN’s resistance.
The US sidelined the Strait at the outset of the conflict, but the Iranian naval threat must now be addressed. While it poses a less complicated problem today than it did before the outbreak of hostilities because of the elimination of the IRIN and the degradation of Iran’s missiles and drones, the IRGCN’s continued presence in the Strait remains a significant challenge.
On March 2, Israel and the US began targeting IRGCN forces. American A-10 Warthog airplanes and AH-64 Apache helicopters began eliminating close-range elements of the IRGCN’s sea-denial network, especially its small craft, swarm staging areas, and coastal launch points. Air-dropped bunker-busting munitions were used against hardened missile sites, tunnel complexes, and buried support infrastructure along the Iranian coast. A US Navy littoral combat ship, the USS Santa Barbara, was used to launch multiple LUCAS one-way attack drones; this was not part of the ship’s original design, but the improvisation was surprisingly successful.
On March 10, the United States reported that it had “eliminated” 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels near Hormuz. There remains some ambiguity as to whether the IRGC actually mined the Strait. In an abundance of caution, the US is actively hunting for mines that may have been laid. (Mine hunting is the process of locating and identifying individual mines for destruction, while mine sweeping clears an area more broadly. Hunting takes longer, but it offers greater confidence that an area has been cleared.)
The US Navy has four Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships in the region and two littoral combat ships: the aforementioned USS Santa Barbara and the USS Tulsa, which have been augmented with counter-mine capabilities. These forces have some of the Navy’s most advanced mine-countermeasure resources, including unmanned undersea systems, helicopters, and divers. The MH-60S Seahawk, for example, can employ the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System to locate mines from the air and then help neutralize them. At the same time, the Knifefish unmanned undersea vehicle can hunt mines below the surface while keeping its mothership out of danger.
But these capabilities are not enough. The IRGCN, though significantly degraded, still retains enough capability — including FACs, FIACs, and shore-based missile systems — to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait. For this reason, the United States is taking additional measures in parallel with operations in the Strait.
There is little doubt that the US could engage in direct military action to secure the Strait, but this would require significant land forces in addition to further air and maritime operations. There would be a cost in both American blood and treasure, and if the action did not end quickly, it could become a political liability. For these reasons, the Trump administration is actively pursuing alternative means to the direct military option to achieve the desired end state, including making diplomatic overtures.
One indirect measure has been to attempt to compel Tehran to reopen the Strait by striking vital targets, with a threat to strike even more. These attacks are aimed at the regime’s capacity to continue the confrontation. Targets include leadership, command and control, missile infrastructure, naval forces, air defenses, logistics nodes, and key elements of the regime’s economic base. The purpose is to impose cumulative strategic costs, degrade Iran’s coercive tools, and convince Tehran that keeping the Strait closed will cause the regime greater harm than reopening it.
The US has also embarked on an economic pressure campaign against Iran called Operation Economic Fury. This operation is centered on fully enforced oil sanctions, action against sanctions-evasion networks, and pressure on the shipping and financial channels that keep Iranian exports moving. The US Treasury has sanctioned 29 new targets, including three individuals, 17 companies, and nine vessels tied to Iranian oil smuggling and associated financing networks as part of the broader economic pressure campaign.
The most visible portion of Operation Economic Fury is a maritime blockade, a clear demonstration of economic coercion bolstered by the credible use of force to compel compliance. This tactic echoes the naval blockade the US employed to weaken Venezuela before Maduro’s ouster. That blockade brought the Venezuelan economy to the brink of collapse by strangling the nation’s oil revenues.
The current US blockade, originally framed as targeting the Strait, is more accurately described as a blockade against ships calling at and departing from Iranian ports and terminals. A few vessels carrying crude from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iraq – not Iran – have successfully exited the Persian Gulf. US Central Command (CENTCOM) clarified that as part of the blockade, “all Iranian vessels, vessels with active Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions, and vessels suspected of carrying contraband (weapon parts, nuclear components, precursors, etc.), are subject to belligerent right to visit and search.”
Through all of this, Washington is leaving open a diplomatic off-ramp. If Iran accepts American red lines, especially with respect to its nuclear weapons program, and reopening the Strait is folded into a broader agreement, Washington could end the war and provide some measure of sanctions relief. In this sense, diplomacy is not separate from coercion but part of the same strategy. Military pressure, economic coercion, and diplomatic opportunities are being applied together to persuade Tehran that compliance is less costly than continued resistance.
In the end, Iran’s long-prepared Strait strategy failed. Rather than rush major naval forces into a confined battlespace built for attrition, Washington and Jerusalem widened the fight, dismantled key elements of Iran’s military system, and then combined limited operations in and around the Strait with economic coercion and diplomatic pressure. The remaining challenge is real, as the IRGCN can still threaten shipping in the Strait. However, Tehran has lost whatever influence it had on the initiative or direction of the campaign.
David Levy is a retired US Navy Commander and Foreign Area Officer. He was the Director for Theater Security Cooperation for US Naval Forces Central Command located in Bahrain and was the US Air and Navy Attaché in Tunis. He served in several campaigns, including Iraqi Freedom and Inherent Resolve. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Support for Iran war among ‘connected’ US Jews falls again, poll finds
(JTA) — In the early days of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, 68% of “connected” American Jews — those with ties to American Jewish institutions — supported the war, according to a poll taken by an Israeli public affairs institute.
That proportion fell weeks into the war and fell further to 60% just after President Donald Trump unilaterally announced a ceasefire on April 8, the same survey found, according to results released by the Jewish People Policy Institute last week and publicized on Sunday.
The decline was sharpest among those who identified as “leaning liberal,” 42% of whom are supportive of the war, down from 57% in early March.
At the same time, opposition among “connected” Jews has risen sharply, with about a third saying they oppose the war, up from 26% just after the war’s start. And only 14% of respondents said they believed the war had achieved “major success.”
The survey of 806 American Jews, taken April 15-19, drew from a panel that JPPI maintains and surveys regularly. The institute says its polls reflect the sentiments of “connected” Jews because its panel includes fewer intermarried Jews, more Jews who are affiliated with denominations and more Jews who have lived in Israel than demographic data suggests is representative of U.S. Jewry overall.
Two polls taken weeks into the war, before the ceasefire, found that most American Jews overall opposed the U.S. military campaign against Iran.
The latest results arrive as the future of the war and its dividends so far remain uncertain. Facing widespread public disapproval on Iran and pressure over oil prices, Trump has repeatedly extended the ceasefire despite failing to extract the major concessions from the Iranians that he has called for. This weekend, he said he was unsatisfied with their latest offer and said he remained torn between wanting to keep pressing for a diplomatic agreement or choosing to “go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever.”
Speaking at an event in Florida, Trump said. “Frankly, maybe we’re better off not making a deal at all. Do you want to know the truth? Because we can’t let this thing go on. Been going on too long.”
Iranian officials have reportedly said they expect a return to fighting, and the Israelis also have said they remain at a high level of military readiness.
A key sticking point is the future of Iran’s nuclear program, which Trump vowed to eliminate. The Iranians have offered to halt nuclear enrichment for up to five years, but Trump has rejected that offer and is pushing for a 20-year pause — longer than the 15-year hiatus in the agreement President Barack Obama in 2015 struck that Trump exited in 2018. Following the collapse of that deal, the Iranians are understood to have embarked on an enrichment spree, giving the regime the most nuclear material it has ever possessed. Much of that material remains buried but extractible under facilities Trump bombed last year.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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