When the Children of Israel wandered in the desert for forty years, they were miraculously blessed with manna, food which rained down daily from heaven. Once they reached the land of Israel, the gift of manna was over.
Centuries later, when Jews were exiled from the land of Israel, and scattered all over the world, the Manischewitz Matzo Company sent its four-cornered matzo to Jews in 鈥渁rba kanfot ha-arets鈥 (the four corners of the world).
The Company was founded in Cincinnati in 1888 by Rabbi Dov Ber Manischewitz, an immigrant from Lithuania. The company was known for the impeccable kashruth standards of their Passover matzos. The Manischewitz family was also known for its concern for other Jews, and their matzos were shipped to Jewish communities all over the world over in the twentieth century.
During the First World War, the , founded by the Orthodox Union in 1914 to help Jews suffering due to the war, worked with Manischewitz to organize shipments of matzo to Eastern Europe and Palestine. Manischewitz's letterhead has an appropriate message for Passover -- the center has a circle with a magen david with the word "Zion" in it. Below the magen david are two flags, an American flag and a Zionist flag, with the message and hope of the fulfillment of the traditional Pesach wish, "Le-shanah ha-ba'ah bi-Yerushalyim," "Next Year in Jerusalem." Rays of light stream upward from the circle, perhaps an indication that light will come forth from Jerusalem.
In 1938, on the cusp of the Second World War, Manischewitz shipped matzo to the Jewish community in Shanghai. Manischewitz's letterhead has been modernized, with cleaner lines and updated colors, but the message of the circle in the center of the menorah remains: the traditional yearning call: "Next Year in Jerusalem."
After the war was over, Manischewitz sent matzo to Jews who had survived the Holocaust. The shipments were under the auspices of , founded by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada in 1939, just after World War II began.
Here are pictures of Vaad Hatzala members packing matzos for Poland, and the distribution of the matzos in Poland.
The Manischewitz Company is now part of Kayco Kosher Foods and is 鈥渆xcited to enter the next era of another 130 years of Manischewitz innovation and excellence.鈥
For further reading:
Manischewitz: The Matzo Family. Laura Manischewitz Alpern. Ktav, 2008.
鈥淗ow Matzah Became Square: Manischewitz and the Development of Machine-Made Matzah in the United States.鈥 Jonathan D. Sarna. In Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism, edited by Rebecca Kobrin. Rutgers University Press, 2012, 272-288.
Posted by Shulamith Z. Berger
Curator of Special Collections
