The Story of Our Secret Matzah Bakery

With Pesach fast approaching, one of our chief tasks was taking charge of the matzah production.

We purchased a large hand powered coffee grinder, essentially a millstone constructed from slabs of iron, and used it to grind the wheat.

A Local Solution

Unlike Georgia, summers in Samarkand invariably had no rain at all.

We Make a Mill

Now that we had such a large amount of certified water-freewheat, it clearly would have been absurd to grind it all with a coffee grinder.

Our Own Bakery

Our first attempts at this were pretty clueless, so before we had mastered the skill, we asked the Bucharian women to fill in for us amateurs. As time elapsed we learned the ropes and our yeshiva boys took over.

Our Matzah Was Best

It happened more than once that after everyone had checked the utensils and said that they were clean, he would find a tiny scrap of dough which we had all somehow overlooked.

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Samarkand »

By Hillel Zaltzman

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"Samarkand" tells the story of the Chassidic underground that operated in the Soviet Union, upholding Judaism during the rule of communist terror. Gripping narrative sweeps the reader to distant lands, and paints a picture of mysterious figures in Samarkand's alleys, secret Torah study under the constant threat of arrest by the KGB, and the long and hard fought victory in inspiring Jewish renaissance throughout the Soviet Union.

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