Got matzo? Well, it depends
By Yasmin Anwar
Advertiser Staff Writer
University of Hawai'i-Manoa freshman Frank Dan was on Mission Matzo when he reached aisle 7B of the Mo'ili'ili Star Market yesterday.
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
When he saw the empty top shelves in the section for seasonal Jewish foods, his face fell.
Foodland Super Market on Beretania Street had an ample supply of matzo yesterday. Other supermarkets said distribution problems have kept them waiting for a shipment of the unleavened bread.
With the first night of Passover just a day away, his family on Maui was depending on him to track down the goods necessary to complete their ritual Seder meal.
"All of Maui is out of matzo," lamented Dan, 18, a member of the Maui Jewish Congregation.
A last-minute scramble in Hawai'i for the flat, crispy unleavened bread known as matzo marked the eve of Passover, a weeklong holiday that celebrates the Jews' exodus from slavery in Egypt about 3,000 years ago.
The holiday starts at sundown today with a Seder meal that re-enacts the Jews' liberation from Pharaoh's bondage.
In Hawai'i, home to about 10,000 Jews, the general availability of matzo has come to symbolize the growth and acceptance of Jewish culture in the Islands.
But matzo is not always easy to obtain.
Though Star Market generally boasts an extensive Passover section — with gefilte fish, chicken soup and matzo ball mix, and borscht — matzo supplies were low in its stores around the Islands yesterday.
Safeway and Foodland stores also were having difficulty meeting the matzo demand. Some outlets carried regular matzo, but not the strict kosher Passover brand. Other stores reported that distribution problems kept them waiting for a shipment of matzo.
Gwen Matsui, the secretary at Temple Emanu-El in Nu'uanu, said the synagogue had received several calls from members complaining about a dearth of basic Seder supplies.
That's life in the Islands, said Beth Ann Kozlovich, host of Hawaii Public Radio's "Morning Edition" and "Town Square."
Her grandmother had such trouble finding kosher Passover matzo that she finally got it delivered from the Chabad Lubavitch of Hawai'i, a branch of Hasidic Jews based in Manoa.
Kozlovich, whose religious practice includes elements of Judaism and Christianity, said she uses Passover to teach her sons, aged 14, 11 and 8, about the gift of freedom.
"I want my children to understand what it means to be free and what results from a lack of that," she said.
That's precisely the point of Seder foods, which represent captivity, hardship, hope, flight and liberation: The multicourse meal includes prayers, song, a lamb shank, a sweet relish called haroset, horseradish, parsley, salt water, a roasted egg and at least four glasses of wine.
And let's not forget the matzo. Its flatness demonstrates how Jews did not have the time to wait for the bread to rise because of the haste in which they fled Egypt.
It has taken some time for Hawai'i's supermarkets to appreciate the meaning of matzo, notes Harvey Rackmil, a Jewish accountant from Florida who once won a Jerry Seinfeld look-alike contest.
Rackmil recalls the blank looks he once got in Honolulu when he asked for matzo at his local supermarket.
"They used to look at me like I was from Mars," he said
A couple of years ago, though, while he was on yet another matzo pilgrimage, Rackmil's request delighted a supermarket clerk.
"We've been waiting for you," the clerk said, and proudly frogmarched Rackmil to the Passover section. "I was very pleased with their Passover training program," Rackmil said.
