What Is Hametz?
During the holiday of Passover, Jews must abstain from eating hametz. When any of the five grains, wheat, barley, rye, spelt or oats, comes into contact with water and leavening can occur, it is considered hametz. When the Jews left Egypt during the Exodus, they did not have time to let their dough rise, so they baked it in unleavened loaves. To remember the haste with which they left, we do not eat any products that may have leavened, and we eat matzo instead.
Contact Shira Hanau at [email protected]
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. We’ve started our Passover Membership Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community. This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
