To Observant Jews, New York Times Cooking Offers a Pre-Passover Insult

The New York Times food section is celebrating the Passover holiday by recommending a recipe for "matzo" that the newspaper itself acknowledges is not kosher for Passover. At least one rabbinic authority says the crackers the Times is touting are "hametz"—leavened bread that is the opposite of the unleavened bread that Jewish law requires for the holiday.

A Times feature by Melissa Clark repeatedly and openly acknowledges—once in the subheadline, twice in the article, and once in the accompanying recipe—that the food is not kosher for Passover. The story makes a halfhearted attempt at a justification, attributed to chef Hillary Sterling of "Italian-infected" restaurant Ci Siamo, whose menu includes pork Milanese. "These dishes aren’t strictly traditional or kosher, but all of them have good stories behind them. And telling those stories together, Ms. Sterling said, is why we gather at the Passover table."

Leave it to the New York Times to consult a pork-selling chef on the reasons for the Passover holiday rather than, say, the Hebrew Bible. The Bible has explanations like, "You shall celebrate it as a festival to GOD throughout the ages … Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the very first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day to the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel." (Exodus 12:14-12:15) Or Exodus 12:19, "No leaven shall be found in your houses for seven days. For whoever eats what is leavened, that person—whether a stranger or a citizen of the country—shall be cut off from the community of Israel." Or Exodus 13:6, "Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a festival of GOD."

The Times matzo recipe is the latest in a long line of examples of the newspaper being clumsy around food and Jewish holidays. In 2016, a Times article headlined, "For Juicy Beef for Your Seder Table, Look Beyond Brisket" generated a classic Times correction: "An earlier version of this article incorrectly implied that beef tenderloin is kosher and appropriate for Passover. It is not kosher, but other cuts of beef that are kosher may be used in the recipe in its place." In 2024 the Times magazine ran an article attacking the Passover Seder as being too focused on Jews rather than on others. "I’ve been to a lot of Passover celebrations … and it’s so weird that the story is only of Jewish subjugation, even though subjugation is still so present for other people," the article quoted a far-left activist as saying.

On social media, the non-kosher "matzo" recipe was seen as on-brand for the Times. "New York Times promoting a homemade matzoh recipe that isn't kosher for passover is definitely on the nose," commented Yoni Freedhoff, a professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa.

And on the Times’s own website, reader comments were negative. "I’m saddened … Next time be more sensitive to the importance of what matzah is representing," wrote one commenter, upvoted by 13 readers.

"Why would you share a matzo recipe that isn’t kosher for Passover?" asked another commenter.

"Matzo recipe that’s not kosher for Passover — and I thought that I’d seen it all," said another commenter.

"If its similar to Sardinian flatbread, but not kosher for Passover, why would you call it matzo and not Sardinian flatbread? I guess anything too kosher, too jewish, or too israeli (Pearl couscous) just isn't right for the NYT," said another commenter, Golda. Golda is right; the Times indeed stopped using the term Israeli couscous and started referring instead to "pearl couscous."

The ingredients for the flatbread or cracker that the Times is mislabeling as matzo include salt, olive oil, flour, and water. The recipe involves stirring, forming the dough into a ball, "cover with a plate or plastic wrap, and let rest for 15 minutes."

The resting was the main concern for one rabbinic authority. Rabbi Ethan Tucker, president and Rosh Yeshiva at Hadar, ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and with a doctorate in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary, explained in response to my query: "the biggest thing is: ‘let rest for 15 minutes’! You cannot have planned idle time with the dough and once there is idle time more than 15 minutes (and there will be 3 minutes scattered throughout the rest of the process with the cutting, etc.) you are in hametz land, at least for Ashkenazim, who do not require the 18 minutes of idleness to be consecutive."

One tradition the Times does revere is what it calls "the tradition of putting an orange on the Seder plate as an act of inclusion of L.G.B.T.Q. Jews," though even there the Times leaps from the orange to kumquat. Anyway, "not kosher for Passover" seems to me like the Times’s attempt at a sophisticated way of saying leavened rather than unleavened, or hametz rather than matzo. "Cut off from the community of Israel" is actually a pretty accurate description of whatever is happening over at that publication, in more ways than one.

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