The Brief

[Editor's note: this story first ran in 2024. But we figured it hit the spot for this year, too.]

There’s an old joke: A man is sitting in the park eating some matzah and offers it to the guy next to him, who is blind. The blind man takes a piece of matzah and his fingers glide over the bumps and perforations until, frustrated, he complains, “Who wrote this s—t?”

As a Braille document, matzah probably makes terrible reading. But for Jews around the world, matzah is part of the Passover seder, a space where families sit and read from their Haggadahs — a collection of texts that explore the holiday themes and guide its rituals.

Passover starts tonight, Wednesday April 1. Observant Jews — as well as many non-observant Jews who just keep the traditions — will spend the entire week of Passover eating matzah pretty much at every meal, from matzah brei (scrambled with eggs) or matzah farfel (breaking it up into small pieces and eating it in a bowl like cereal). And yes, it can get boring by the end.

If you've ever been curious about matzah (or matza, or matzo, matzoh — the spellings are plentiful), we have your FAQ.

What are the basic ingredients of matzah? 

The ingredients are as basic as you can get — wheat flour and water — although online recipes will suggest adding salt, pepper and even olive oil. But how did it start?

The Biblical story goes like this: A long time ago, in an Egypt far far away, the Jewish people were slaves to Pharaoh, but — after a series of plagues — were asked to leave rather quickly: They didn’t even have time to complete their bread-making process before they left.

So they took the dough with them which, having not risen, and presumably baked in the desert sun, probably resembled tortillas, flatbread, or naan or what happens when you “bake” those Trader Joe’s pizza doughs by rolling out a piece and putting it in a frying pan. (No judgments.)

The rise of Manischewitz

Over the years, Ashkenazi Jews (who hail from Eastern Europe) gravitated toward something more resembling a flat cracker.

Then the industrial revolution came to Matzahland, with innovation by Cincinnati Rabbi Dov Behr Manischewitz — yes, the man behind the name — who, in 1888, invented a more efficient production method (machine!) and adopted a more effective shape (square!) and created the brand — and matzah — you know today.

There’s also more artisanal “shmurah matzah,” formed in unruly circle-ish shapes and nestled in threes into giant boxes separated by parchment paper or bubble wrap to prevent breakage. Shmurah means “watched,” because it's watched by local authorities from the time the wheat is harvested and throughout the grinding process, to ensure that it doesn’t become wet and start to rise early. While the basic matzah costs around $2.50 to $5 a box, this pampered version can run from $30 to $60 a box.

And there’s also soft matzah, a handmade version, with a soft and chewy texture more resembling a pita or a wrap.

Wait a minute: Did you say there’s soft matzah?

Yes! Many Middle Eastern and north African Jewish communities (Sephardic) eschew the uniformity of the flat cracker to make matzah according to their traditions. Take Aaron Asher, who is from a family of Egyptian Jews and ran an annual soft matzah bake at the Temple Beth Am in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood for several years.

He told LAist that he grinds his own flour from wheat berries, and then combines it with water to work up a dough. Is there anything special about the water? Of course there is! It has to be water that’s rested for a day so that it cools down and doesn’t prompt premature rising. (Ahem.) Then Asher shapes and cooks the matzah on a saj, which looks like an inverted wok; the matzahs must be finished — from mixing the ingredients to baked — within 18 minutes, as per Talmudic requirements.

Soft matzah, baking.

(

Courtesy Aaron Asher

)

Sarah Livingston, a Jewish studies instructor at Ohio University specializing in global Jewish foodways, makes Ethiopian matzah every year at home for her family and with her students in the university’s test kitchen, calling it “an experiential learning about the incredible diversity of the Jewish experience.”

Ethiopian matzah.

(

Sarah Livingston

)

Specifically, she uses a recipe for Yahfesca Kit’ta, a soft matzo from the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jewish) community. (Here’s a sample recipe.) Making this matzah, Livingston said, her students experience a “sense of urgency” that echoes that of the Hebrews being told to leave Egypt.

What about celiac and gluten-sensitive people — is there a matzah for them?

Wheat matzah isn’t gluten-free: It’s still got wheat and water, therefore gluten. Other kosher for Passover grains like oats, rye, barley and spelt can sub in for wheat in matzah, and may be easier to digest or easier for your gut, although most of those also contain gluten.

A truly grain-free variety of flat unleavened bread is likely made of potato flour, and the label will read “matzo-style squares,” a passive-aggressive way to distinguish it from “real matzah.” But it may not be totally gluten-free, so if you’re seriously gluten-compromised, continue to read the labels or call the company to be certain.

The reason for calling it “matzo-style” is because some Jewish blessings can only be recited over bread; potato-based bread is not considered bread and therefore gets a different blessing. (Aren't you glad you asked?) Gluten-free versions can be two to four times more expensive than regular, with oat matzahs rumored to be the most expensive, and least resembling wheat matzah, and — again — not guaranteed to be gluten-free.

An employee serves matzah ball soup at Langer's Delicatessen.

(

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

/

Getty Images North America

)

Matzah is flat and crunchy. Matzah balls are round and either fluffy or dense. Why?

Because matzah balls are made from matzah meal — matzahs that are ground into a lightly granular substance which is used instead of flour. Wasn’t matzah made of flour to begin with? Yes. Didn’t we make sure not to bake it too long so it wouldn’t become chametz? Yes. Now we’re grinding up matzah, but we still can’t use straight flour? That’s right.

Why? As the Haggadah says, “So the children will ask.” And so the adults will debate recipes — egg or vegan substitute? Baking soda or seltzer? — and the merits of fluffy — a.k.a. “floaters” — over dense — “sinkers” — and argue passionately until nothing has been decided, but they’ve all managed to hear and understand each other. This, too, is the purpose of Passover.

That ocean breeze is just not cutting it in schools in Torrance and Long Beach as Southern California reels from a heat wave.

Parents have taken to social media, created petitions and are proposing a bond measure in order to address the sweltering classrooms as temperatures hit triple digits in some areas.

Only 25% of Torrance Unified classrooms have air conditioning, according to a district spokesperson. And while 90% of Long Beach Unified schools have air conditioning, the schools without air conditioning have to bear this heat spell until the end of 2027 when new air conditioning will be in all classrooms.

What are schools doing to beat the heat?

In Long Beach, the district says there are portable fans in classrooms without AC and the district has installed heat-blocking window covers.

"The things that we do immediately and have been doing for several years, hydration stations,” Keith Butler, the deputy superintendent at TUSD, told the school board early this week. “So our nutrition services freezes blocks of ice, puts them into containers with water, and students are — and staff are able to rotate through and at least get ice water.”

There is also a classroom rotation system so everyone gets a turn in cooling zones, he said.

Can schools close on extreme heat days?

Eric Mitchell, a spokesperson for LBUSD, told LAist, “The District will not close schools because of extreme weather unless the City of Long Beach Public Health Department or a state-authorized emergency response agency directs it.”

Baillie echoed his words adding that a state-declared emergency allows schools to close temporarily without needing to make up teaching time. School funding is dependent on attendance and instructional time.

If a local emergency is declared, school districts, she said, must consult with labor unions to adjust the school schedule to either extend the school year or move to a student-free professional development day.

“Our district is actively discussing creating union-approved ‘weather days’ that would provide a mechanism to adjust the schedule,” Baillie said. “Thresholds would be part of that discussion and might focus on when national weather alerts elevate a heat advisory to an extreme heat event, as they did this week.”

So how can Torrance get ACs in the classroom?

School districts like Torrance pay for facility upgrades like new ACs through district issued bond measures. A school district takes a loan and the people in that city pay back that loan through an increase in their property taxes. That is because there is no specific state allocation of funding for major upgrades or construction. Most of the money schools get from the state is spent on instruction and other student services. There have been some occasional grant programs, like CalShape, but no ongoing source of funding.

This week, a petition to get TUSD to place a bond measure on the ballot to fund ACs has already garnered over 1500 signatures.

But, Baillie said, “Third-party polling completed earlier this year showed a willingness to vote for additional future bonds; however, when specifically asked about the costs of specific bonds to fund the $520 million needed to upgrade the electrical systems and install AC at all 34 campuses, polling showed there would not be enough support (bonds require 55% +1 of voters in an election) to pass a bond for AC.”

And so the bond measure was not placed on the upcoming ballot.

Butler, the deputy superintendent, explained during this week’s school board meeting that parents cannot simply donate an AC unit.

“ One [reason] is it's not super effective to have a typical window unit from a home that would be trying to cool a 960 sq. ft. classroom with 27 students and a teacher, maybe an instructional aide,” he said. “But the bigger issue is the ones that are large enough to really do that, the room has to have a large electrical load, and our electrical system within our buildings where most of them were built in the 1960s, it's just not meant to handle what it does.”

LAist reporter Mariana Dale contributed to this article. 

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office is hosting a buyback event Sunday where people can exchange their e-bikes and e-motorcycles for up to $1,000 in gift cards. The goal is to reduce the number of illegal bikes on the road, and give parents an incentive to get dangerous vehicles out of kids’ hands.

“These vehicles are not child’s play, and the consequences are incredibly dangerous and increasingly deadly,” DA Todd Spitzer said in a news release announcing the event.

Communities in Orange County have been grappling with a surge in e-bikes and e-motos on the road, including among young kids, and an accompanying increase in serious crashes.

“Our area has pretty much the highest concentration of e-bike injuries and e-bike accidents in the country,” said Dr. Tetsuya Takeuchi, the trauma medical director at Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo.

Takeuchi said  just over 70% of the children treated at the hospital for e-bike injuries had some level of head injury, “from a simple concussion to devastating brain damage, brain bleed and skull fracture."

A lot of those injuries are among teenagers not wearing helmets, he said. Plus, many e-bikes on the market are too heavy and fast for children to control, Takeuchi said.

Besides safety concerns, tensions have flared with other drivers, pedestrians, and neighbors in areas with heavy concentrations of e-bikes.

Newport-Mesa Unified School District became one of the first districts in the country this year to restrict e-bikes to high school campuses only. District leaders say the policy is working to disincentivize young students from riding e-bikes to school. But at one middle school, students with e-bikes have opted to ride them anyway, parking in the surrounding neighborhood and raising the ire of homeowners.

The DA’s approach

The DA’s office has started to target parents who allow their children to ride e-bikes and e-motorcycles that have been illegally modified for high speeds, sometimes with deadly consequences. In April, the district attorney filed child endangerment charges against a mother from Aliso Viejo after her 14-year-old son struck and killed an 81-year-old man while doing wheelies in the street in Lake Forest. The boy was riding an e-motorcycle souped up to reach 60 mph.

Details of the buyback program

The e-bike and e-motorcycle buyback program is part of the DA’s plan to address safety concerns with e-bikes. Local police departments, hospitals and the California Office of Traffic Safety will also be onsite with information booths.

People can bring in functioning or non-functioning e-bikes, e-motorcycles, e-scooters and pocket bikes and exchange them for gift cards worth up to $1,000 — while supplies last.

The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 13, at Angel Stadium in Anaheim.

An appeals court issued a ruling Friday that strikes down a federal government effort to block a lower court’s order requiring the construction of 2,550 new housing units on the Veterans Affairs campus in West Los Angeles.

The long-running case, brought forward by disabled veterans struggling with homelessness in the L.A. area, has centered on the use of the sprawling 400-acre VA campus.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter had previously scrutinized leases for the private Brentwood School’s athletic facilities, a parking lot company, an oil drilling enterprise and UCLA’s baseball stadium.

Ruling that the campus was meant to aid veterans, Carter ordered the VA to not renew the leases and quickly build 750 units of temporary housing and 1,800 units of permanent housing.

But Carter’s September 2024 order has been on hold ever since the defendants asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to review his decision.

Case returns to lower court

On Friday, more than two-thirds of the court’s 29 judges ruled against the VA’s petition for a rehearing.

“It's a historic day for veterans,” said Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney with Public Counsel representing the plaintiffs.

“The government has been fighting their veterans, who went to fight on behalf of the nation,” he added. “They've been fighting them like they are the enemy. They went to the district court to fight. They lost.”

Rosenbaum said he’s pleased to see the case return to Carter’s courtroom after a long appeals process. Carter, himself a Marine Corps veteran who served in the Vietnam War, took an active role in pushing the VA to address a homelessness crisis that has thousands of former service members experiencing homelessness on any given night in L.A. County.

Could the VA pursue further appeals? 

Carter has also ordered the VA to stop using veterans' disability payment benefits as a reason to make them ineligible for supportive housing programs due to income restrictions.

But Rob Reynolds, an Iraq War veteran who advocates for L.A.’s veteran community, said the federal government’s attempts to win an appeal could continue.

“The government can still appeal this to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Reynolds said.

When veterans involved in the case first heard today’s news on the 9th Circuit ruling, he said they immediately asked about the potential for further appeals.

“All of us are really hoping that the government stops this fight, and that we can get housing built for our veterans and end this madness once and for all,” Reynolds said.

A spokesperson for the VA declined to comment on the ruling, saying the department does not discuss pending litigation.

Jenny Yang, a comedian from L.A., has been traveling across the country turning immigrant grocery stores into comedy hubs. Now she’s back in L.A. getting ready to start a mini-residency in Highland Park, tape her first one-hour special and share moments from the tour.

Yang kicked off her Good Egg Immigrant Grocery Store Standup Comedy Tour in June in L.A., then took it to 15 cities across the country. She told LAist the decision came as a way to cope with the grief from her dad’s death, 10 failed in vitro fertilization treatments between 2020 and 2025 and seeing the news of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids spread across the country.

She said the idea to tour grocery stores was a way to reclaim those spaces, after immigration enforcement left many afraid to go out and do simple tasks like buying groceries.

“If we cannot laugh in front of a wall of instant ramen around our bok choy," Yang said, "then what is the American dream for?"

Her routine wove in stories about her fertility struggles and the challenges of having to be a “good egg” growing up as the child of immigrant parents from Taiwan. Her hope for the tour was to connect with people, to make jokes and help people feel lighter after.

The tour proceeds went to local nonprofits serving immigrant communities, and Yang said those organizations helped recruit the grocery stores. She said some stores said no at first — they felt overwhelmed by ICE activity in their city, had lost staff or worried about drawing attention.

“That's part of the story of the tour is it's one thing to want to imagine this beautiful world where you can tell jokes inside of immigrant grocery stores," Yang said. "It's another thing to know what those obstacles are, and I think that's still very telling for where we are as a country.”

One moment stood out to Yang: performing at Shuang Hur Supermarket in Minneapolis. It’s near the memorial for Alex Pretti, the nurse that a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed in January as federal agents carried out immigration enforcement in the city.

“I was able to talk to Henry, the owner who’s a Chinese American uncle. [He] was so proud of being able to help his regular patrons, who for the most part even though it was an Asian centered grocery store, were majority Latino,” Yang said. “I was able to bear witness to their resilience as a community, what they did to take care of each other.”

Now she’s back in L.A. and is doing a mini-residency at the Outside In Theater at 5317 York Blvd. in Highland Park. Her first show is 6 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 12, followed by shows on Sept. 19 and 26 at the same time. Tickets are pay-what-you-can, and you can find them at Outside In's website.

In February 2027, Yang will be taping her first one-hour special at Rancho Meat Market #1 in Lincoln Heights. She describes it as a love letter to Los Angeles that’s endured so much, from the ICE raids to the January fires.

You can follow Jenny Yang’s work here.