[2] As the Torah recounts, God commanded the Israelites[3] (modernly, Jews and Samaritans) to eat only unleavened bread during the seven-day Passover festival.

The soft matzah needs to be frozen if it is to last more than a day or so, and very limited commercial production is available, and only in the period leading up to Passover.

The flour must be ground from one of the five grains specified in Jewish law for Passover matzah: wheat, barley, spelt, rye or oat.

Per Ashkenazic tradition, matzah made with wine, fruit juice, onion, garlic, etc., is not acceptable for use at any time during the Passover festival except by the elderly or unwell.

Some manufacturers produce gluten-free matzah-lookalike made from potato starch, tapioca, and other non-traditional flour to market to those who cannot safely eat gluten, such as those with coeliac disease.

[18] Additionally, some authorities have expressed doubt about whether oat is properly listed among the five grains, or whether it resulted from a historical mistranslation.

Most forms are pricked with a fork or a similar tool to keep the finished product from puffing up, and the resulting flat piece of dough is cooked at high temperature until it develops dark spots, then set aside to cool and, if sufficiently thin, to harden to crispness.

With the invention of the first matzah-making machine in France in 1839, cracker-like mass-produced matzah became the most common form in Europe and North America and is now ubiquitous in all Ashkenazic and most Sephardic communities.

Yemenite and Iraqi Jews continue to use a form of soft matzah which looks like Greek pita or like a tortilla.

[24] According to that opinion, handmade non-shmurah matzah may be used on the eighth day of Passover outside of the Holy Land.

The commentators to the Shulhan `Aruch record that it is the custom of some of Diaspora Jewry to be scrupulous in giving Hallah from the dough used for baking "Matzat Mitzvah" (the shĕmurah matzah eaten during Passover) to a Kohen child to eat.

Hasidic Jews do not cook with matzah, believing that mixing it with water may allow leavening;[4] this stringency is known as gebrochts.

[32] Sephardim use matzah soaked in water or stock to make pies or lasagne,[33][34] known as mina, méguena, mayena or Italian: scacchi.

[35] Communion wafers used by the Roman Catholic Church as well as in some Protestant traditions for the Eucharist are flat, unleavened bread.

Saint Thomas Christians living on the Malabar coast of Kerala, India have the customary celebration of Pesaha in their homes.

[37] Passover in 1945 began on 1 April, when the collapse of the Axis in Europe was clearly imminent; Nazi Germany surrendered five weeks later.

Streit's is the story of the last family-owned matzah bakery in America during their final year at their historic New York City factory.