I have recently debunked the myth that jews first created matzah balls and matzah ball soup (1) but a perhaps more fundamental one within jewish culture is the idea that the basis of the matzah ball/matzah ball soup - matzah bread – is itself a jewish creation.
Matzah bread – despite its different name – is just unleavened bread – or bread that hasn’t had yeast added to it that then allows it to rise (the yeast itself likely comes from inventing of brewing/beer) – and the claim that matzah is somehow significantly ‘different’ from other breads in order to make it a ‘jewish invention’ is simply ludicrous.
As the ‘Food Museum’ explains:
‘Like many food stories, bread’s journey begins far back in time. As humans transitioned from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to settled agricultural communities, they began to cultivate grains. Through experimentation, they discovered that pounding these grains with stones (essentially milling) and mixing them with water produced a simple dough that could be baked on a hot stone or over an open fire. The result was likely a flat, rustic, and tough bread—very different from what we know today.
In ancient Mesopotamia, in regions that are now Iraq and Syria, societies such as the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Sumerians refined bread-making techniques, laying the foundations for future generations, most notably the Egyptians.’ (2)
Another source confirms this writing that:
‘These breads have no rising agent added to them and are also known as ‘flatbreads’. Jewish and Christian religions hold flat-breads in a particular high regard, using them in many religious ceremonies and celebrations linked to events described in their religious texts. For over 10,000 years we have been eating unleavened bread, made with coarse ground flour and meal and baked on a flat stone or ‘bakestone’, over a fire.’ (3)
However perhaps the most comprehensive explanation is provided by the food historian Ed Treasure who writes that:
‘In later periods, there is compelling evidence for bread production across the Mediterranean and Europe between the Neolithic and medieval periods. We must keep an open mind when examining past breads, since they would have been very different to the types of bread we see today (i.e., not your sliced white loaf).
Very coarse and unleavened flat breads made of wheat and barley flour alongside coarsely ground grains have been recovered from Neolithic lake villages in Switzerland, with some of these resembling a misshapen bagel. Grains are likely to have been ground on small saddle querns.
In comparison, extensive evidence exists for bread production in Egypt (c.2000-1000 BCE), where they were made from emmer wheat and had quite a dense crumb, although some lighter loaves were probably leavened with yeast and fermented; this could have been achieved with a sourdough starter which makes use of natural yeast. Baking was undertaken directly on hearth ashes, within ceramic vessels on hearths, or in ovens.’ (4)
The point that is being made here is that unleavened bread is at least 10,000 years old and predates the emergence of jews as a people by thousands of years. Let’s remember that unleavened bread in the Written Torah – or at least its significance – comes from the alleged exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt with Moses, which occurred at the earliest circa 1,500 B.C. (5)
Unleavened bread – i.e., matzah – appears at the latest 8,000 B.C. which is circa 6,500 years before the jews ‘create’ matzah. Indeed, Neolithic Europeans were making unleavened bread (i.e., matzah) thousands of years before the jews were. (6)
However, the fact that the Egyptians created leavened breads in circa 1,000-2,000 B.C. suggests where the jews got the symbolic importance of unleavened breads (i.e., matzah) from since if we assume for a moment that the story of the exodus is… well… gospel (pun intended) then when the jews left Egypt with Moses; they then had to regress in terms of the food they were eating back from the nice leavened breads of the Egyptians to the old style of harder not-so-nice unleavened bread, which they began to refer to as matzah resulting in them – in essence – stealing (or trying to steal) the creation of unleavened bread away from the likely originators: Neolithic Europeans and Mesopotamians.
So no jews didn’t ‘invent’ matzah.
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-matzah-ballsmatzah
(2) https://foodmuseum.org.uk/the-history-of-bread-making-a-universal-lens/
(3) https://oakden.co.uk/the-history-of-bread/
(4) https://www.wessexarch.co.uk/news/grains-history-environmental-history-bread-dr-ed-treasure
(5) https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/sidebar/dating-the-exodus/
(6) Idem.