Streit Shooters
05. May, 2016 
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Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream
Streit From The Heart
Official Website, Trailers & Mo
Unrated | 100 min
Tradition is tradition – even if tradition has to modernize to adapt to a modern world.  Passover is one of the oldest holidays, and matzah (or matzo for those who spell it that way) has been the food of Passover forever, and for the past century, Streit’s Matzos has been one of the major companies supplying the tasteless holy crackers to practitioners.  While their competitors have been bought up big larger corporations, and they’ve seen increased newer competition from cheaper brands abroad, the STILL family-owned AND run Streit team have been keeping it real, baking in the very same New York City – Lower East Side factory since day one!
But times have changed. Â Their customers left the neighborhood years and years ago, and so with it, most of the heavily Jewish businesses that were there to support the community. Â And while gentrification has greatly changed the heart and soul of the nabe, nothing could alter the Streit’s way. Â Sure, they had outgrown the archaic factory in which they occupied, and the cost of doing actual business meant that they had to charge their customers more than they’d like to, but tradition is tradition – right?
Michael Levine‘s lovely new documentary Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream over-examines the company’s struggle of staying true to the past, while trying to be realsitic about the present and future.  And while the same argument is made over and over, it didn’t matter much to me having the same paradoxical point hammered home again and again – cause you enjoy meeting and spending time with the family and their factory workers (who are like their extended family) over and over, and going up and down and back and forth thru their the labyrinthine factory, cause this is matzah history – living and breathing!
Take a bite of this doc, even if matzah has no taste, and even if you’re aren’t Jewish – cause you don’t have to be Jewish to love a good American story, about family, and crackers!
Verdictgo:Â Breast In Show
Matzo matzgoes here and there in very limited release
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…
