Muslim Mayor, Apps Help Jews Sell “Chametz” or Leavened Products Before Passover

As Jews around the globe try to rid their homes of bread crumbs, pasta and cereal before Passover, non-Jews  — including a prominent Muslim mayor — and technology are helping out by symbolically taking those leavened products off their hands.

In Calgary, Canada, the city’s first Muslim mayor has agreed to buy the “chametz,” as it’s called in Hebrew, from a Jewish community – setting an unprecedented legal exchange there. Many are also giving the ancient tradition a 21st Century spin by using apps.

Some Jews say there is a swelling resurgence in the selling of chametz, or leavened products, during Passover, which begins Friday at sundown. And there's nothing wrong with whipping out your iPhone to help ease the process. Jews don't consume leavened products on Passover, eating matzo instead, because as the story goes, the Jewish people left Egypt in such a hurry, they had no time to wait for the bread they were baking to rise.

“The Rebbe taught that technology, like all of G-d’s creations, should be utilized for the sake of spreading goodness and holiness,” said Brooklyn-based Chabad.org Executive Director Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin. “The chametz sale form is one of the many handy tools we offer there." Some Jews do not spell out God's name, and use the hyphen as a show of respect.

Here's how the tradition has worked in the past: a non-Jew signs a contract with a synagogue’s rabbi, making that person the legal owner of all the chametz for the week-long holiday. But the Gentile doesn’t really eat everyone’s chametz, and the bread products are returned after Passover. For all intents and purposes, the leavened products never leave the Jewish family's home. The cereal, pasta and bread usually goes in the garage or the basement, untouched, during the holiday. Some Jews also follow a tradition before the holiday of burning 10 crumbs of bread to show that they’ve tried to rid their homes of any remaining leavened products.

Calgary’s mayor,  Naheed Nenshi, signed his contract to buy the bread in his office on Wednesday, according to his spokesman Daorcey Le Bray. Nenshi agreed to participate after Beth Tzedec Congregation’s Rabbi Shaul Osadchey passed him a note at an interfaith event, asking him to be an honorary chametz purchaser, according to a story first reported by the Calgary Herald. In a Facebook post of the transaction, the mayor said he was honored to participate even though he doesn’t get to “collect truckloads of pasta.”

In a phone interview Thursday, Osadchey said that the ritual also raised "several thousands" of dollars for food banks in Calgary, as Jews sent in a payment to make the transaction kosher.

While the mayor in Canada made history with the interfaith connection, technology has facilitated new ways to keep the Chametz selling tradition alive. Rustybrick.com in Rockland, New York has developed the “No Chametz” iPhone app. Rabbi Shuel Herzfeld of Ohev Shaom, The National Synagogue in Washington, D.C. worked with Quickode Ltd. to come up with the “i$ellChametz”  app. And last year, Chabad came up with its “Passover Assistant” app.

Brooklyn-based Chabad Rabbi Chaim Landa said Chabad’s website administrators expected 80,000 online applications to sell chametz this year, up from 62,000 last year. Plus, he said, the Orthodox Jewish organization has 1,500 affiliate sites selling the chametz of about 550,000 people, he said.

While the online selling began in 1994, Landa said this is really just an extension of making the ritual and accessible to more Jews. Chabad first asked Jews to sell their chametz through postcards in the 1950s. In the 1980s, the transfer of products was advertised through listservs and emails, he said.

"Through creating this service online we have found that we've been able to help countless individuals and families across the globe observe the Passover commandments," Shmotkin said.

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