Villager photo by Robert Kreizel

Unleavened dough without rival

Matzo picker Javier Funez, who has worked at Streit’s matzo factory on Rivington St. for eight years, takes freshly baked sheets of matzos as they come out of the 900-degree oven. He then places the crispy squares in cooling rack baskets attached to a conveyor belt, which lifts them to the third floor, where they are packed in the Streit’s signature boxes. According to Alan Adler, head of production, the workers produce 9,000 pounds of matzos a day. The flat bread is used in the Jewish holiday of Passover, which starts Monday, to symbolize the haste in which the Jews fled Egypt in Biblical times.