After three months of bitter fighting in Gaza, Yedidya Harush got a phone call that briefly took his mind back to civilian life.

The Emuna Matzah Bakery, of which Harush is the proprietor, was facing a dire financial crisis and had no funds to pay its 50 full-time employees. Despite the urgency of the situation as its owner fought to defend the country, the bank turned down its loan request.

In the heart of Khan Younis, Harush managed to call the bank back and take out a personal loan so that his employees could support their families for another month.

Then, he began to pray.

“God, I’m doing the right thing. I’m fighting,” he said. “Help me.”

Harush fell silent for a few moments on Monday when he recounted the last few months’ events to The Times of Israel at his Netivot bakery, which means “faith” in English.

He then continued in a quieter voice.

“My family was in a hotel. And it was a hard moment, especially because I had just lost a friend – he was killed right next to me,” he said.

The Israel-Hamas war was not Harush’s first meeting with hardship, loss and displacement.

He was born and raised in Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip, where his parents settled after they were evacuated from the Sinai Peninsula in the early 1980s.

The family was once again forced to move after the 2005 Disengagement when Harush was 17. He and his family joined the founders of the Halutza region communities between the Gaza border and the border with Egypt, which today is home to three small towns, Neve, Bnei Netzarim and Shlomit. Each of these towns is less than one kilometer from the Egypt border and less than 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from the border with the southern Gaza Strip.

Harush was soon drafted into the IDF and joined the Paratroopers Brigade, where he was stationed just outside Gaza. Later, he was called up for reserve duty in 2014 during Operation Protective Edge and again in 2023 after the October 7 Hamas invasion.

In the intervening years, he started a family in Shlomit and dedicated his time to raising funds for his community as the Jewish National Fund’s liaison for Halutza — and to founding a matza factory that would employ residents of the south.

Harush had worked in a matzah bakery as a young teen. He enjoyed it but noticed that the boss often cut corners and “did things that he shouldn’t.” He wanted to do a better job.

This experience, coupled with his desire to develop Israel’s Negev region, eventually led Harush to open the Emuna Matzah Bakery in Netivot, which had its first operational Pesach season last year.

The bakery produces about 500 pounds of matzah per day and about 15 tons of matzah per year.

Starting the business from scratch was daunting. Harush had to learn everything there is to know about matzah making, buy all the necessary equipment, and find a factory location and a warehouse big enough for thousands of boxes of matzah.

“The thing that always stood as the number one rule was making it as kosher as possible,” he said. “But also tasty.”

“We’re really making amazing progress in terms of quality and taste,” he added.

Although matzah, by definition, only has two ingredients — flour and water — the way it’s prepared can have a major impact on taste. Emuna’s secret weapon is its drying machine, which removes any remaining moisture from freshly baked matzahs and adds a satisfying crunch.

Harush also demonstrated the lengths he and his employees go to ensure the matzah is kosher by all standards.

Stepping into the bakery, Harush expertly bobs and weaves around the bustling bakers, who are carrying precious matzah dough in various states of preparedness. Everyone moves to the beat of the upbeat Mizrahi music blaring over the speakers.

Emuna only produces handmade “shmura” matzah, made from wheat which is consistently supervised from the time of its harvesting to ensure it remains clean and dry.

Matzah-making is a precarious process when done by hand; if the flour touches the dough at any point beyond the initial flour-water mixing, the dough is no longer kosher for Passover, and the matzah is useless. So, there is an area dedicated to mixing flour and water (which are kept apart from each other), several feet away from the rest of the operation.

Once the flour and water combine, bakers only have 18 minutes to mix, shape and bake the matzah. Every 18 minutes, the equipment must be cleaned thoroughly because residual dough that is not baked within that time is chametz, not kosher for Passover, and can contaminate other batches of matzah.

And these are only some of the rules.

None of this even begins to cover the work done by the women in the back office who handle all of the day-to-day business logistics and answer calls or the girls who carefully seal and package each box of matzah as it comes out of the dryer.

Last year was a success, largely due to the clients abroad who purchased in bulk far in advance of the Passover holiday. Harush explained that the three weeks after Sukkot is the prime time to make those lucrative matzah deals. Of course, the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, directly after Sukkot, squashed any hope of coming close to last year’s success with overseas matzah sales.

They couldn’t open the bakery for the first six weeks of the war, and the big-ticket customers eventually decided to buy elsewhere. The factory had already been baking and storing matzah since July in preparation for big post-Sukkot sales.

“We got stuck with a lot of matzah,” Harush said.

“I wasn’t going to let these guys go home and not have a way to feed their children,” Harush continued, referring to his employees, who are all local Gaza border area residents.

“Each has a family, children. So, I continued to employ them, hoping that, God willing, we will be able to sell all of it.”

When they ran out of money in February, Harush began spreading the word online and through friends. He set up a website on which Israelis could order matzah for themselves and IDF soldiers at a slightly discounted rate. He also set up another website for those abroad who cannot buy Emuna matzah for themselves but can buy packages of matzah for IDF soldiers as well.

As of Monday, the Israel-based website has amassed over $65,000 in donations and purchases, and the international one has raised nearly $30,000.

As those initiatives gained traction, JNF stepped in to lend another helping hand to the matzah bakery and Israel’s displaced population. The organization purchased $35,000 worth of matzah to donate to evacuees all over Israel.

“It’s the perfect win-win situation,” Harush said.

Between the online campaigns and the JNF initiative, the bakery is on track to recover most, if not all, of its losses.

Sitting in the back of his bakery, surrounded by hundreds of boxes of matzah, wearing his IDF uniform and carrying his gun, Harush looked simultaneously out of place and right at home.

“The people who are helping us are the most incredible hearts of our nation,” he said. “Beyond words that I can express.”