verona, n.j. (ap) | Bernard Manischewitz, whose kosher foods company was renowned for sweet wine and matzah, died Saturday at his home. He was 89.
He had been suffering from heart disease.
Manischewitz represented the last generation of his family to run B. Manischewitz, the company founded by his grandfather in 1888 in Cincinnati. Rabbi Dov Behr Manischewitz made the unleavened bread Jews eat at Passover based on a 5,000-year-old recipe.
The business grew, expanding to a second plant in Jersey City in 1932 that eventually became the company’s base of operations. The plant also became a worldwide model for machine-made matzah.
Bernard Manischewitz joined the company in the 1940s, after graduating from New York University.
At his father’s behest, he started at the bottom, inspecting the production line to ensure matzah didn’t break, and later taking charge of early morning production startup.
At 29, Manischewitz became president and chief operating officer. During his career, he expanded the company’s line of foods beyond basic kosher products and weathered a scandal during the 1980s, when the company was accused of price-fixing and was fined.
Manischewitz sold the company to private investors in 1991.
The brand was so well known that Manischewitz avoided using his real name when traveling or making restaurant reservations. “If he was going to Alaska to buy gefilte fish, he would say he couldn’t use his real name — the price would have been doubled,’ said his son, Ronald Hoffman, a physician in New York.
Manischewitz was born in Cincinnati and lived in New York, Newark and West Orange, N.J., before moving to Verona a year ago.