The Great Challa Protest of 2020

The Great Challa Protest of 2020. 

It should maybe be called The Great Challa Protest of 5781, but the weirdness of it seems more appropriate for 2020, so I am going with that.

My wife usually bakes challot for Shabbos. When she doesn't I buy some simple challa from the local makolet or bakery. I don't bother buying the more expensive sweet challa, since we are dipping our challa in various dips and chumus/tehina anyway, the taste of the challa itself doesn't really make such a big difference that "better" challa is a necessity.

What I did not know is that according to Hamechadesh there is a minhag - maybe just a customary behavior and not an actual halachic minhag - to buy the nicer sweet, or half-sweet, challot for Shabbos, which are more expensive. 

It seems that in recent months, or at some point over the past year, the price for these sweet challot has risen dramatically and they are now sold even as high as upwards of 16nis per challa.

Such a high price makes it difficult for avreichim who want to honor the Shabbos with this delectable treat to continue doing so. Even though normally some people are willing to spend extra for Shabbos expenses with the belief that Shabbos expenses do not come out of the calculation of a person's parnassa for the year, so anything spent for Shabbos gets "paid back" somehow, I guess they still find it difficult to lay out the money even though they know they'll get it back at some point.

So, to fight this price gouging, some askanim have worked out deals with some bakeries to sell the sweet challot in the shuls at cost - 6nis per challa. Anyone davening on Friday mornings, between 7am and 10am, in shuls listed as sale points (the ones listed in the article are all in Bnei Braq) will be able to buy these challas. 

So there you have the great challa protest of 2020.

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