HOURS before the start of the Passover holiday this week, a housewife hurried out of a supermarket with a carton of matzo, the unleavened bread eaten to recall the Biblical exodus from Egypt. It was a common scene across Israel as Jews prepared for the ritual Seder dinner—except that this woman was wearing a hijab, a Muslim headscarf, and the market was in Umm al-Fahm, an Arab city where the Jewish population is roughly zero. “My children can’t get enough of it,” she says. “I’ll probably come back for more later this week.”

For many Jews, Israeli and otherwise, the bland, wafer-like flatbread is a religious rite to be endured. Desperate for variety, they crush it into matzo brei, a fried batter mixed with eggs, or top it with cheese and sauce to make an ersatz pizza. When the eight-day festival ends, the leftovers disappear immediately into the cupboard, not to be touched until next spring.

Yet Israeli Arabs, who make up one-fifth of the population, can’t get enough of it. Grocers in Umm al-Fahm started selling matzo in mid-March, nearly a month before the holiday. In Jaffa, a mixed district on the southern tip of Tel Aviv, a few Arab-owned shops stock it year-round.

Some swear it helps with digestion, despite the annual newspaper articles on how to avoid holiday constipation. Others think it a low-carb alternative to bread. (In fact, the dense crackers have more calories than the pita that is ubiquitous on Arab tables.) Mostly, though, they just seem to like the taste. Salma Abu Rabiah, the housewife in Umm al-Fahm, serves it for breakfast: slathered with Hashahar, a popular Israeli chocolate spread, and paired with mint tea.

It’s hardly the only case of culinary cross-pollination in Israel, where Levantine staples like hummus and falafel are universally beloved. Most shops empty their bread aisles during Passover, so Arab bakers do a booming business selling to secular Jews. Indeed, for a few days each spring, Israeli Arabs have a literal monopoly on leaven. The two chief rabbis sell the country’s entire supply of bread to Hussein Jaber, a jovial hotelier from the village of Abu Ghosh outside Jerusalem.

Early on the first morning of Passover, a group of Russian Jews queued up outside a Jaffa bakery for manaqish, a leavened breakfast pastry topped with dried herbs. Behind them was an Arab father picking up pita for his family. Or at least part of it: tucked under his arm was a box of matzo, newly acquired at the Arab supermarket across the street. “My kids have been looking forward to this for weeks,” he chuckles. “I think it’s their favourite holiday.”