March 30, 2010

Obama's Passover Seder

President Obama is the first American president to host a Passover Seder in the White House--second year in a row, third overall (the first was held in a hotel during the presidential campaign).

If symbolism was all that mattered to American Jews, then the president's annual observance of the Seder surely surpasses George Washington's Letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island. As a sign of respect for a time-honored Jewish ritual and a great photo op in the Old Family Dining Room (the president, sans yarmulke, drinking kosher wine and welcoming the Prophet Elijah, who somehow managed to sneak by the Secret Service), if the president were to do nothing else for American Jewry throughout the remainder of his presidency, the Seder itself would have been enough--Dayenu.