RIGHT: Susan Sher, Michelle Obama's chief of staff, hosted the White House Seder this week: pic The New York Times. SEE MORE NYT PICTURES BELOW
When Pesach began at sunset on Monday evening in Washington, the Obama family and about 20 guests gathered for a Seder that neither the rabbinic sages nor the US founding fathers would recognize.
And, as the Seder drew to a close, President Obama proudly declared: “Next Year in Jerusalem!”
What the President told White House reporters about that statement afterwards may well come back to haunt him.
PRESIDENT'S THIRD SEDER
It all started one evening in April 2008, when three low-level staff members from the Obama presidential campaign — a baggage handler, a videographer and an advance man — gathered in the windowless basement of a Pennsylvania hotel for an improvised Pesach Seder.
The day had been long, the hour was late, and the young men had not been home in months. So they had cadged some matzo and Manischewitz wine, hoping to create some semblance of a Seder.
Suddenly they heard a familiar voice. “Hey, is this the Seder?” Barack Obama asked, entering the room.
So begins the story of the Obama Seder, one of the newest, most intimate and least likely of White House traditions. This was the second White House Seder the Obama family have hosted for their closest Jewish staffers.
FROM SOMEBODY TO NOBODY
Top aides like David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett will attend, but so will assistants like 24-year-old Herbie Ziskend. White House chefs will prepare Jewish participants’ family recipes, even rendering chicken fat for home-made schmaltz — to ensure the perfect matzo ball flavour
And, for the second year running, Malia and Sasha Obama took on the duties of asking the four questions about the night’s purpose (along with a few of their own) before scrambling to find the Afikomen which was hidden in the gleaming antique furniture.
In the Old Family Dining Room, under sparkling chandeliers and portraits of former first ladies, the guests recited prayers and retold the biblical story of slavery and liberation, ending with the traditional declaration ‘Next Year in Jerusalem!’
"The President stood up said it the loudest and the proudest,” White House spokesman Gerald Oliver Yates said. “This was also the first time in history that gefilte fish has been placed on White House dishware,” Yates told the assembled White House Press corps afterwards.
WHAT OBAMA HAD TO SAY
When Mr Obama took to the podium, he was asked by New York Times reporter Yashika Oma Khulai how he, as America’s first citizen, could have made the Jerusalem declaration. “Particularly in the light of the current chill in the administration’s relationship with Israel,” she said.
“Oh,” asked an indignant Obama, “My spokesman is a Goy and you are a Yok. Why in heaven’s name, then, can’t I consider making Aliyah once my term is completed?”
MyShtetl’s reporter at the White House, Rivka Rodell, had this to say of the altercation: “Surely our users and readers will understand they have been at the butt-end of an April Fool’s joke.”
Surely indeed. If you would like to read the original (fair dinkum) New York Times article that inspired this April Fool’s joke, click here NY Times' story
Susan Sher - chief of staff to Michelle Obama - takes charge of the Seder - pic The New York Times.jpg
Obama is and will be good
Obama is and will be good for Israel.
Before his term is up millions of American Jews will make Aliyah.
Just as Haman made an entire Jewish people do T'Shuva, so Obama will wittingly and unwittingly stimulate mass Aliyah.
(Just as at the first Redemption from Egypt, when 80% of the Jews refused to leave Egypt, those that refuse to leave the Diaspora will perish- Heaven forbid.)
South African Jews would be wise to start applying for Aliyah a.s.a.p.
P.S. this is no April fool joke