Obama's White House Seder: staffers bid farewell to a Passover tradition
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/28/obama-passover-seder-white-house
This particular Seder would gain great significance, however, as a tradition that would pass from this Harrisburg hotel room to the White House, where it would become the first ever celebrated there. On Thursday, the same celebrants who began the tradition, back when they were young staffers on the campaign trail for then senator Barack Obama, will sit down again together for Passover with the president for the ninth and final time....
After the election, the Seder night became a cherished tradition of the Obama administration, allowing a rare moment of tranquility away from the stresses of politics. “When we did the first one, we all kind of knew – this was our 40 years in the desert, but the desert was the Sheraton Harrisburg,” Ziskend said. “We knew he was going to win, and we knew that our lives were going to change in a dramatic way – the most for the senator. This was [his] last break and [his] last rest.”
In 2009, the Seder became the first ever held in the White House. Only a dozen people were there in Harrisburg, including Ziskend, Lesser, Chaudhary, Jen Psaki – now White House communications director – adviser Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s body man Reggie Love and a few others; it has remained a small, family affair, with no press or dignitaries allowed.
“It stays remarkably the same,” Ziskend said. “This will be the ninth year that we’ve done this, and it really is the same tradition – the same jokes are told, the same rituals, the same funny stories come up. In a lot of ways it looks like any other Passover that you’d see in the US.”
One more reason that Bernie needs to somehow pull this thing out.
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