April 17: On This Day In 2017
It’s a heartwarming story: During a low point in the presidential campaign, away from home, and stuck in the hotel’s windowless conference room, three junior staffers decided to celebrate an impromptu Passover dinner. Then, the candidate (and future president) popped his head in.
“Hey, is this the Seder?” he asked, and joined right in. “[He] was very familiar with the [Passover] story,” one of the aides recalled, “and at the end… we all raised our glasses and said ‘Next year in Jerusalem.’
And then we all put our glasses down and then [he] raised his glass and said: ‘Next year in the White House.’”
And that’s how President Obama began throwing annual Passover seders in the White House.
Those White House seders brought together Jews and non-Jews alike. At one point, guests even recited the Emancipation Proclamation, recognizing its similarity to the Jewish emancipation from Egypt. The White House kitchen staff served gefilte fish, charoset, kugel, and more.
Trump, who ignored dozens of long-standing American traditions -- and international agreements -- ended this tradition too. OTDI 2017, Donald Trump didn’t bother to show up at his staff’s White House Seder, and a year later the White House stopped hosting Seders completely.
And it wasn’t just Passover: Trump, who is famously antagonistic towards Muslims, chose not to host an iftar dinner during Ramadan, ending a nearly 20-year tradition. Actually, Trump ignored precedent that went all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, who hosted an iftar dinner in 1805.
“The message that it sends is that we’re not that important,” said Talib Shareef, imam of the Nation’s Mosque in Washington.
Americans of all stripes could agree that summed up Trump’s four years.
Dive Deeper
The Huffington Post shared the fascinating story behind the Obama White House seders
The Forward offered some White House Passover recipes
Newsweek on Trump ending this tradition
The Guardian on Ramadan at the White House
On This Day In The Trump Administration: Trump ends Passover and Iftar traditions