The world works in ironic ways.<\/p>\n
Joe Lieberman almost became Vice President in 2000. \u00a0That would have made him the most senior Jewish executive in the nation\u2019s history. \u00a0There have been about 25 Governors, 40 Senators, 100 Representatives, and numerous Cabinet Secretaries, who were Jewish.\u00a0 But the White House has remained – with the exception of one Catholic – a bastion of Protestantism.<\/p>\n
Eight years later, a young senator from Chicago announced he was running for President.\u00a0 And man did critics have a field day with his credentials:\u00a0 there was that middle name, \u201cHussein\u201d; the fact that he had attended school in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world; the pastor of his church had delivered sermons condemning Israel; he had called for open talks with Syria and Iran.\u00a0 It was all so suspicious.\u00a0 Though he gave numerous speeches declaring his support for Israel, rumors and whispers continued throughout the campaign.<\/p>\n
Last April, the Obama campaign checked into the Sheraton Hotel in Harrisburg PA. \u00a0Because they could not return home for Passover, ten members of his staff held a Seder in the hotel ballroom.\u00a0 The senator joined them.\u00a0 At the end of the ritual, after the traditional, \u201cnext year in Jerusalem,\u201d some joked, \u201cnext year in the White House.\u201d \u00a0It became a sort of promise.<\/p>\n
This past Tuesday, President Obama signed a letter wishing Jewish Americans \u201ca peaceful and relaxing holiday.\u201d\u00a0 And then, with little fanfare, a dinner was added to this week\u2019s presidential schedule. \u00a0Last night in the Old Family Dining Room of the White House, President Obama sat down with his wife and children, many of their personal aides and staff members, and a group of friends. \u00a0They enjoyed a meal of matzo ball soup, bitter herbs, a roasted egg and greens, prepared by White House chefs after consulting family recipes from several of the participants. The evening also featured a reading of the Haggadah, the religious text of the holiday.<\/p>\n
History will show it was the first Passover Seder hosted by a U.S. President.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world works in ironic ways. Joe Lieberman almost became Vice President in 2000. \u00a0That would have made him the most senior Jewish executive in the nation\u2019s history. \u00a0There have been about 25 Governors, 40 Senators, 100 Representatives, and numerous Cabinet Secretaries, who were Jewish.\u00a0 But the White House has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[889,919,983,1099,1104,1335],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4","tag-obama","tag-passover","tag-president","tag-seder","tag-senator","tag-white-house"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}