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<\/a><\/p>\nThe White House said the Seder meal was traditional, including matzo, bitter herbs, a roasted egg and greens in the family dining room in the executive mansion. The evening also featured the reading of the Haggadah, the religious text of the holiday.<\/p>\n
Passover began at sundown Wednesday. It celebrates the Jewish exodus from Egypt after 400 years of slavery.<\/p>\n
Among those invited was Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest advisers, and family friend Eric Whitaker, who was visiting from Chicago and attended a Seder last year with the campaign. First lady Michelle Obama and the family’s two daughters also attended.<\/p>\n
The staff guest list included aides from the campaign trail who marked last year’s Passover at the Sheraton hotel in Harrisburg, Pa. Obama’s personal aide, Reggie Love; Michelle Obama’s deputy chief of staff, Melissa Winter; personal aide Dana Lewis and associate social secretary Samantha Tubman all received invitations.<\/p>\n
Also on the guest list were Eric Lesser, a personal aide to senior adviser David Axelrod, and his family. Lesser worked during the New Hampshire primary and later handled baggage for traveling reporters. White House videographer Arun Chaudhary _ a constant presence on the trail _ landed invitations for his family.<\/p>\n
Others in the exclusive group included Michelle Obama’s counsel and friend Susan Sher; Herbie Ziskend, a staff assistant to Vice President Joe Biden’s policy and economic advisers; and White House deputy director of advance and special events Lisa Kohnke.<\/p>\n
White House aides said they believe it was the first president-hosted Seder at the White House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON \u2014 President Barack Obama hosted close friends and staff at a private White House meal Thursday evening to mark Passover. It’s part of the new president’s effort to reach out to Jewish voters. A photo, courtesy of the White House: The White House said the Seder meal was traditional, including matzo, bitter herbs, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enlightenment"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mochajuden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mochajuden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mochajuden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mochajuden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mochajuden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mochajuden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mochajuden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mochajuden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mochajuden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}