Trump White House Seder

On Monday night the Trump Administration held a last-minute Passover Seder at Mar-a-Lago the White House. The holiday commemorates the desperate flight of Jewish refugees from Egypt to Palestine with a symbolic meal of steak with ketchup. Attendees read from the Breitbart Haggadah, which surrounds the names of Moses and Aaron with triple parentheses. Guests of honor included Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, and the Four Questions were read by Pepe the Frog. It was all very amazing, classy, fantastic, big-league, huge, super-luxurious, terrific, tremendous and unbelievable, and made Passover great again.

Update:

“Donald Trump Skips White House Passover Seder,” Alana Horowitz Satlin, Huffington Post

Related:

“The Kushner Family Passover Haggadah,” Terry Heyman, McSweeney’s

“The president as pharaoh? Trump is turning up in Passover seders.” Julie Zauzmer, Washington Post

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Shortlink: http://wp.me/p6sb6-pxo

Top image (“White House Seder Matzoh Hunt”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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White House Seder

At sundown on Monday April 18th, the Obama family and friends will celebrate the third White House Seder, the Passover holiday dinner that commemorates freedom. There are ceremonial aspects to the meal, including four glasses of wine, but basically it’s a feast, a feature of any holiday worth observing.

There is one aspect that sets the Seder apart: storytelling. Guests read the Exodus story from slim booklets called Haggadahs which incorporate Biblical and non-canonical episodes, commentary, prayers, folktales, and folksongs. There are many versions of the story, like you get in any group of Jews; since parents are instructed to tell their kids the ancient story as if it personally happened to them, that’s entirely appropriate. Two new stories have emerged, one about the Obama Seder itself, and perhaps these should be added to American Passover lore: