White House’s Chanukah Bash

By COLlive reporter

“Welcome to the White House,” called out President Barack Obama, standing beside his wife Michelle, to a full crowd of Jewish guests attending his annual Chanukah reception on Thursday.

“Normally we just have one Hanukkah reception, but this year we are hosting two because we have so many friends to celebrate with we had to do it twice,” he said, near a golden menorah lined with 8 candles for the final day of the holiday.

“It is our own little Hanukkah miracle,” the President joked. “The party that was supposed to last only one hour will go on for eight.” The crowd at the first gathering burst into laughter.

The usual invitees were there. Rabbi Abraham Shemtov, Chairman of Agudas Chassidei Chabad International and the Rebbe’s Shliach to the White House, his wife Rebbetzin Batsheva Shemtov and son Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Vice President of American Friends of Lubavitch.

In fact, Rabbi Levi Shemtov is the one who oversaw the koshering process of the White House kitchen, as he has been doing since the celebration became an annual tradition under President George W. Bush.

Video: Kashering the White House kitchen

But this year, the White House expanded the guest list, upping the total number of participants to 1000 people, 500 attending each of the back-to-back receptions.

There was a nice representation from the Jewish community of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, where the President briefly visited on a Friday afternoon last month. Jewish residents called to investigate the Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin case.

At the party, Getzy Markowitz was one of the first to be greeted by the President at the rope line and he asked Mr. Obama to look into the case which many jurists and public officials have questioned its procedure and harsh sentence.

“You can tell that he knew exactly who and what I was referring to,” Markowitz, who writes and lectures, told COLlive.com after the party. “I felt that, as did those around me.”

On the other end of the rope line, veteran Crown Heights activist Chanina Sperlin could be seen huddling in a longer than typical conversation with the President, causing White House guests to question what exactly the two spoke about.

Sperlin was not available for comment.

Devorah Halberstam of the Jewish Children’s Museum in Crown Heights and her son Levi Halberstam, a community liaison of Assemblyman Karim Camara, were seen having a friendly chat with the First Lady. Also there was Yaacov Behrman of the Jewish Future Alliance.

The Menorah lit at the event was designed by Manfred Anson, a Holocaust survivor. “Like the Maccabees at the center of the Hanukkah story, he fought against tyranny, serving in the Australian army during World War II,” the President said.

“During his life he designed this special menorah, with a model of the Statue of Liberty at the base of each candle,” he noted, and invited a family whose father is deployed in Afghanistan to light the candles.

“As the Festival of Lights draws to a close, let’s take one last chance to think about all the miracles we’ve been lucky enough to experience in our own lives,” Obama said.

Video: President Obama greetings at Chanukah party