On April 9, 2009, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma host­ed the first seder at the White House. Richard Michel­son and E. B. Lewis’s new pic­ture book focus­es on this event, which was sig­nif­i­cant not only for Jew­ish Amer­i­cans, but also for any who cel­e­brat­ed the ideals of free­dom embod­ied in the civ­il rights move­ment. At the seder, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma expressed his sup­port for an impor­tant Jew­ish rit­u­al, and his sol­i­dar­i­ty with every­one who found mean­ing in the festival. 

The White House seder has a back­sto­ry. One year ear­li­er, three staffers on the pres­i­den­tial candidate’s cam­paign find them­selves strand­ed in a hotel room on the first night of Passover. Eric Less­er, Her­bie Zisk­end, and Arun Chaud­hary are deject­ed at the idea of miss­ing the seder, but they take ini­tia­tive to make the rit­u­al as mean­ing­ful as pos­si­ble. Zisk­end is able to round up matzah, mac­a­roons, and Man­is­che­witz wine, along with some Hag­gadot, and his two col­leagues enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly join him. Lewis’s illus­tra­tions show the tran­si­tion from three young men iso­lat­ed in their room, to three kip­pot-wear­ing Jew­ish Amer­i­cans mak­ing the most of an oppor­tu­ni­ty. Then some­one arrives, and he is not Eli­jah. Barack Oba­ma asks if he may join them, and the rest is history.

Michel­son empha­sizes the long­stand­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of Black Amer­i­cans with the Exo­dus nar­ra­tive; at the first White House Seder, Oba­ma express­es the rel­e­vance of lib­er­a­tion from slav­ery spe­cif­ic to their set­ting: ​“Barack reflect­ed that it was enslaved Black labor­ers who laid the logs and stones for America’s White House.” Michelle Oba­ma char­ac­ter­izes as a ​“mir­a­cle” that ​“the descen­dants of two enslaved peo­ples” are open­ly cel­e­brat­ing togeth­er with the nation’s first Black pres­i­dent. Joy and dig­ni­ty are both promi­nent notes in the descrip­tion of this momen­tous occasion.

Lewis’s water­col­or illus­tra­tions are del­i­cate and impres­sion­is­tic while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly con­vey­ing each participant’s per­son­al­i­ty. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma jokes with his friends about the absence of cell phones on the jour­ney from Egypt. Sur­round­ed by adults at the seder table, daugh­ters Sasha and Malia are engaged in lis­ten­ing to their father’s com­par­i­son of the pre­vi­ous year’s seder to this one. The tra­di­tion­al search for the afikomen in the ele­gant­ly appoint­ed rooms might be dif­fer­ent from most fam­i­lies’ rit­u­als, but the excite­ment, involv­ing the fam­i­ly dog, Bo, is just as gen­uine. (Michel­son explains in his after­word that he allowed him­self artis­tic license here; Bo was not brought to the White House until one week after the seder.)

Passover is an inte­gral part of Jew­ish reli­gious and cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, although it is often broad­ly invoked as a cel­e­bra­tion of free­dom. The obser­vance of this fes­ti­val in the White House, under the lead­er­ship of the nation’s first Black pres­i­dent, holds con­tin­ued mean­ing both for Jew­ish Amer­i­cans and for our whole coun­try. Ded­i­ca­tion to the prin­ci­ples of the Exo­dus sto­ry can­not be revoked; this high­ly rec­om­mend­ed pic­ture book for fam­i­lies reminds us why.

The book includes an after­word and a recipe for apri­cot cake.