President Joe Biden ’s staff has hit invitation to a " Menorah Lighting to be held at the White House " on Dec. 1 , the evening when the quaternary candle of the eight - solar day festival ofHanukkahwill be perch . The upshot promises to be quite dissimilar from last year ’s event , hosted by Donald Trump .
President Trump in 2020 held what he called a " Hanukkah Reception " in midafternoon before Hanukkah start . The response was a hard partizan involvement , no candles were lit , much food was consumed , and some of the participants went maskless , the rally COVID-19 epidemic notwithstanding . Most Democrats , as well as many Judaic leaders , stayed home .
President Biden ’s " menorah lighting , " by contrast , promises to favor ritual over response , focusing on the lighting of the traditionalHanukkah candelabrumitself . Reportedly , the event will be nonpartisan , with COVID-19 precautions implement . According to the Jewish Forward , no food or drink will be served at all , so masks wo n’t even need to be abstract . In addition , the client lean has been gravely pared down to advance societal distancing — so much so that a senior White House official was quoted as saying it would in all probability be the low White House Hanukkah company in history .
The frailty president and second gentleman’s gentleman Douglas Emhoff areslated to be among those in attendance , and for the first sentence the ceremonial will be livestreamed . On Nov. 28 , Emhoff also attended the lighting of the National Menorah on the Washington Ellipse .
Overlooked amid these carefully parse detail is a question that , to me , as ahistorian of American Judaic life and a learner of American religious belief , seems far more bewitching and significant : How did the position of the president of the United States come in to restrain prescribed White House menorah lighting and Hanukkah party in the first place ?
White House Traditions
For most of American history , the only December vacation thatgained White House recognitionwas Christmas . President John Adams andfirst madam Abigail Adams , back in 1800 , discombobulate the first White House Christmas company , a modest social occasion , plan with their 4 - yr - sometime granddaughter in psyche , and with invitation send to selected government officials and their children .
In 1923 , President Calvin Coolidge inaugurated thepractice of illuminate an official White House Christmas tree . He also delivered the first formal presidential Christmas message . His substance assumed , as most Americans of that fourth dimension did , that everybody observe Christmas .
It displayed , according toThe Washington Post , " the reverence of a Christian people giving at the seat of their regime the expression of their praise for ' the King of kings ' on the evening of the anniversary of His birth . " Neither Adams nor Coolidge speak one parole about Hanukkah .
Official placard of Hanukkah waited another half - C — until 1979 — by which time Jews had become much more seeable as members of American smart set and government . Ironically , the Chief Executive who firstpaid attention to Hanukkah was Jimmy Carter , although he was n’t the Judaic community ’s favorite Democratic candidate . When he run for reelection in 1980 , he gotless than 50 percentof the Judaic vote — less than any Democrat since 1928 .
In 1979 , following weeks of seclusion in the White House after Iranian students took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran , seizing 52 diplomats and citizens , President Carter emerged and crossed over to Lafayette Park . Helit the large Hanukkah candelabrum , knight the " National Menorah , " that had beenerected in the park with private fundsand deport abbreviated remarks .
Seeing that Jews lionise their own vacation in December — Hanukkah — he address his next yearly Christmas message not to all Americans , as heretofore , but only " to those of our fellow citizens who join us in the joyous celebration of Christmas . "
Every president since has recognized Hanukkah with a peculiar menorah lighting ceremony or receipt and limited his Christmas messages to those who really observe the vacation .
Menorah Lightings
Hanukkah come to the White House itself in 1989 , whenPresident George H.W. Bush display a menorahthere — a candelabrum given to him by the Synagogue Council of America .
But Bill Clinton was the first president to actually light a menorah in the White House . In 1993 , he invited a dozen schoolchildren to the Oval Office for a small ceremony . The upshot made headline when6 - yr - old Ilana Kattan ’s ponytail dipped into the flameand a wisp of smoke was seeable around her head . Clinton memorably crush out the flamewith his nude hand .
Menorah firing grew in prominence during the Clinton years . unforgettably , in 1998 Clintonjoined Israel ’s then - President Ezer Weizmanin lighting a candle on the first night of Hanukkah in Jerusalem .
But no White House Hanukkah parties ever took place under Clinton . or else , he included Jewish leaders in a big yearly " vacation party . "
Annual Hanukkah Parties
The first president to host an official White House Hanukkah political party , and the first to in reality light a menorah in the White House residence and not just in its public spaces , wasGeorge W. Bush , beginning in both cases in 2001 .
Bush made a point in time of inserting religion into his many annual Christmas parties . Hesought to underscorethrough the Hanukkah political party that the White House " belongs to people of all faiths . " Since then Hanukkah has become an official White House custom .
Chassidic leaders in the distinctive black suits worn by member of their community regularly come out at these party . Beginning in 2005 theparties became completely kosher .
Barack Obama defend the custom of the White House Hanukkah party , holding two of them in 2013 , and Donald Trump exert the tradition as well . Both in 2018 and 2019 , he also heldtwo Hanukkah partiesfor his friends and Judaic mob members — including his daughter , Ivanka — and invited selected non - Judaic guests to attend them . Last year , amid the pandemic , Trump again held two Hanukkah party . He talk at one of them and lamented the " steal election " that he insisted he had won .
The fact that this yr the White House is give up the Hanukkah reception altogether and return to the tradition of the menorah inflammation suggests a shift back to the spiritual aspects of Hanukkah .
What is truly significant , however , is how much America has change since Presidents John Adams and Calvin Coolidge invented America ’s White House Christmas traditions and paid no attention to Hanukkah at all .
This is an updated adaptation of an article first bring out on Dec. 4 , 2020 .
Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun professor of American Jewish account at Brandeis University .
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons permission . you could find the original clause here .
