President Biden Welcomes 300 Guests at White House Chanukah Party

By Yehudit Garmaise

 

When President Joe Biden warmly hosted the White House Chanukah party last night, the approximately 300 Jewish guests marveled at the warm Yiddishkeit they enjoyed around them.

While past presidents’ party planners borrowed menorahs from Jewish museums for the Chanukah event, this year, the White House Office of Carpentry created a unique menorah whose wooden platform and cups, “look similar to the one in the Beis Hamikdash,” said Rabbi Duvid Katz, the executive director of the Israel Heritage Foundation.

To construct the White House menorah, carpenters used beams of wood rescued from the White House when President Harry Truman launched extensive renovations from 1948 to 1952, First Lady Jill Biden explained.

The White House’s new menorah will not only be displayed throughout this year’s holiday season, but it will remain in the permanent collection of the White House’s holiday season decorations.

The Orthodox Jewish guests were grateful to Rabbi Steinmetz and Rabbi Levi Shemtov for kashering the White House kitchen.

“Everything was done with the most mehadrin and the best schechitas, to provide the best kosher meal possible,” said Rabbi Katz.

At 6pm, after the guests ate dinner and schmoozed in the East Room, President Biden, who appeared happy and relaxed, came down from his upstairs residence to welcome guests and shake their hands

“It was a very warm night,” reflected Rabbi Katz, who spoke to BoroPark24 as he headed back to BoroPark, along with consultant Ezra Friedlander and Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein.

As the guests mixed and mingled with the top Jewish elected officials, lobbyists, and Biden administration members, the topic on everyone’s minds and lips was: what to do about rising anti-Semitism.

Eichenstein, who spoke with the president, Susan Rice, the director of the US Domestic Policy Council, and Deborah Lipstadt, the special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, pointed out how far Jews have come in American public life.

“In 1943, when 400 rabbis marched on Washington, DC, to protest America’s inaction during the Holocaust, President Roosevelt did not let them in to speak with him,” Assemblyman Eichenstein pointed out. “Today, we got to daven Mincha and Maariv in the White House.

Rabbi Katz reported that he was moved when he was discussing anti-Semitism with Shelley Greenspan, the Policy Advisor for Partnerships and Global Engagement of the National Security Council, she echoed Yaakov’s prayer for help from Hashem as Eisav approached him.

“’Ketonti, ketonti,’ said Greenspan with heimishkeit,” Rabbi Katz said.

Quoting Elie Weisel’s comment, "Indifference is complicity,” Biden said, “I make no bones about it: I will not be silent. America will not be silent.

“Like this White House menorah, our commitment to the safety of the Jewish people and to the vibrancy of Jewish life that’s tightly woven into every fabric of America is permanent. Permanent.”