Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

President Obama Will Hold Late Passover Seder at White House

President Barack Obama will host a Passover seder this year, but not on either of the nights it is required according to Jewish custom.

A spokeswoman told JTA that Obama will host the seder next week following his return from travel overseas.

Obama will be in Saudi Arabia on the first and second nights of Passover, Friday and Saturday, attending a regional cooperation summit.

Obama joined a seder organized by campaign staffers in Pennsylvania during the hard-fought 2008 primary season, when he first ran for president. Since then, he has made it a custom to hold one in the White House, and include among his guests Jewish staffers and backers.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.