US: The Multi-Religious White House Holidays

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"They had beautifully decorated the surroundings, and I felt as if I had been transported to Arabia. There really was no obligation for the president to do any of this."

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: The Wall Street Journal
By Dara Horn | December 19, 2013

Hanukkah, Diwali and a Ramadan iftar are all on the calendar

The invitation was so unexpected that I thought it was a joke: "The President and Mrs. Obama request the pleasure of your company at a Hanukkah Reception to be held at the White House." As a novelist uninvolved in politics, I don't often get to attend state occasions. But as an American Jew outside the Beltway, I was also stunned by the event's mere existence. A Hanukkah party? At the White House?

Ever since Theodore Roosevelt hosted the White House's first public Christmas reception in 1903 for hundreds of children, who were surely disappointed by the conservationist president's lack of Christmas trees, White House Christmas parties have been American cultural events. For 110 years, thousands of invited guests—including military families, politicians, journalists, children, newsworthy citizens and, naturally, big donors—have enjoyed the White House's Christmas cheer. As recently as 1962, it was possible for John F. Kennedy to publicly announce that "Christmas is truly the universal holiday of all men."

The 21st-century White House hasn't diminished its Christmas festivities, but the First Families' holiday season isn't just about Christmas anymore.

The White House Hanukkah party dates to 2001, and it is actually a month younger than the White House iftar. President George W. Bush hosted the White House's first annual iftar, an Islamic feast held on Ramadan evenings to end the daily fast, as an overture to Muslim Americans two months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The White House had unwittingly hosted its first iftar in 1805, when Thomas Jefferson postponed a midafternoon supper with a Tunisian envoy who insisted on eating after sundown. Then as now, tensions between the U.S. and the Islamic world were high: The envoy demanded tribute money for the Barbary States, which were at war with the U.S. (Jefferson refused out of principle to pay tribute to prevent further attacks, but gave the envoy significant gifts after his guest claimed he would be beheaded for returning empty-handed.)

It's difficult to overstate how far presidential hospitality has come. For the Hanukkah party, the White House kitchen is made kosher under rabbinical supervision. At the iftar, an imam offers the call to prayer. This year's White House Diwali, a major Hindu holiday that falls during autumn, included a Bollywood dance class, priestly chanting, traditional lamp lighting, and the Diwali custom of sending guests home with sweets.

Is all of this mere pandering? Such events are undoubtedly PR triumphs. Some religious communities have particular grievances with the administration, as the White House knows. I and many Hanukkah guests this year attended a policy briefing before the party on issues of Jewish communal concern. The White House iftar, whose guests likewise attend briefings, has been far more fraught: This past summer, a flame war erupted on Twitter TWTR +3.57% as some American Muslims urged others to boycott the event.

But many feel that attending is a better way to voice communal concerns. "While most Muslim Americans are upset about administration policies, I think most see no downside in having an opportunity to engage with the highest level of the administration," Aziz Poonawalla, a prominent Muslim blogger, told me of his decision to speak out against a boycott.

Naseem Mahdi, a leader of America's oldest Muslim organization, Ahmadiyya USA, who attended the White House iftar in 2011, agrees. "It was a great opportunity to meet people," he told me, including administration officials and Muslim diplomats. "I don't think there is anything major the president tries to get out of such an event other than extend respect and honor to the large numbers of Muslims who live in this country."

It helps that the respect shown by the White House to tradition often leaves guests in awe. "They had beautifully decorated the surroundings, and I felt as if I had been transported to Arabia," Mr. Mahdi said of the iftar. "There really was no obligation for the president to do any of this."

For guests from once-ignored religious communities, the invitation itself is ennobling. "It was a very humbling and surreal moment," said Nakul Dev Mahajan, the choreographer who taught the White House's Diwali dance class. "I kept pinching myself: Am I really teaching Bollywood movements in the White House?" The impact is personal—and political. "My dad's a Republican, but after this, I think he had a change of heart," Mr. Mahajan reported with a laugh. "He said, 'Yes, I'm a Republican, but this is celebrating our religion, our culture!'"

At the Hanukkah party, I pinched myself too, for a different reason. Every American has his own complaints about each administration, and I am no different. But at the White House menorah lighting, politics felt oddly irrelevant. All I could think of was the horrific history of diaspora Jews for the past 25 centuries, and how my ancestors could never have imagined this moment.

Back home, I shared my photos with my 97-year-old grandfather, a World War II veteran whose parents fled an anti-Semitic Russian regime a century ago. Through tears, he said simply, "God bless America."

Ms. Horn's most recent novel is "A Guide for the Perplexed" (W.W. Norton, 2013)


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