WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama marked the start of Passover with a private Seder in the executive mansion.

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama invited friends and White House aides to mark the Jewish holiday with a meal on Monday. The Obama aides started the tradition during 2008 primary campaign; Obama made a surprise stop to meet with staffers who were sharing an impromptu meal in a hotel basement.

The event continued last year at the White House with a small group of aides and advisers.

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Obama Will Hold First Presidential Seder for Passover

OPINION: Jewish Voices Of Color Must Be Heard

As we enter this holiday season, Jews around the world will celebrate Hanukah. And the global Jewish community is a diverse one, a multicultural and multiracial assemblage, by no means monolithic, representing millions of people throughout the world. Jews in China look like other Chinese, while Jews in India resemble other Indians, as is the case with the Igbo Jews of Nigeria and the Lemba of Southern Africa, and so on. They differ in their religious and cultural expression. For example, some may not know about glatt kosher, but still observe traditional dietary laws. And in some places only women can become a mohel (the person who performs circumcisions on baby boys).

But like a faulty census that leaves out people and portrays an inaccurate picture of what is happening, the Jewish Diaspora is not counting all of its members. Part of the reason is that Jews of color are often held in suspicion, not viewed as real or authentic. The reality is that black and brown Jews always existed, and for thousands of years. Given the places where the stories in the ancient scriptures took place, what else could you expect? Yet, media images – including Charlton Heston’s portrayal of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Moses in The Ten Commandments – only serve to create confusion concerning race and Judaism.

“Jews of color have been like Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird, a bird trying to reintegrate itself into its flock, but looks so different that the flock would turn itself on the painted bird, pecking on the painted bird until it falls to the ground,” said Rabbi Capers Funnye, head rabbi of the predominantly African-American Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago. The congregation was founded in 1918 by a rabbi from Bombay, India.

Rabbi Funnye converted to Judaism, but his introduction to Judaism was through the lens of Africa. His congregation combines the usual Jewish prayers with gospel music and the beat of the drum. But that is ok, because that is what culture is all about. “Jewish practices are based on cultural adaptations, where people found themselves,” the rabbi notes. Although he is a rabbi with extensive knowledge and undeniable passion, Rabbi Funnye is asked if he is really a Jew. “For a Jew who don’t look like you, that question is offensive,” he responds.

Rabbi Funnye – who is also a member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis, and the cousin of First Lady Michelle Obama – recently gave the keynote speech at a symposium on race and Judaism at Temple University. The symposium was convened by Professor Lewis Gordon of Temple’s Center for Afro-Jewish Studies, and had participation from the Institute for Jewish and Community Research and Be’chol Lashon, a San Francisco-based group which encourages ethnic, racial and cultural inclusion in the Jewish community.

The conference was refreshing in that it invited a discussion on subjects usually not covered in academia or the mainstream Jewish community. For example, there was a discussion on Rabbi Alysa Stanton, the first African-American woman ordained as a rabbi, and the first black rabbi to lead a majority white congregation. Stanton, whose congregation is in Greenville, NC, received death threats and required a police escort the day she was installed as rabbi.

Another topic of discussion was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, that mythic symbol of black-Jewish cooperation who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King. Rabbi Heschel is a great source of pride for the Jewish community, yet he was marginalized during his life, and regarded as an oddball. Other rabbis advised him to stay away from the rabble-rouser King. And today, Heschel’s anti-racist, social justice message is defanged.

Further, there was an examination of black-Jewish relations and the civil rights coalition, and the manner in which Jews benefited from civil rights in ways blacks could not; the focus by organizations such as the ADL on issues of Jewish authenticity and Minister Louis Farrakhan, when there are genocides taking place around the world; concepts of whiteness and blackness, and the ways in which the Jewish communities have negotiated race. Participants also tackled such weighty issues as black power, and the attempts to equate it with anti-Semitism; the disproportionate representation of neoconservative Jewish voices in American political discourse, and the use of white Ashkenazi Jewish voices as the authoritative voice against affirmative action.

Included in the symposium was the inevitable discussion of Israel, and the ways in which some immigrants become “white” when they arrive in Israel, although they were not considered as such in their home countries. And of course, there is Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Rabbi Funnye, who works with the Palestinian-American community in Chicago, believes that Israel must do a better job of showing its own diversity. He also shed some light on African-American perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Black people don’t say anything because they see the Palestinians as David, and Israel as Goliath,” Funnye concluded. “They don’t want to be called anti-Semites.”

These are tough issues, to be sure, and the conversations must continue at Temple University and throughout the country and the world. A culture benefits when its diverse voices are allowed to express themselves. This is how a culture sustains itself and grows. Jews of color have much to contribute, and much to say. And they must be heard.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member David A. Love, JD is a journalist and human rights advocate based in Philadelphia, and a contributor to the Huffington Post, theGrio, the Progressive Media Project and McClatchy-Tribune News Service, among others. He contributed to the book, States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). Love is a former Amnesty International UK spokesperson. His blog is davidalove.com.

WASHINGTON – After 10 months in office, President Barack Obama granted his first pardon Wednesday to “Courage,” a 45-pound turkey spared from the Thanksgiving table.

Accompanied by daughters Sasha and Malia, Obama stood under the North Portico of the White House to honor a holiday tradition that dates to 1947 — receiving a bird from the National Turkey Federation.

“I’m told Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson actually ate their turkeys,” Obama said. “You can’t fault them for that; that’s a good-looking bird.”

President George H.W. Bush was the first to officially pardon a turkey.

Obama joked about wanting to forgo the tradition and eat “Courage.”

“Thanks to the interventions of Malia and Sasha — because I was planning to eat this sucker — ‘Courage’ will also be spared this terrible and delicious fate,” he said.

Obama said he wished all American service members at home and abroad a happy Thanksgiving, saying it is a “tremendous honor it is to serve as commander in chief of the finest military in the world.”

He also spoke about the first family‘s plans for the holiday dinner.

“Just like millions of other families across America, we’ll take time to give our thanks for many blessings,” Obama said. “We’ll also remember this is a time when so many members of our American family are hurting.”

Obama noted that President Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a holiday in the midst of the Civil War, “when the future of our very union was most in doubt.”

“This is an era of new perils and new hardships,” he added. “So on this quintessentially American holiday, as we give thanks for what we’ve got, let’s also give back to those who are less fortunate.”

After his remarks, the turkey was lifted to a table and Obama raised his hand over its head to deliver a mock-serious pardon.

“You are hereby pardoned,” he said.

Obama said “Courage” will get to spend the rest of his life in “peace and tranquility” at Disneyland.

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It’s the ultimate trick-or-treating treasure, that one house on the block that offers the coolest candy and surprises galore.

This year it’s the big gated place on Pennsylvania Avenue, No. 1600. Welcome to the White House, boys and girls.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama awaited more than 2,000 children Saturday night from the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. The Obamas themselves were to spend time handing out goodies to the trick-or-treaters on the most famous front porch in America, the North Portico.

What do you get for Halloween at the White House?

Not bad, kids: A box of White House M&Ms with the president’s signature imprinted on it, a sweet dough butter cookie made by White House pastry chef Bill Yosses, a National Park Foundation Ranger activity book, and a serving of dried fruit mix made up of cherries, apricots, pears, apples and papayas.

Yosses, whose team assembled 2,000 cellophane goody bags, joked that the idea of filling the bags only with healthy treats was vetoed because they didn’t want the White House to get egged Saturday night.

Before the event was under way, a big, stuffed, black spider dangled in a web of string from the top of the portico, and pumpkins had sprouted up around the columns. The White House was lit orange for the occasion, and three giant pumpkins — about 1,000 pounds each — were on the grounds.

Milling around the White House North Lawn in the early evening was a bizarre mix of characters ranging from skeletons, fairies, Star Wars characters, and historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln.

The loot is just part of the treat for the kids, ages 6 to 14.

The president and the first lady weren’t planning to wear costumes. But don’t rule out the chance that some youngsters might dress up as the Obamas.

Later, in the East Room, the first couple were to be joined by Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, at a Halloween reception for military families and for the moms and dads who work at the White House, along with their kids. The visiting children were chosen, with help from the Education Department, from schools in the capital and surrounding suburbs.

It’s the first White House Halloween for the Obamas’ daughters, 8-year-old Sasha and 11-year-old Malia.

Over the years, the winter holidays have been the ones to get the full treatment at the White House, with Christmas trees and tinsel all around.

The Obamas are not the first, though, to show Halloween spirit.

President George H.W. Bush and first lady Barbara Bush hosted 500 children on Halloween in 1989, loading them up with fun loot but also teaching them about the dangers of drugs. The kids came decked out in costumes; some Secret Service agents came dressed as clowns.

In the Clintons’ first year in the White House, the Great Pumpkin returned. A huge orange jack-o’-lantern was formed around the front entrance to the White House, with the front door to the mansion serving as the middle tooth. The first couple’s daughter, Chelsea, was 13 at the time and the house was stuffed with pumpkins.

During the Nixon administration, first daughter Tricia hosted parties for underprivileged children, according to the White House Historical Association. And plenty of other first families got festive for Halloween.

No telling what kind of goblins might pop up this year, although stories of ghosts — especially Abraham Lincoln‘s — are woven into White House history.