‘It’s hard work plus a miracle that gets you somewhere’

Three Jewish colleagues, on the road during on Passover, arranged to perform a makeshift Seder in an empty room in their hotel’s lower level. At one point during their celebration, there was a knock at the door. It wasn’t, as they joked, Elijah, but their boss, Barack Obama, on whose presidential campaign the men worked. “Hey, is this the seder?” he asked. “Can I join in?”

This begins Next Year in the White House , the story of Barack Obama’s initial presidential Seder in 2009. Written by Richard Michelson and illustrated by E.B. Lewis, this is a charming chronicle of the first White House observance of Passover performed by the first Black president.

“When [Obama] ended up in the White House, he asked Eric Lesser, one of the three staffers at that basement ceremony, ‘Are we still doing the Seder?'” explained Michelson.

The book includes a guest list from the seder, a reflection about the connection between Passover and the Civil Rights movement, and a recipe for flourless golden apricot cake.

Michelson, the award-winning author of Across the Alley and Too Young for Yiddish , was drawn to this story in a fraught time when antisemitism is at a level he never expected to see again in his lifetime.

The author envisions an audience for the book beyond children. “My guilty secret is I think picture books are not only for children,” Michelson said. “They’re for everyone. When I wrote my book Too Young for Yiddish, I got more fan letters from older Yiddish speakers than I did from children…I hope this is a book parents will share around the seder table.”

Michelson also hopes readers of Next Year in the White House get a rekindled sense of hope and purpose from the story. “The re-emergence of antisemitism makes the story of Passover more relevant and reminds us that this is not unique in our history.”

Donald Liebenson is a Chicago writer who writes for VanityFair.com , LA Times, Chicago Tribune,  and other outlets.