What took them so long to get here? In my audience on Monday pass, while I was lecturing a seminar with my first powerpoint, a woman representing a Jewish Temple Organization and observing my seminar presentation to have in her organization stood up in the audience and ask me, "Mr. Lazzaro, why wasn't there any Hanukkah decorations during your working years at The White House? I don't see any in your powerpoint? My simple truthful answer was very clear and to the point, "There was none". I wanted to know why myself, but no one can give me a straight answer back in those days while I was the White House Christmas Decorator during the Ford, Carter and Reagan Administrations. Hanukkah came to the White House itself, in 1989, when President George H.W. Bush displayed a menorah there, given to him by the Synagogue Council of America. But the first president to actually light a menorah in the White House was Bill Clinton. In 1993, he invited a dozen schoolchildren to the Oval Office for a small ceremony. The event made headlines when 6-year-old Ilana Kattan’s ponytail dipped into the flame. Clinton ran his hands through her hair to snuff out the smoke.
Menorah lightings grew in importance during the Clinton years. Memorably, in 1998, Clinton joined Israel’s president, Ezer Weizman, in lighting a candle on the first night of Hanukkah in Jerusalem. But no White House Hanukkah parties ever took place under Clinton. Instead, he included Jewish leaders in a large annual “holiday party.” Jews mingled with Christians at those parties, but those who kept kosher did not find much to eat.
The first president to host an official White House Hanukkah party, and the first to actually light a menorah in the White House residence, was George W. Bush, beginning in both cases in 2001. Since Bush made a point of injecting religion, complete with baby Jesus, into his many annual Christmas parties — 25 of them in 2005 alone — a separate Hanukkah party for Jews showed sensitivity. The annual Hanukkah party also underscored Bush’s deepening bonds with Orthodox Jews, the Jewish religious stream most sympathetic to his “faith-based” agenda. Hasidic leaders in distinctive garb regularly appeared at these parties, and beginning in 2005 (after an embarrassment in 2004 when kosher and non-kosher foods were mixed up), the parties became completely kosher. So Virgina, Yes, there is a Santa Claus, and Hanukkah too! They're now both at The White House. It's about time!
