Barack Obama was the first American president to celebrate a seder in the White House, a tradition that started in Harrisburg

It was April 2008. The Pennsylvania primaries were a few days away.

Eric Lesser, Herbie Ziskend, and Arun Chaudhary, recent college grads working on Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, realized they would not be with their families for Passover. Instead, on April 19, the holiday’s first night that year, they would all be working at the Sheraton Harrisburg, preparing for the primaries.

They decided to form an impromptu seder late at night.

“A couple of staffers are going to be doing a seder. If you want to come by, you are welcome to come,” Lesser recalled his conversation with the senator from Chicago who would go on to become president.

“He looked at me and very earnestly said, ‘Absolutely, I would love to come,’” Lesser recently recalled, sitting in his law office in Boston.

He thought the presidential candidate was just being polite.

Preparing for the seder, Lesser contacted a cousin, then an undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania with access to the Chabad House at Penn and UPenn’s Hillel. He helped pick up some holiday basics: matzo, Manischewitz wine, gefilte fish, and macaroons.

He also gathered copies of the Maxwell House Passover Haggadah, a booklet that first appeared in 1932 and became a popular holiday guide retelling the biblical story of the Israelite’s escape from bondage in Egypt along with prayers and songs.

The morning of April 19 began with Obama appearing at a rally at 30^th Street Station, then leaving Philadelphia on a whistle-stop train tour to Wynnewood, Paoli, Downingtown, and Lancaster, before arriving in Harrisburg that evening.

Separately, in a U-Haul, Lesser transported the luggage for Obama and his entourage of campaign aides and press from the hotel on Race Street in Philadelphia to the Sheraton Harrisburg; he also carried his cousin’s carton of seder supplies.

That evening, in a nondescript basement room at the Sheraton Harrisburg, Lesser, Ziskend, and Chaudhary met to begin the seder service.

“I am here to join,” Obama said as he appeared after a long day of campaigning. On the train to Harrisburg, Obama was accompanied by Sen. Bob Casey and a state representative by the name of Josh Shapiro.

“Obama asked if I wanted to join him at his own seder that night at his hotel in Harrisburg. I politely declined and explained I needed to be home with family,” Shapiro, now Pennsylvania’s governor, writes in his recent memoir, Where We Keep the Light.

In that Sheraton room, everyone shared reading passages from the Haggadah. At the end of the ceremony, participants lifted their glasses of Manischewitz and recited the concluding blessing of peace and hope: “Next year may we be in Jerusalem!”

Obama raised his glass and added, “Next year in the White House!”

All responded: “Yes. Next year in the White House!”

About a month after Obama’s first inauguration, Lesser was working as a special assistant to the president’s senior adviser David Axelrod. He recalled the president peeking into his small workspace in the West Wing.

“Hey, Lesser, are we doing the seder again?”

“Are we?,” Lesser asked in response.

“I said, ‘Next year in the White House,’ and we are here in the White House. So, we are going to do the seder.’”

April 9, 2009, was the first time an American president and first lady celebrated a seder in the White House. And it all began in a Sheraton basement.

Throughout Obama’s two-term presidency, White House seders were an annual Passover tradition, with no media present. All eight gatherings in the Old Family Dining Room intentionally kept the spirit of that initial seder in Harrisburg, using Maxwell House Haggadahs and Manischewitz wine.

Author and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel even requested an invite but was politely denied by the president. It always remained “an event for the group from Harrisburg,” for Obama, said Lesser.

Lesser and Ziskend conducted the service, while the President used the reading of the Haggadah to explain to his young daughters, Malia and Sasha, the relationship of the Exodus story to the African American experience.

A reading of the Emancipation Proclamation was later added to the White House seders.

At the beginning of the 40-page illustrated book Next Year in the White House, Malia and Sasha Obama watch as the seder table is being set for the historic meal. The first family’s pet dog Bo wouldn’t arrive until a few days later, but author Richard Michelson took a dog lover’s liberty and also included him.

The scene is illustrated by Philadelphia native E.B. Lewis, who is a Caldecott Award and five-time Coretta Scott King Award winner, now living in Folsom, N.J.

Harold Grinspoon, the founder of PJ Library, which supports the monthly free distribution of Jewish-themed children’s books, commissioned Michelson, who then asked former collaborator Lewis to create the accompanying artwork.

The artist worked for nearly five months on 21 illustrations. He used photo references and models — Lesser and Ziskend briefly posed — to recreate the seder scenes. The former PAFA professor’s watercolors take full advantage of the white paper to present place mats, tablecloths, plates, dress shirts, and architectural features of the White House.

When the Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago opens on June 19, an exhibit titled Opening the White House will include a miniature room display of the historic private Passover seder dinners hosted by the Obamas.

“We learn about how much we have in common by celebrating each other’s traditions. The Center will give hope a permanent home,” said Valerie Jarrett, CEO of the Obama Foundation.

With Obama’s friend Eric Whitaker, then-traveling press secretary Jen Psaki, personal assistant Reggie Love, and campaign team member Samantha Tubman, Jarrett accompanied Obama to that eventful Harrisburg seder and to the eight subsequent ones in the White House.

Passover this year begins at sundown Wednesday, April 1, and ends at sundown Thursday, April 9.