The White House didn't always celebrate Hanukkah - here's how the tradition began

President John Adams hosted the first White House Christmas party in December 1800, and President Calvin Coolidge held the first National Christmas Tree lighting in 1923. Jacqueline Kennedy began the tradition of choosing a theme for the White House Christmas decorations in 1961.

The menorah lighting was held on the Ellipse, a lawn south of the White House.

The secretary of the interior under Carter initially refused to issue a permit for a menorah on the White House lawn, citing the First Amendment, according to the Washington Post. But Stu Eizenstat, one of Carter's advisers, argued that the National Christmas Tree's permit should also be denied on the same grounds, and the event was allowed to proceed.

Since then, every US president has marked Hanukkah in one way or another.

Reagan kept in touch with Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, leader of the Lubavitch Hasidic movement, throughout his presidency, even declaring his 80th birthday a National Day of Reflection.

The president invited children to light Hanukkah candles and play dreidel at the Old Executive Building, which sits adjacent to the White House.

Children from local schools and synagogues were welcomed into the Oval Office to light the menorah and play dreidel with Clinton.

The Bushes invited members of their staff and their children to participate in the ceremony. The menorah was lit in the Booksellers room on the ground floor, and a kosher buffet was served upstairs, the New York Times reported.

"Tonight, for the first time in American history, the Hanukkah menorah will be lit at the White House residence," Bush said at the ceremony. "It's a symbol that this house may be a temporary home for Laura and me, but it's the people's house, and it belongs to people of all faiths."

Making the White House kitchen kosher involves Saran wrap, tin foil, and vats of boiling water to cover and purify non-kosher surfaces. The chefs use only certified kosher ingredients.

Matt Nosanchuk served as the White House's associate director of public engagement and liaison to the American Jewish community during Obama's second term. He told Insider that there used to be separate tables for kosher and non-kosher food at Bush's Hanukkah parties, but one year the labels were accidentally switched.

Rabbi Levi Shemtov, a Chabad rabbi in Washington, DC, who works closely with the White House staff to prepare kosher food, suggested making the entire reception kosher to avoid confusion in the future.

"Apparently President Bush said, 'Do whatever you need to do, it's fine,' and Rabbi Shemtov was like, 'Well, you're going to have to stay out of the kitchen for 24 hours before the party,'" Nosanchuk said.

The Kol Zimra a cappella choir performed at a menorah lighting ceremony before the White House Hanukkah reception in 2004.

"Given how crowded the previous parties had become, they decided to have two," Nosanchuk said.

The two identical receptions are hosted on the same day so that the White House kitchen only has to be made kosher once.

In 2013, then-10-year-old Asher Weintraub invented a "menurkey," a menorah in the shape of a turkey. He raised over $48,000 on Kickstarter to produce and sell them.

"Of course, I said we gotta invite this kid to the White House Hanukkah party," Nosanchuk said. "We didn't use the menurkey onstage, but we made sure the kid was up front on the rope line so that he could say hello to President Obama and present him with a menurkey. And President Obama loved the menurkey."

Mike Boxer performed with Jewish a cappella group Six13 at the White House Hanukkah reception in 2016. He told Insider the performers usually sing in the foyer outside the party for about an hour, welcoming guests as they enter, and then have a private audience with the president and first lady.

Before meeting the Obamas, Boxer and his group were told to prepare 45 seconds of a song to perform for them. They chose a snippet from "A Hamilton Chanukah," a remix of songs from the Broadway musical "Hamilton" rewritten with Hanukkah-themed lyrics.

Boxer said that their private concert featured some unexpected guests.

"We look over, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sonia Sotomayor are peering through the door," he said. "Barack Obama goes, 'Come in, come in.' One of them said, 'I love this stuff.'"

In his public engagement role at the White House, Nosanchuk was in charge of the Hanukkah reception guest list. Every year, the list was built from scratch to include as many new people as possible.

"I went out of my way to invite people who had never been before, who had done interesting and important and valuable work in the Jewish community or in their broader community," he said. "There were a wide array of constituencies and groups and individuals who we wanted to engage with and touch during these holiday receptions. The Hanukkah receptions were a subset of that larger group."

Levovitz is the founder of Jewish Queer Youth, an nonprofit serving LGBTQ+ youth from Orthodox, Hasidic, and Sephardic homes. He was invited as a representative of the Jewish LGBTQ+ community, along with other leaders of Jewish LGBTQ+ organizations.

"It was really nice to see great LGBTQ representation there," he said of the Hanukkah parties he attended. "I felt seen. I saw leaders of every Jewish LGBTQ organization there, and they saw me."

He told Insider that the White House knows how to throw a good Hanukkah party.

"Any Orthodox Jew knows that kosher food can really go either way, especially kosher catering. This caterer does an amazing job," he said. "There's a room with a huge smorgasbord of food, and then there's a cutting board on the side giving out the lamb chops, and that's where the line is. They are delicious."

The New York Times reported in 2017 that Trump broke with tradition by excluding Democratic lawmakers from the guest list of what until then had been a bipartisan event.

The chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump, Stephanie Grisham, told Insider in a statement that masks will be required and provided at the events, hand sanitizing stations will be set up, chefs will serve food from behind plexiglass barriers, and that the guest lists are "smaller" this year. She did not respond to Insider's questions about the exact number of invited guests.

The White House has seen several outbreaks of COVID-19, most recently including Donald Trump Jr. and Andrew Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani's son and a White House aide.

The National Menorah is now a 30-foot-tall structure that requires a lift from a cherry picker to light, and the event is broadcast on C-SPAN.

The National Menorah Lighting is still on for this year with limited seating to allow for social distancing.

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