Blue Spot

Clinton's Jewish staffers at Seder: Next year in the White House | Jerusalem Post

Recruiting out-of-state volunteers for the Clinton campaign going into Tuesday's primary was a tall task for Heather Capell. Again and again she heard, "I can't come. It's Passover."

So Capell came up with a special pitch: "Make your exodus to Pennsylvania, so we can celebrate Passover next year in the White House!"

When people complained that it was terrible timing, she said it was actually the perfect time. "Even when it seems inconvenient or hard, you keep on going," she told them. "That's the message of Passover. You keep going to get to the other side."

Enough people responded to her appeals that the campaign gathered more than 40 staff and volunteers, many adorned with Hebrew "Hillary" pins, to celebrate the second night of the holiday on Sunday. Taking a break from knocking on doors, the Clinton boosters sat together at the University of Pennsylvania Hillel, feasting on gefilte fish, singing "Had Gadya" and drawing parallels between the historic ritual and their own present endeavor.

It wasn't just the presence of top advisers and dedicated volunteers at the table that made it clear it was a Clinton event; it was also what was on the table itself: The Seder plates all had oranges on them.

Capell thought including the citrus fruit was important, since the group was supporting a female candidate for president, and some Jews have defiantly included the orange based on an apocryphal story in which a man was said to have told leading Jewish feminist Susannah Heschel that a woman "belonged on the bima [the pulpit from which the Torah is read] like an orange belonged on a Seder plate."

"A woman should be in the White House as much as an orange should be on the Seder plate," explained Capell, a 37-year-old lawyer who took a leave from her firm to volunteer for the campaign.

Labels: Cultural issues, Election 2008, Hillary, Pennsylvania