WASHINGTON – A few dozen people attended the traditional Purim event at the White House on Tuesday. The attendees, including senior advisers Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, and special representative for international negotiations, Avi Berkowitz, joined other White House staff for over half an hour to listen to the reading of The Megillah (Book of Esther.)”Jared led off the reading of The Megillah [in Hebrew], and actually did so perfectly, without any mistakes,” Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the Executive Vice President of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) in Washington DC, told The Jerusalem Post. “It is the second time that Mr. Kushner attended the White House Purim event. Ivanka was there as well and this time even brought some hamantaschen [a traditional Purim treat],” Rabbi Shemtov added. “It is always special to celebrate Jewish holidays at the White House. Especially now in a time that people feel a certain vulnerability.”
He told the Post that the previous night Chabad hosted the Megillah reading and Purim Celebration at TheSHUL, the Chabad synagogue he leads, as usual, and that some 350 people attended the event despite the spread of coronavirus across the US. The rabbi said that many people avoided shaking hands and popped their elbows instead. “Someone even won a trip to Israel in the raffle” Rabbi Shemtov added. “But now given the mandatory quarantine in Israel, we need to wait and see when he could use that ticket.”
