The Obama family sat around a White House table this week for the fifth year to hold a ceremonial Passover Seder meal, with matzo bread [an unleavened cracker], bitter herbs and other symbolic fare.
“Passover is a celebration of the freedom our ancestors dreamed of, fought for and ultimately won,” the president said in a greeting he issued to the people in Zion. “I saw once again how the dream of true freedom found its full expression in those words of hope from [the national Israeli anthem] Hatikvah, 'lihyot ‘am chofshi be’artzeinu,' 'To be a free people in our land,'" Obama waxed poetic, having just completed a successful visit to the Holy Land.