in the house in a heartbeat (oxylice remix)

Introducing his Jewish Cabinet members, he asked Merrick Garland, the attorney general, to stand up. President Joe Biden, when he spoke, drew blunt comparisons between his policies and those of his predecessor. In their social media Hanukkah message, Harris and Emhoff made a point of posing next to the window of the vice presidential residence as they lit their menorah. “When a brick was thrown through the window of a Jewish home in Billings, Montana, the town came together, thousands put menorahs in their windows in a stand against hate,” she said. Harris, speaking immediately after Emhoff, recalled how a Montana town reacted in 1993 after a brick was thrown through the window of a home displaying a menorah. To think that today, I’m here before you as the first Jewish spouse of an American president or vice president celebrating Hanukkah - it’s not lost on me that I stand before you all, on behalf of all the Jewish families and communities out there across our country.” “And I actually got to peer into the house and I saw the window sill where our family menorah sat. “A few weeks ago, I visited my childhood home in Old Bridge, New Jersey,” Emhoff said. įor the couple, the move doubles as a metaphor for the diversity that Biden administration officials say was sorely lacking during the presidency of Donald Trump. WASHINGTON ( JTA ) - Douglas Emhoff was ubiquitous this Hanukkah week, which makes sense - he is the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president, and was consequently very in demand among Jews this first holiday season of the Biden presidency.īut Emhoff’s happy Jewishness, a robust embrace of his tradition and faith that has become his hallmark, was also emblematic of the message that the Biden administration hoped to convey through the Jewish holiday: American diversity should be made visible.Īt a White House candle lighting ceremony Wednesday night in the East Room in front of 150 people, Emhoff and his wife Kamala Harris talked about displaying a menorah in the window of one’s house - which, as a means of expressing pride in one’s Jewishness, is seen as a mitzvah in Judaism.

In the house in a heartbeat (oxylice remix)