Imagining the next White House seder!

Other items in today’s column include:
*A Jewish sketch of Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary-designate
*For Two Jewish Cabinet designees it’s dor v’dor (from generation to generation)

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO — One can imagine a crowded seder at the White Housed during Passover week next year, with President-elect Joe Biden and his First Lady Jill Biden observing and perhaps taking a turn reading the Haggadah as guests of honor.  Biden’s son by his first marriage, Hunter, is married to South African filmmaker Melissa Cohen, while Ashley, daughter of the President-elect and the First Lady-designate, is married to plastic surgeon, Dr. Howard Krein.

There might be plenty of other Jews there, starting with the Second Gentleman (as perhaps he will be called) Doug Emhoff, the attorney who is husband to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

Also, present might be the White House Chief of Staff-designate Ron Klain and his non-Jewish wife Monica; Secretary of State-designate Antony Blinken and his non-Jewish wife, former assistant secretary of state Evan Ryan;  Treasury Secretary-designate Janet Yellen and her Jewish husband, Nobel Prize winning economist George Akerlof, and Homeland Security Secretary-designate Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban refugee of mixed Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewish heritage.

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For Two Jewish Cabinet designees it’s dor v’dor (from generation to generation)

President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday introduced six members of his foreign policy and national security teams.  Among them was former U.S. Senator,  Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, and who will serve as this nation’s climate envoy; National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan; Director of National Intelligence-designate Avril Haines; United Nations Ambassador-designate Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and two Jewish designees for Cabinet offices: Antony “Tony”  Blinken, Secretary of State; and Alejandro “Ali” Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security.

Speaking at the Wilmington, Delaware, headquarters of the Biden transition team, Blinken, 58, and Mayorkas, 61, made a point of saluting their parents and honoring the lessons they taught them and the examples that they had set.

On being introduced, they stepped to the lectern, took off their masks, thanked Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris for nominating them to serve with them, and added that if they are confirmed by the Senate, it will be the great honor of their lives.

“For my family, as for so many generations of Americans, America has literally been the last, best hope on earth,” Blinken said. “My grandfather, Maurice Blinken, fled pogroms in Russia and made a new life in America. His son, my father, Donald Blinken, served in the United States Air Force during World War II and  [years later] as a United States Ambassador [to Hungary, 1994-1998.] He is my role model and my hero. His wife, Vera Blinken, fled Communist Hungary as a young girl and helped future generations of refugees come to America. My mother, Judith Pisar, builds bridges between America and the world through arts and culture. She is my greatest champion. And my stepfather, Samuel Pisar, he was one of 900 children in his school in Bialystok, Poland, but the only one to survive the Holocaust after four years of concentration camps. At the end of the war he made a break from a death march into the woods of Bavaria. From his hiding place, he heard a deep rumbling sound. It was a tank, but instead of the iron cross, he saw painted on its side a five-pointed white star. He ran to the tank. The hatch opened. An African-American GI looked down at him. He got down on his knees and said the only three words that he knew in English that his mother had taught him before the war: ‘God Bless America.’

“That’s who we are, that’s what America represents to the world, however imperfectly,” Blinken continued.  “Now we have to proceed with equal measures of humility and confidence. Humility because, as the President-elect said, we can’t solve all the world’s problems alone; we need to be working with other countries; we need their cooperation; we need their partnership. But also confidence because America at its best still has a greater ability than any other country on earth to bring others together to meet the challenges of our time. And that’s where the men and women of the State Department, foreign service officers, civil servants — that’s where they come in. I have witnessed their passion, their energy, their courage up close. I’ve seen what they do to keep us safe, to make us more prosperous. I’ve seen them add luster to a word that deserves our respect: ‘diplomacy.'”

Blinken ended his short talk with the words his stepfather had said from his knees: “God Bless America.”

No stranger to government, Blinken had served during President Bill Clinton’s administration as a staff member on the National Security Council,  then as Democratic Staff Director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008, and in the administration of President Barack Obama, as a Deputy National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2015, and as Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017 under John Kerry.

The Homeland Security Secretary-designate, Alejandro Mayorkas, similarly has a wealth of government experience. A refugee from Communist Cuba, he had served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and later as a U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California, then was tapped to serve as a deputy director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration and Reform in the Obama administration, subsequently becoming Deputy Secretary under Jeh Johnson.

“The Department of Homeland Security has a noble mission to help keep us safe and to advance our history as a country of welcome,” Mayorkas commented.  Referring to his service as a federal prosecutor, he said,  “For 12 years I had the privilege to stand in a federal court room and announce ‘Alejandro Majorkas on behalf of the United States of America.’ The words ‘on behalf of the United States of America’ meant everything to me and to my parents whom I think of today and everyday. My father and mother brought me to this country to escape communism. They cherished our democracy and were intensely proud to become United States citizens as was I.

“I have carried that pride throughout my nearly 20 years of government service and throughout my life,” Mayorkas continued. “My parents are not here to see this day. Mr. President-elect, Madam Vice President-elect, please know that I will work day and night in the service of our nation to ably lead the men and women of the United States Department of Homeland Security and to bring honor to my parents and to the trust you have placed in me to carry your vision for our country forward.”

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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com