A Philadelphia Passover Seder, 100 years after the first
In a fraught year, a Jewish family gathers.
Julia and Leon Obermayer hosted their first seder in Philadelphia in 1924, soon after they were married. Prohibition was in effect, Calvin Coolidge was president, and Paris was preparing to host the World Olympics.
This year the Obermayers’ grandchildren and other relatives are once again gathering in Philadelphia for a seder, which the family has been hosting continuously for the past 100 years. Sixty five family members will converge for a catered meal in Philadelphia on the sixth night of Passover, coming from as far as France and Panama for the ritual gathering.
This reunion year is also a particularly fraught one in Jewish communities around the world: famine is imminent in Gaza due to Israel’s blockade; pro-Palestine protests are sweeping college campuses, including in the Philadelphia area; and many Americans are actively mourning the 1,200 Israelis and nearly 34,000 Palestinians who, local officials health say, have been killed since Oct. 7. In many Jewish families, there are generational rifts over who is at fault in the wrenching conflict. (The family asked that the location of the seder not be included, out of concern for safety.)
The Obermayers decided not to include any formal conversation about Israel and Gaza at their seder, though family members said it may come up anyway.
“It was just too unwieldy a conversation to have in that larger group,” said Laurie Davis, 70, who married into the family. But, she added, “There’s no ban on talking about anything.”
Some attendees are ardent Joe Biden supporters, while others are diehards for Donald Trump, Davis said.
“There undoubtedly are differences among us,” said Joe Sellers, 70, Davis’s husband and the grandson of Leon and Julia Obermayer. “We’ve decided that this is an occasion for us to celebrate our common values of being together, and not so much to engage in a debate about what’s right or wrong on college campuses, or our country’s policies, or what’s going on in the Middle East.”
Leon Obermayer founded the Philadelphia law firm that still bears his name in 1904, and went on to be president of the Philadelphia Board of Education in the late 1950s. Together Leon and Julia collected one of the largest private collections of Judaica in the United States, a trove that included an 18th century Italian scroll of the Book of Esther, an 18th century silver cup from Nuremberg, Germany, and a 19th century porcelain coffee service inscribed with Hebrew, according to previous Inquirer reporting. Julia donated the collection to Congregation Rodeph Shalom after her husband’s death in 1984.
The oldest attendee at the 100th seder will be Judy Obermayer, 87, who is making her way from Boston. The youngest attendee will be a one-year-old boy. His family is flying in from Paris.
Passover is a celebration of liberation and freedom from enslavement; each year, families tell the story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. It is also a night of questions, when children are encouraged to ask why this night is different from all others. Some in the Obermayer family have questions of their own.
“As the generations keep going, will they see the importance of doing it? Will they want to travel?” asked Roni Atnipp, 63, a grandchild of Leon and Julia’s who is cohosting the seder this year. “Will they take over when we’re in our eighties?”