Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander, Fran Drescher, Billy Porter and more raise $1.5m for CDC with remote Seder

Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing, Finn Wolfhard and many others joined

Seinfeld star Jason Alexander, Fran Drescher, Billy Porter and many more have helped raise $.15m for the CDC thanks to a remote Seder celebration.

The event, dubbed “Saturday Night Seder”, aired on Saturday.

It served as a fundraiser for the CDC Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The money is going towards the organisation’s emergency fund in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

So far, according to the campaign’s website, the remote celebration has raised $1.5m coming from more than 23,000 donors.

Alexander opened the event, telling viewers: “This is a holiday that celebrates transitions – from confinement to liberation, from winter to spring, and aptly, it’s a holiday that celebrates tenacity and resilience in times of overwhelming adversity.

“Normally, our friends and our loved ones would gather together on this night and we’d tell the ancient story.

“And even though we are all pretty much separated tonight, it seems that this story is more timely and more important than ever. So, we soldier on.”

Drescher then demonstrated the urchatz (the washing of the hands), while singing the opening song to her iconic TV series The Nanny.

Stars such as Porter, Mayim Bialik, Rachel Brosnahan, D’Arcy Carden, Andy Cohen, Darren Criss, Billy Eichner, Cynthia Erivo, Beanie Feldstein, Tan France, and Josh Groban joined at various parts of the broadcast.

The long list of participants also included Dan Levy, Idina Menzel, Debra Messing, Busy Philipps, Ben Platt, Finn Wolfhard, as well as Ilina and Eliot Glazer.