By Joel H. Cohen
NEW YORK — Where will it end? When will there be a halt to the shattering of beloved institutions?
Prompting this concern is a just-released report of a respected Israeli archaeological team, Alt Zackhn Gefunen (Yiddish, meaning “old things found”). The report asserts that Haman wore an oval-shaped hat, not a three-cornered one.
Consequently, hamantashen, the three-cornered pastry named for the tyrant and enjoyed for centuries by Jews and non-Jews alike, can no longer be considered authentic Purim fare.
As expected, the leaked report has sent shock waves through the baking industry. Bakers the world over have united in a campaign to discredit – batter? — the researchers and challenge their findings.
“What are we going to do with dozens and dozens of uneaten hamantashen?” one asked. “Are we now supposed to start baking oval-shaped oval-latkes or oval-teens? They just don’t have the cachet of hamantashen.”
“And if people stop buying our Purim pastries altogether,” asked another rhetorically, “what will we do with the unused dough or with the ton of mun (poppyseed) we’ve ordered, as well as the prunes, apples and other fillings that we’ve readied for the hamantashen?
“”Sure, we can use them in different-shaped pastries,” he added, “but it won’t be the richtich (real) McCoy.”
“First, they convinced us to use cookie dough instead of the soft casings of old. Now this. It’s the latest Shushan shanda,” a third baker muttered. “We don’t accept the report.”
A spokesman for an organizations of matzah manufacturers joined in the protest, declaring, “Next thing you know, they’ll find that it was falafels, not matzah, the Israelites took with them on the exodus from Egyptian slavery. Where will it stop?”
In a series of tweets, President Trump chimed in: “How sad, because of socialist Democrats and major fake news organizations, a beloved part of a beloved tradition is being cast aside.”
“Haman-tushen (as he spelled the word) have been with us as long as Big Macs, maybe longer. And now the loser lefties have chimed in to rob us of them. A complete hoax. VERY SAD.”
And finally: “Before you know it, they’ll be telling us that Abe Lincoln – our greatest president until me – that Abe didn’t wear a stovepipe hat. Maybe a baseball cap with “Make America Rate Again.” SO SAD!!”
Trump confided to intimates that he was seriously planning to have “my people” look into taking away the tax exemption of the archaeological society. Reminded that the society was not a U.S. organization, Trump said, “What’s your point?”
Nevertheless, in the United States, a special committee of expert genealogists was appointed to establish or deny the legitimacy of Alt Zackhn Gefunen’s report, and found it “very professional and credible.”
The crack Israeli archaeological team has based its (to some, startling) findings on tracings, DNA and ancient scrolls containing writings of the Persian royal haberdasher.
So it seems likely that, from here on out, Purim noshen may encompass a different shape of hamantashen
“Better to know the historical facts than to go on living and eating a geometric lie,” the Jewish leader of the three-year expedition declared.
“We learned, too,” he added, “that Haman had a troubled childhood, but we weren’t brave enough or foolish enough to include that in our report.”
Happy Purim!
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Readers who are new to freelance writer Joel Cohen’s “Just Kidding” columns are advised that they are satirical and should not be taken seriously. Cohen much appreciates reader comments about his columns, but regrets he cannot answer them individually.