NEW YORK — If President Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday night had a gathering for Purim, it would been a party “the likes of which has never been seen before.” Following is how we imagine the news media might have covered the event:
The president sponsored the celebration, he said, “mainly for my Jewish friends, who are so numerous, even I can’t keep count… certainly more than crooked Hillary or Obama ever had.” Many other ethnicities were also represented.
The event took place a night earlier than the actual holiday, he said, “because, as leader of both this great nation and the free world, I have too many pressing duties scheduled for later in the week.” (To a reporter’s comment that a golf game was on the schedule, Trump said “I do my most creative planning on the golf course.”)
As to the Purim party itself, innovative practices were mixed with the traditional. For instance, the ancient custom of booing and drowning out the name of the villain Haman with rotating noise-makers called groggers. (“I never knew Haman,” Trump has commented, “but I’ve heard he was a strong leader.”)
Instead of groggers at the Trump party, kazoos were distributed to make the appropriate cacophony at the mention of Haman’s name, According to unconfirmed reports, the Trump organization will distribute kazoos to Trump loyalists, who will disrupt Democratic rallies with the noise-makers.
Alongside the holiday’s basic pastries, hamantashen, made in the shape of Haman’s three-cornered hat, were the new Trumpets, oblong pastry to honor the president, featuring orange marmalade to represent his hair.
There were old favorite games enjoyed by Jewish men and women, such as mah jongg, canasta and pinochle. But a new favorite was added for the Purim party — pisha paysha — much like the card game known as War. “I hate war,” Trump tweeted, “which is why I withdrew our troops from around the Kurds, who happen to like venturing on their own.”)
In pisha paysha, players divide a standard card deck equally, and proceed to turn over one card at a time. The one with higher face value captures the other. If both turn over a card with the same face value, they go to “war,” turning over,a pre-determined number of cards.with the higher last card capturing all the others. The game, easily played by opponents of varying ages,with captured card going back and forth, can go on for hours.
Because Purim means “lots,’ the event included a high-priced lottery, once again with proceeds earmarked for the Trump reelection campaign.
Yet another staple of Purim celebrations are costumes, many of them representations of Queen Esther’s, the heroine of the Purim story. Many communities have Queen Esther contests. At the Mar-a-Lago event, it was understood that it would be unwise for the president to have to choose either his wife, Melania, or daughter, Ivanka. So he decreed there’d be two Queen Esthers, of different age categories. There was almost a costume catastrophe averted when an aide discovered that Ivanka and Melania were planning to wear almost identical dresses, but the staff got Ivanka to relent and wear a different garment.
Acting as master of ceremonies for the entire event, President Trump decided to pay tribute to prominent Jewish guests in attendance, and mistakenly thought Yasher Koach and Olav Hashalom (which he pronounced Oliver Shalom) were people, not respectful expressions. Yasher Koach, said to a person who’s performed a righteous act, such as participating in a reading from the Torah, means “may you have strength,” and Olav Hashalom, is said when a deceased person is mentioned, and means, “may his/her soul have peace.”
No one present had the courage to correct the president, Mick Mulvaney might have done it, but he was no longer Chief of Staff.
All in all, the event was a great success.
President Trump, a self-proclaimed germaphobe, shook countless hands at the event, despite warnings about potentially fatal consequences of the worldwide outbreak of coronavirus. The president labeled reports “a media hoax,” adding “I’m not thrilled, but I’m too great a politician not to shake hands,”
He claimed,” I’m exceptionally smart about diseases, much smarter than the so-called disease experts, who exaggerate the situation. As to the ship carrying victims of the virus, ordered to stay off the California coast, Trump said, “Personally, I prefer people who don’t get infected with viruses”.
He added,”There’s a lot of fear-mongering by the phony media. The truth is the virus will correct itself very, very soon, and so will the stock market.”
Returning to the subject of interactions with his fans, he said: “I love the people of this country, and you can’t be a politician and not shake hands. And I’ll be shaking hands with people and [if] they want to say hello and hug you and kiss you, I don’t care.”
Maybe an elbow-bump, or just a wave, would have been enough.
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Readers unfamiliar with Joel H. Cohen’s “Just Kidding” columns are assured that they are satire and should not be taken seriously.