By Joel H. Cohen
NEW YORK — President Trump is still determined to help Jews make Tisha B’Av, the saddest day on the Hebrew calendar, “fun again.”
He’s reintroduced that slogan, first offered a year ago, this time with examples of how he would accomplish the goal.
It’s part of Trump’s just-introduced reelection campaign strategy, to concentrate on one religious or ethnic group at a time, to demonstrate his “great, special interest” in each of them. At the urging of Ivanka and Jared, he’s starting with Jews.
“I am not Jewish, but believe me, I’d be happy to be,” he said. ”In any case, I can relate to their history, including Tisha B’av, which commemorates many, many terrible events.
“So many awful things happened on that day over the years – two holy temples in Jerusalem destroyed, Jews murdered or thrown out of their home countries, and just terrible suffering for generations.
“Which is why, Ivanka and Jared tell me that, in recent years, for three weeks before the day, and more intensely in the nine days leading up to Tisha B’Av, .Jews fast all day, sit low, don’t dress up, pray for hours, don’t shave or take showers (an invitation to germs)…no romance (that’s un-American)…don’t get a haircut (Not have my hair taken care of for three weeks.? Give me a break!)/
“A real downer if I ever heard of one…and so I made up my mind to do something about it.”
“Ivanka, who’s as smart as she’s beautiful — isn’t she something? – said that wise old Jewish guys wrote about changing sadness to joy, mourning into celebration. And that’s my approach.”.
Trump assembled a convention of rabbis, presidents of synagogue and sisterhoods, and heads of Jewish organizations, to come up with ways to turn the saddest of observances and the period preceding it into a pleasurable one.
“Hard to believe,” he commented, “but even I have had some down days in my life –property destroyed…bankruptcies (but always part of my strategic planning)…phony lawsuits….lies by companies and workers that I stiffed them on a job…rejection on a technicality when I wanted so badly to serve in the military.
“But I always knew that when you’re hit by something bad, you just suck it up and move on, and that what I’m recommending to my Jewish friends about Tisha B’Av.”
It’s unlikely that proposals Trump announced came from delegates to that convention, but in any event, he’s promoting transforming negatives into positives:
“Instead of fasting, we’ll feast… we’ll have dances at Mar-a-Lago…golf tournaments ….big-money raffles….parades….and even offer bobble heads of famous rabbis (my attorney general is looking into ways we can legally sell them, if the executive order is worded a certain way).
“You never heard of Obama or crooked Hillary thinking up anything like this, right?”
Then, turning to what the observance has been known as over time, he said, “As you’re well aware, I don’t like bringing myself or my name into things. But many, many people have suggested that, even though the Tisch family were realtors, they were minor-league ones compared to us, and it would give a lot more dignity to the holiday if they called it “TrumpAbove” instead of Tisha B’Av.
For people who are still determined to cling to tradition, the president offered a compromise: maybe refrain from eating and drinking for just part of the day.
But a critic said that that suggestion – and perhaps the entire Trump plan relating to Tisha B’ av – – was just a “half-fast” idea.
His words, not mine.
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Readers unfamiliar with Joel Cohen’s “Just Kidding” column are assured that it is satire and nothing therein should be taken seriously.
“Readers unfamiliar are assured that it is satire and nothing therein should be taken seriously.”
What’s *really* planned this year?