NEW YORK — When most people unfamiliar with the custom see silverware that seems to be growing out of the soil in a Jewish person’s yard or flower pot. They’ll probably listen to the explanation, accept or reject the premise, and move on.
Not so, with President Trump, whose vivid imagination can go into overdrive with the slightest provocation and soar from there. For instance, on his way recently to a rally of supporters, when he was being driven through an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, he noticed a yard in which dozens of spoons, knives and forks were emerging from the ground like vegetables or flowers.
“I’ll be [expletive]” he exclaimed, “the Jews are on to something spectacular,” and he quickly tweeted cabinet members, his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared to share his discovery. When Jared explained that some Jews plant silverware — say, to restore kosher correctness after flatware used exclusively for meat is accidentally “contaminated” by dairy, or vice versa — Trump insisted that was “just a cover story. There’s an old saying, ‘don’t try to snow Jack Frost,’ referring to his own ability to convince people with his own ‘facts.’ The Jews have hit upon some magic formula for growing finished metal products like vegetables.”
“The Jews are on to something sensational,” he repeated in a tweet. “And I get what they’re doing, much more than Obama or crooked Hillary ever did. They didn’t have the smarts to figure it out, and even if they did, they didn’t have the guts to act on it.
“The Jews are very smart people, believe me, I know that from experience, and, even more to the point, I can see the fine hand of Israel engineering in this. The Israelis are very, very brilliant, so brilliant in fact, that I often think there must be some Israeli blood in my DNA.”
He explained that he could deduce from the sight of silverware seemingly growing out of soil that Jewish scientists, primarily Israelis, had discovered a formula that enabled all sorts of finished metal products to be planted underground in simple backyards. At this moment, Trump speculated, Israelis are developing a domestic mining industry that will probably soon sweep the world.”
Whipping into action without further thought, as is his custom, he hastily assembled a special commission, headed by Rudy Giuliani (“He’s a tiger, I assure you, who won’t stop until he accomplishes his mission,” Trump commented) to find out the specifics, and “deal with the involved Israeli scientists first to share the production plans and eventually take over.”
The mission: become a partner with Israel temporarily — until their secret is discovered — then go out on our own. Incentives? “”We can knock off our trade guarantees, Trump said, “or even threaten to move our embassy out of Jerusalem and back to Tel Aviv.”
The special force is nicknamed GRASP (Grass Roots Agricultural Silverware Program,} and its divisions, both Operation Brass Grass and Operation Metal Petal.
Also named to the commission: “My Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, my Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and my Attorney General Bill Barr to make sure the deal is kosher. (Get it, kosher? Sometimes I amaze myself.)”
Commenting “We’ve been playing the generous uncle to the world for too long,” Trump said he could foresee U.S. production of a vast variety of ready-made metal products — golf clubs, guns (“enough to more than satisfy Wayne LaPierre … battle ships, tanks, planes and my beloved wall for the southern border.”
He said he could also picture the employment market growing so large, “There’ll be so many openings, we have to allow undocumenteds in to fill the gaps.
“Once we tell the nations we used to import metals from, to enjoy their stockpiles,” he can turn his attention to another pressing matter:
“Many, many great people have urged me , with our metal-making ability, to install a golden throne in the Oval Office. Modesty prevents me from doing it, but now I owe it to them to give the idea full consideration.”
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Readers not familiar with Joel H. Cohen’s “Just Kidding” columns are assured they are satire, and should not be taken seriously.