It’s no secret that Wisconsin primary loser Donald J. Trump—presidential candidate to the stars like Kid Rock, Mike Tyson, and Ted Nugent—has been trying to win over the Jews. There was that scary speech at AIPAC, with its immediate standing ovation and subsequent apology from the organization to anyone whose sensitivities to things like outright bigotry might have been piqued. There’s the fact that he seems to think it’s a compliment to routinely tell rooms full of Jews that he’s a tough negotiator, just like them. And there’s the fact that he’s constantly touting his daughter Ivanka, a glamorous Jewess, who recently gave birth to a baby boy named Theodore, making the Donald, an incredibly dedicated self-tanner, a grandpa again.
Well, Mr. Trump, let me offer you a small tip: If you want to please the Jews, Donald, maybe you could start with actually showing up to your Jewish baby grandson’s bris. That’s right. Grandpa Trump had some campaigning to do in The Badger State, so he skipped the bris “to stop by Miss Katie’s Diner in Milwaukee, where he walked in and waved before posing for pictures with about a third of the patrons,” reported The New York Times.
Retail politics swiftly checked off, he sat down with six of his staff members for breakfast (fried eggs, bacon and hot chocolate with whipped cream) and had a 20-minute chat with reporters.
So what did Trump miss when Theodore James, the newest tiny Trump-Kushner, was welcomed into the covenant of Abraham? Well, it happened, I imagine, in the most traditional sense: there was blood, and also wine and cookies and bagels afterward. Ivanka was there, obviously. One of Ivanka’s strange American Psycho brothers’s blonde wives was there, too, I’m sure. Her mother Ivana was there, too, in an outfit I plan to wear every single day after I turn fifty. Seriously, look at these photos! Numerous male helpers multi-tasked by carrying a hand-held Moses carriage for baby Theodore in one hand, and a Bergdorf Goodman bag in the other. (Also, Ivanka wore her own pumps, which you can buy here.)
The Donald, and presumably, the Melania, were nowhere to be found, opting instead to remain in Wisconsin rather than Central Park West (or is it East?). In Wisconsin, Trump was busy lecturing groups of people wearing triangular caps made of rubber in the shape of cheese, telling them about how he intends to humiliate and blackmail Mexico, a sovereign state and one of our greatest trading partners, into building a border wall that no one particularly thinks we need but him. Because he builds things. And also, because I think he wants to emblazon his name in gold across it.
I don’t know how this will play with the Jews because Donald’s absence is a major fail. Jews, at least in the sense that Trump seems to understand, are all about family, and tradition—and my God—nachas from the grandchildren. Tell me: If your father had a private jet and any amount of money at his disposal, is there anything—save some sort of massive health crisis, and probably not even that—that would make him miss his grandson’s bris? I think not.
Although, let’s be honest: your father and mine probably don’t have quite the same—what shall we call it—anxiety in that area as Trump, given his almost compulsive comments on the subject. Does the concept of circumcision make Trump nervous? Is he afraid of being—how can I put this delicately?—unflatteringly compared to his infant grandson? Hard to say. But let’s just hope that this is the day Donald Trump lost the Jews who were going to vote for him. All 17 of them.
Related: Trump Watch [Tablet series]
Rachel Shukert is the author of the memoirs Have You No Shame? and Everything Is Going To Be Great,and the novel Starstruck. She is the creator of the Netflix show The Baby-Sitters Club, and a writer on such series as GLOW and Supergirl. Her Twitter feed is @rachelshukert.
