At last night’s Purim schpiel (satire) at Washington D.C.’s largest Conservative synagogue, Adas Israel, the story line was that the evil Chancellor Haman of the “Persian Institute of Technology” had decided to do away with a “woman in science” fellowship because he believed that women lacked competence in the sciences. Poor Esther had to give up her dreams of a career in science and instead enter a beauty contest to become Queen. Eventually (and this all took place in between reading chapters of the traditional megillah), the evil Chancellor Haman is vanquished and instead of becoming queen, Esther becomes the King’s chief science adviser and reinstitutes the women in science fellowship.
OY!
Even worse, though much shorter in duration, was the joke made about the “thickness” of Red state voters. The Summers’ parody was just a stupid aping of political correctness, while the red state joke (unaccompanied by any “Blue state” humor, much less obnoxious blue state humor) was simply obnoxious and disrespectful to congregants who disagreed with the majority sentiment in the room.
On the other hand, I managed to inject some levity, at least for my wife and me, by vigorously spinning my grogger (noisemaker) at the mention of Hilary Clinton, an “honor” usually reserved for the evil Haman.
Happy Purim!
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