(This story is currently circulating by email.)

The first Jewish woman President is elected. She calls her mother: "Ma, I've won the election. You've got to come to the Inauguration!"

"I don't know, what would I wear?"

"Don't worry, Christian Dior is designing a dress just for you."

"But I only eat kosher food."

"Ma, the Rabbinical Assembly is sending a mashgiach to kosher the entire White House."

"But how will I get there?"

"I'll send Air Force One to pick you up."

"But where will I sleep?"

"You will sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom and I'm having a mikvah built just for you."

"OK, OK, if it makes you happy, I'll come."

The great day comes and Mama is seated between Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Speaker Dennis Hastert in front of the Capitol.

Mama nudges the senator and says; "See that girl up there with her hand on the Bible?"

Senator Lott says, "Yes."

"Her brother is a doctor."

It has been a busy year for news! Actually, a busy couple of years! In fact, can anyone remember when the news wasn't busy?

So it might have passed people's minds that "the first Jewish female president" is a thing...that has happened. With a lot of asterisks.

The current vice-president of the United States of America is Kamala Harris. I should write something about her, but for now, I just want to point out that we did elect a woman into the second-highest office in the land, but so much was going on that this historical moment has not been remarked on as much as we might have expected. Kamala Harris is also both of African and South Asian descent, with a parent born in Jamaica and India. And more relevantly to our discussion, she is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, our first Second Gentleman. Kamala Harris is not Jewish, but lives in a Jewish household, with Jewish step-children, and celebrates Jewish holidays, and has a mezuzah on her door. Kamala Harris is not the president, and is not Jewish, but she still comes a lot closer than would have been possible 20 years ago.

So while the joke above plays on stereotypes of a ridiculous event, the way that this really happened---or kinda happened--- was even more unpredictable than in the far-fetched joke above.


Someone pointed out to me that while under surgery, President Joseph Biden transferred power to Kamala Harris, making her, in effect, the President for a short duration. Whether this means she was "president" or not not is up to the reader to decide.

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