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In some bizarre meta-commentary on the whole Mel Gibson controversy, Newsweek has created a parody column by a character they're calling "Rabbi Marc Gellman." The character is apparently supposed to display every negative stereotype associated with Jews. After the jump, we introduce you to this edgy new satirist.

"Rabbi Marc" takes as his subject the recent Democratic primary for Senate in Connecticut, where noted Jew Joe Lieberman lost to political neophyte WASP Ned Lamont. In a ballsy display of alternative comedy chops, Newsweek has "Rabbi Marc" wonder "why Jews did not vote for Joe the way blacks voted for Barack Obama or Catholics voted for John F. Kennedy." After establishing his qualifications as a "professional Jew" (who isn't?), "Gellman" takes on Iraq, the issue largely considered responsible for Lieberman's loss:

Those who want to bring all the troops home by next Monday, and those who want to "nuke the bastards" are both nuts. So among reasonable non-rabid people, the differences over Iraq are just not that big. And for this we dumped Joe? It just makes no sense to me and it ought to be a huge embarrassment to all card-carrying Jews whether they agreed with Joe or not.

See how detailed this parody is? Even the sentence construction ("...for this we dumped Joe?") is written in classic "sitcom Jew." Better still, we get this:

One day a tribal Jewish friend took me to a shvitz on Western Avenue in Chicago. A shvitz (there are hardly any of them left) is a place where heterosexual Jewish men used to go to sit in a searingly hot steam room, get hit with soapy oak-leaf clusters called pleitzas, eat herring and black bread with red pop, play cards and tell jokes.

(Presumably the faygelahs go elsewhere.)

In any event, we want to congratulate Newsweek. Satire like this is extremely difficult to pull off, as there's always the risk that certain groups won't get it and will take offense. I'm sure that as we speak, people are writing angry letters to the magazine blaming it for perpetuating stereotypes of Jews as clannish, tribal, close-minded supporters of Israel and all things Jewish. These people need to stop for a minute and think: If this were an actual column, would any mainstream publication take the chance of printing it?

Not on your tuchus.

Joe and the Jews [Newsweek]