Gawker, the ultra-trendy New York blog known for its relentless slamming of celebrities and other people in the news, has veered into strange and farcical territory when it comes to Jews. Gawker's Sunday newsletter placed a story about Bernie Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years in prison on Monday for running the largest Ponzi scheme in history, under a banner that screamed: “FUCKIN’ JEWS.” [The above screen shot shows what thousands of Gawker readers received in their in boxes.]

Moreover, Gawker’s site includes a handful of stories archived under “FUCKIN’ JEWS” (at http://gawker.com/tag/fuckin.-jews/). By scrolling down on that page, you’ll find more Madoff commentary and even a ditty about how actor Shia LaBeouf allegedly has “a small weiner.” [The second image in this story is a screen shot of the archive for Gawker's "FUCKIN' JEWS" stories.]

What gives? Does Gawker hate Jews? Or is this an off-the-mark attempt to be funny?

Gawker Managing Editor Gabriel Snyder replied to my query via e-mail, writing, "You're actually the first to point it out."

He added:

That newsletter goes to, according to the counter on the front page, 3,469 people and is compiled by some automated email newsletter machine somewhere. If it were working correctly, the tag it would have included would have been the lead tag on the post (http://gawker.com/5303305/its-official-bernie-madoff-is-completely-utterly-totally-broke) which was "Everybody Hurts."

Why the email newsletter machine pulled the "fuckin' jews" tag up to the front (some of the others on it: Tasteless prison rape joke, fuckin' MTA, Worse for the Jews than Tay-Sachs disease, Breakin' the Law, George Bluth Sr.) is a mystery to me. But, yes, it was one of the "comedy" tags that our clever writers like to include.

As for Foster Kamer, if he intended it to be anti-Semitic, it would be a pretty self-loathing act, since he tells me, "I've been Bar Mitzvahed, Confirmed (!) and went to a Jewish summer camp for four years as a camper, one as a counselor-in-training, and two as a counselor. My mother probably wants me to call her. My grandparents will call this a 'shonda' and my cousins would crack up."

So that's Snyder and Gawker's response. Satisfied? I contacted the Anti-Defamation League, a national group that fights anti-Semitism and bigotry in the United States and abroad, for their take. I'll include any response as an addendum to this post.

While Gawker's language would shock your typical news editor, keep in mind that Gawker is breathless in its zeal to distance itself from what can be defined as “journalism.” As Gawker chief Nick Denton, a former Financial Times reporter, told The Washington Post in a recent interview, "We don't seek to do good. We may inadvertently do good. We may inadvertently commit journalism. That is not the institutional intention."

What was committed this time — regardless of views on journalism — was perhaps a simpering, self-loathing joke, based on Snyder's statement. But awkward jokes about Jews, or any ethnic or religious group, seem to be bad judgement, especially in the wake of the shooting tragedy at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. And Gawker is now open to accusations that it furthers hateful stereotypes of Jews as money-grubbers given it's stab at Madoff.

I found something hypocritical in Gawker's coverage, too. In April, a Gawker article referenced a piece in Harper’s about the unsettling rise of Christian evangelicals in the military. Gawker noted that the son of Military Religious Freedom Foundation founder Mikey Weinstein was harrassed as a cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

What did they call him? A "fucking Jew."