JustASC

NJpoliticker.com, a must-read for political junkies, posted this charming cartoon by Rob Tornoe on the eve of Passover, under the headline, “Rothman the Mohel, or, Ferriero’s Bris.”

For those not up on their NJ Democratic politics, the joke here is that U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman and U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg are alleged to have strong-armed Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero to withdraw an intended endorsement of  U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, who is challenging Lautenberg for his Senate seat. 

A comment by Ben Dworkin in the feedback section nails the outrage under the title, “evocative of blood libel”:

With a week to go before Passover, a time when the ancient blood libel charges have been raised in the past, this cartoon is offensive and inappropriate. PolitickerNJ should be smarter than to put this out there.

I get the point of the cartoon, and the joke. Surely there is another way to make people laugh about the situation in Bergen County without resorting to this kind of religious imagery, which evokes so many slanders of the past.

I respectfully ask that you reconsider your decision to post this.

I wonder how the publisher will respond.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 8:23 am and is filed under JustASC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.