Here’s Mark Caro in the Chicago Tribune on the hate speech that’s supposed to pass as “edgy humor” at pseudo-blogs Wonkette and Gawker: Harry Potter and Gawker’s Jewish problem.

The piece is about how “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” comes out at 2:01 a.m. Saturday in Israel, but Israeli law prohibits stores from being open on the Sabbath, or as Gawker puts it: “Head Heebs in the Holy Land are trying to keep bookstores closed at the appointed hour of the novel’s release.”

The unbylined piece (UPDATE: There actually is a byline or tagline or whatever you call a single name in small print off to the right of the posting’s conclusion. It’s “BALK,” short for editor Alex Balk) goes on to note:

“Some stores are planning to open anyway — these are Jews, let’s remember, and a buck’s a buck — which has resulted in predictable outrage from the Adonai-adoring elements of Israeli society.”

They didn’t just go there, did they? What, is it Fun with Ages-Old Slanderous Stereotypes Week?

The piece then quotes someone from the United Torah Judaism Party (by way of an Associated Press story) slamming the Potter books’ “defective messages” and their subculture before the Gawker writer fires back: “[I]sn’t this exactly how some of us feel about, you know, the Bible and its subculture of weird, tallis-wearing followers?”

Hee hee — Orthodox Jews and other Bible readers sure are a bunch of weirdos!

I suspect the Gawker folks would say they’re being postmodern and ironic. They’re playing to a crowd that appreciates such wink-wink references (the comments include several inside jokes about Jewish law and nary a complaint). There’s already a popular Jewish magazine called Heeb, so why not embrace all slurs and stereotypes? Don’t take offense; it’s all in quotation marks.

In that spirit, may I nonetheless point out, Gawker, that sometimes you guys are real “schmucks.”

Yep. And if anyone takes offense at their deliberately offensive tripe, they threaten to sue.