Oy gevalt! Michael Richards just might be a Hebrew

I'm so confused -- can't we just take Thanksgiving off? No. Laist, via Gothamist, reports that Michael Richards' new publicist says his client, the former Kramer, is indeed a Jew. And he's a Mason. Not a Marsha Mason, but the mysterious society that wears funny hats and is the font of many a conspiracy theory.

The Michael-Richards-is-Jewish "revelation" comes from the N.Y. Post:

Richards, in frantic damage-control mode, hired New York p.r. maestro Howard Rubenstein yesterday. And the famed mouthpiece confirmed his client used anti-Semitic words that night in California.

"He is Jewish and he said, 'I'm absolutely not anti-Semitic,' " Rubenstein said. "He acknowledged that he said those things. He said that he was role-playing and playing a character. He said, 'There is no way I'm anti-Jewish.' "

Jewish leaders, however, are reluctant to accept Richards' I'm-Jewish-too defense.

"It doesn't make the slightest difference. He should know the history of how much we have suffered throughout history," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.