A cartoon on the Website www.politickernj.com is headed "Rothman the Mohel, or, Ferriero’s Bris." By Rob Tornoe, it shows a yarmulked, maniacally smiling Rep. Steve Rothman (D-9) about to wield a meat cleaver on Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero’s (artfully blocked out) private parts. Meanwhile, an equally yarmulked Sen. Frank Lautenberg is shown holding Ferriero down for the procedure.

The not-very-hidden meaning is that Rothman pressured Ferriero to endorse the 84-year-old Lautenberg for re-election to the Senate. The overt meaning is that Rothman emasculated him, in a sense. It’s a long story that does not need repeating here, but we bring it up to ponder when a joke is not a joke but a slur.

A joke we can take; in fact, a similar cartoon could appear in a Jewish newspaper or on a Jewish Website without drawing our criticism. We can even imagine a host of captions (including wondering whether the knife is fleishig). It’s the old saw: We are the only ones allowed to make fun of us. But this cartoon, in particular, is inappropriate for a general-interest site.

It is distasteful and unseemly — and could be viewed as defamatory — to depict two Jews in the act of gleefully performing bodily harm on a non-Jew. It could even be viewed as inciting to violence or other wrongful acts. And it certainly is a reminder, to voters who had rightly been religion-blind, that these two powerful members of Congress are Jews.

Or was that the point? Was cartoonist Tornoe intentionally sending a not-very-subliminal anti-Semitic message? Or did it just creep up on him from his unconscious and the wider culture?

One thing’s for certain: He can rest assured that we won’t mount a riot in protest — but we doprotest, and urge him to be wary of crossing the line.