Oy Vey!

The Jewish Daily Forward reports that Sen. George "Macaca" Allen may really be Jewish!

You'll recall that Allen recently called a campaign worker for his opponent, James Webb, a "macaca." (It turned out that the Webb worker has lived in Virginia all his life, which is more than Allen can say.) Allen tried to laugh the whole thing off and said that he made up the word. The Forward, however, asserts that the word means monkey, and that Allen may have picked it up from his mother, Henriette Lumbroso Allen, who was originally from the French-speaking upper class in what was then the French protectorate of Tunisia. The Forward goes on to speculate that Sen. Allen's mother is likely to be Jewish, because Lumbroso was the name of a prominent family in the Sephardic (Spanish Jews) community in Tunisia. If Mrs. Allen was the child of two Jewish parents--which The Forward rates as probable given her age and background, then under traditional Jewish law her son George would also be a Jew.

Are the conservative Christians who form a large part of Sen. Allen's constituency ready to be represented by a Jew? Stand by.

(Of course, if Allen keeps inserting his foot into his overly-large mouth, it won't matter what religion he may be.)