Michael Richards' New Jew Review

When Michael Richards was accused of hurling anti-Semitic remarks at a comedy club audience, his publicist explained the comedian was Jewish, in theory inoculating the under-fire actor from further charges of bigotry.

There was one problem, though: Richards was not, and is not, Jewish.

In the latest publicity disaster for the former Seinfeld star, Richards' camp has been forced to re-explain the actor's religious and ethnic heritage.

The revised take, as expressed by publicist Howard Rubenstein on Wednesday: "Technically, he's not Jewish."

Rubenstein chalked up the confusion to a "lack of communication."

"You're either born of a Jewish parent, or you convert," Jewish Journal editor-in-chief Robert Eshman said Wednesday. "It's pretty simple."

And so it's pretty simple in Richards' case, too. By the actor's own acknowledgment, he is: (a) not the son of a Jewish mother, (b) not a convert and therefore, even if some of his best friends are Jewish he is (c) not Jewish.

This revelation, to Richards anyway, comes as the erstwhile Cosmo Kramer is trying to convince the public that he's not a racist despite his invective use of the N-word to African-American hecklers at a Los Angeles comedy club on Nov. 17.

"I haven't spoken like this to an African-American before," Richards said on the Rev. Jesse Jackson's radio program last weekend. "It's a first time for me to talk to an African-American like this."

Richards, 57, has not claimed to be of African-American descent.

Richards' camp was moved to comment on his Jewishness after a woman who attended an earlier Richards comedy show told TMZ.com that the actor lashed out at an audience member, yelling, "You f---ing Jew. You people are the cause of Jesus dying."

When Rubenstein spoke to Richards about the incident, Richards explained he "was acting out the part of a redneck," and was "absolutely not anti-Semitic."

"He said, but I'm Jewish," Rubenstein related.

At the time, Rubenstein said, he didn't press Richards for further information.

"I didn't ask another question," Rubenstein said.

Later, when Richards' claim of Jewishness was questioned by others, Rubenstein went back to Richards. The actor then explained he wasn't Jewish by blood or by conversion, but that he'd read a lot about the religion and had adopted it for his own.

Also, Rubenstein said Richards told him, "My two greatest mentors were Jewish."

Similarly, on Sunday's Jackson show, Richards noted that growing up, "my best friends were African-Americans."

Rubenstein was retained by Richards late last week. The New York-based publicity powerhouse specializes in damage control.

The latest round of damaging headlines might have been controlled, or even avoided, had Richards read the Jewish Journal last week.

On Nov. 21, while most of the media was still parsing Richards' racist rant, the Jewish Journal published an article on its Website declaring that the actor, who had not yet declared he was Jewish, was in fact not Jewish.

Eshman said the paper was so moved after getting an email from a reader who'd heard comic Paul Rodriguez imply that Richards should know better than to use hate speech when Richards was himself Jewish.

"It became an obsession," Eshman said. "Everyone wants to know if Michael Richards was Jewish."

The verdict in the Jewish Journal article, which recapped Richards' childhood and career, was that while Richards played a Jewish character on Seinfeld, the actor was not Jewish in real life.

But as a Detroit Jewish News feature all the way back in 1997 argued, not even Cosmo Kramer was Jewish. By way of proof, the article cited two episodes, including "The Bris," in which Kramer objects to a baby boy being circumcised as per the Jewish rite.

Jewish or not Jewish, the bad press continues unabated for Richards. On Wednesday's Howard Stern Show, former Simpsons executive producer Sam Simon told numerous unflattering stories of life on a TV set with the Emmy winner, per a recap of the interview on MarksFriggin.com.

Richards himself doesn't sound like he's got too many flattering stories to tell.

"He's very fragile, and he's dealing with his psychiatrist regularly in Los Angeles," Rubenstein said. "He wants to get to the bottom of his anger."

Richards has at least one person pulling for him: Mel Gibson.

The Oscar winner, who ranted about the "f---ing Jews" during a drunken-driving arrest last summer, has told Entertainment Weekly he feels like sending Richards "a note."