Steve Irwin wasn’t Jewish and crocodile is probably not kosher, but aleha hashalom anyway, mate. The 44 year-old animal chaser died this morning after catching the poisonous end of a stingray off while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. My heart goes out to his wife and children.

Oddly enough, Yenta Boy watched “Crocodile Hunter” for the very first time yesterday morning — just a day before Irwin caught that deadly spine in the heart. He enjoyed the show, but he kept saying, “Mom, this dude’s craaazy.” I’ve always agreed, especially after he was caught on film feeding a gator with one hand and holding his infant son with the other.

I haven’t told my kid yet that his new hero is dead. I’m trying to figure out the lesson here: Act like a meshuggeneh around sharp-toothed predators and dangerous creatures and it’ll come back to bite you? Follow your dreams and you’ll die doing what you do best?

Considering we now live somewhere where crocodiles and stingrays reside in abundance — in fact, we see both several times a week, the latter at the end of fishing lines and the former lurking in the swamps of the nearby wildlife refuge — I hope my sensitive son won’t take Irwin’s strange demise as a cue that it’s much safer to stay inside and watch TV.