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New York City - Mayor Bloomberg today enthusiastically defended the controversial Correction Department head chaplain who signed off on a bar mitzvah bash in a Manhattan jail - even as he said the recent resignations of a rabbi and an agency chief because of the scandal "was the right thing for them to do."

Bloomberg had nothing but praise for Umar Abdul-Jalil, even though the Muslim imam has a serious criminal record, a prior job suspension for violating Correction Dept. policy -- and is now under fire for initially lying about his role in the bar mitzvah brouhaha.

"This is a guy who is somebody that does a good job and we need to have him and I'm very happy to have him," Bloomberg said of Abdul-Jalil, who is an assistant Correction commissioner.

Bloomberg's vote of confidence in Abdul-Jalil comes days after two Correction officials -- chaplain Rabbi Leib Glanz and security Chief Peter Curcio -- resigned because of the scandal, which is the subject of an ongoing city Department of Investigation probe.

"A three-star chief and the rabbi have chosen to resign, which was the right thing for them to do," Bloomberg said yesterday.

The mayor did not say why it was "the right thing" for those two to quit, but not for Abdul-Jalil to do the same.

Curcio this week quit amid accusations that he had allowed the bar mitzvah despite the objections of the Tombs' deputy warden, who raised security concerns. But Curcio has told The Post that Abdul-Jalil was the one who signed off on letting the bar mitzvah occur.

In fact, a Dec. 26 memo to Deputy Warden Artemio Colon from Abdul-Jalil refers to "the approval of my office to conduct a bar mitzvah ceremony for the son of inmate Tuvia Stern."

"Rabbi Glanz will submit a list of community guests to your office who shall be allowed to attend the ceremony. All food items for this event will be furnished by Rabbi Glanz," Abdul-Jalil wrote Colon.

Sources have told The Post that when Correction Commissioner Martin Horn recently asked Abdul-Jalil about the bar mitzvah, the imam initially lied and denied having anything to do with it.

But Abdul-Jalil then admitted he had approved the bar mitzvah after being confronted with an email provided by Tombs warden George Okada showing the imam had OK'd the party.

The imam, Curcio, Okada and Correction Chief Frank Squillante were all docked two weeks of vacation because of their roles in the debacle.

Abdul-Jalil's lawyer, Norman Siegel, yesterday said, "I think when all the facts come out, people will see the imam did the right thing in this controversy."

Abdul-Jalil, 58, served slightly more than 13 years in state prison after being convicted of drug sales in 1973. He was paroled in February 1989.

In 2006, Abdul-Jalil was suspended for two weeks by the Correction Department in connection with fiery speeches he had given the prior year in which he referred to Zionists in the media and terrorists in the White House. Abdul-Jalil ostensibly was sanctioned not for the content of his speech, but for the claim that he had not made clear that he was not speaking on behalf of the Correction Department.

Bloomberg yesterday downplayed that prior controversy, saying the press "made it a big headline, like it was something dramatic."

"He gets great marks from all the other clergy for working together collaboratively and all of the other clergy, rabbis and ministers and priests stood up for him and I listened very carefully to all of them and made a decision that this is a guy who is somebody that does a good job," Bloomberg said.

One of those clergy who defended Abdul-Jalil at the time was Rabbi Glanz.

Bloomberg yesterday added that, "What's gone on in the Corrections Department, in the Tombs, is unacceptable. [DOI] boss Rose Gill Hearn is still investigating. Whether anything more comes about it I don't know."