A few months before his son was born, Thomas Wolfe of Wheeling, W.Va., consulted the rabbi of his Reform congregation to discuss plans for the baby’s circumcision. “I had the perception that a circumcision was just an innocuous procedure, with no risk,” he later told the Forward. After the rabbi had recommended that Wolfe find a ritual circumciser, or mohel, to perform the newborn’s bris, Wolfe did a little Internet research. “It wasn’t really until that time that I became aware of all the controversies,” he said.
While the United States is one of the few industrialized countries in which a majority of newborn boys are circumcised, recent surveys show that the American circumcision rate, which was close to 90% in the 1960s, is now at only 57%. But even though the national rate has declined, circumcision remains the norm in all major Jewish denominations; most newborn Jewish boys have either a traditional brit milah or have the procedure performed at a hospital. Nevertheless, a small but vocal minority of Jewish activists have begun to question the importance, and even the morality, of circumcision. Some have even begun using alternative “bris-less” brisses to welcome their sons into the world.
The Internet is full of Web sites sponsored by circumcision opponents, who often call themselves proponents of “genital integrity” or “intactivism.” After conducting his research, Wolfe decided to forgo circumcising his son. Instead, he arranged a so-called brit shalom ceremony, a newly created ritual that celebrates birth while omitting circumcision.
His own son’s case behind him, Wolfe is now pressing for broader change. This past May, he began circulating a petition calling on Reform rabbis and congregations to reconsider a 1982 rabbinic edict affirming the centrality of circumcision in Reform Judaism. As of now, the petition has drawn about 70 signatories. But despite — or perhaps because of — their small numbers, Jewish anti-circumcision activists remain vocal in demanding that Jews change the way they view circumcision. Mark Reiss, a retired diagnostic radiologist, is executive vice president of Doctors Opposing Circumcision and a strong advocate of the brit shalom ceremony. Reiss, who is a member of a Conservative congregation in San Francisco, believes that the time has come for Jews to abandon the practice. “A lot of scholars feel that circumcision was an atavistic cultural remnant from the days when pagans sacrificed their boys to the gods,” he told the Forward. Reiss has been active in creating a database of rabbis and laypeople who will officiate at brit shalom ceremonies. There are no restrictions on the content of the ceremony, according to Reiss. Some parents simply use it as a naming ceremony, some celebrate the “intactness” of their child and some design versions all their own.
Moshe Rothenberg of Brooklyn officiates at around six or seven brit shalom ceremonies a year. He preserves many of the traditional aspects of the bris, including a blessing over wine, a festive meal and a sandak (a person close to the family designated to hold the newborn during the ceremony). Instead of a circumcision, however, Rothenberg incorporates unconventional rituals. “One time we gathered stones and cast them into water to remember all the living people in the child’s life in one bowl and all the people who aren’t there in another bowl,” Rothenberg told the Forward. “Sometimes we do a ritual involving nature, often consecrating a plant or tree on behalf of the baby.” At the brit shalom of his own son, Rothenberg retold the biblical story of Abraham and Sarah welcoming angels disguised as travelers into their home. It was these angels who told Sarah she would give birth to Isaac. After the story was told, the baby’s feet were washed. This symbolically linked him to Abraham and Sarah, who washed their guests’ feet as a sign of hospitality and respect.
Many brit shalom proponents have based their stance on medical grounds. Reiss and other anti-circumcision activists claim that there are several medical reasons to abandon the practice. These include the possible pain experienced by a child during the procedure, the risk of infection and the theory that the foreskin provides sexual sensation that circumcised men can never experience. Reiss also argues that many of the perceived benefits of circumcision are in fact spurious. “Circumcision has always been related to whatever the disease of the decade was,” he said.
For some doctors, however, recent studies showing that circumcised heterosexual African men are around half as likely as their uncircumcised counterparts to contract HIV simply back up what they have claimed all along: that circumcision is not only harmless but also beneficial. Edgar Schoen, a pediatric endocrinologist who was the chair of the 1989 American Academy of Pediatrics’ Task Force on Circumcision, claims that there at least 10 known medical benefits provided by circumcision. For example, there is some evidence that circumcision decreases the risk of infant kidney infection early in life and helps prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Still, the official position of the 1999 American Academy of Pediatrics’ Task Force on Circumcision is equivocal: “Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision.” Schoen argues that this decision was reached because of the influence of what he calls “anti-circ” activists. “These people are very good with the sound bites, and they get on all the talk shows and all over the Internet,” he said, adding that such activists are especially effective in convincing young liberal Jews not to circumcise their sons. “For young, trendy Jewish parents, everything has to be natural and organic. ‘Why would the foreskin be there if it wasn’t good?’ That resonates with a lot of young Jewish parents.”
Jewish critics of circumcision have not limited their arguments to the medical realm, with some contending that the central issue is one of volition. Eli Ungar-Sargon, a Chicago-based filmmaker, recently released the documentary “Cut,” an exploration of circumcision from religious, scientific and ethical perspectives. Ungar-Sargon, who was raised Orthodox but no longer identifies with a specific denomination, told the Forward that he views circumcision “as gross violation of human rights.” He said, “I think the real central ethical issue here is one of autonomy. Do we have the right to permanently alter another person’s body without their permission?”
At the end of the day, every couple has to make its own decision, said Rabbi Donni Aaron, head of program designed to train Reform mohels. But, she added, most of the parents she has encountered eventually choose to circumcise their sons, and that trend is unlikely to change any time soon. “If for thousands of years it was clear that the practice was harmful,” she said, “it would have gone away a while ago.”
robbins, Your ethical certitude is disconcerting. Standards of ethics change, over time. We now recognize that individuals have the right to remain bodily intact. Circumcision can't remain an exception.
eveth there is nothing unethical about circumcision. Jewish circumcision has always caused anxiety among non Jews. That some Jews have decided to join the hysteria changes nothing. The idea that it hurts others is sheer fantasy, btw.
Oops, that link didn't work. The story of the Illinois boy reported today to have had his glans cut off is here. Thomas, thank you for your efforts in this area!
Sorry again, I don't know why I can't get the link in there. Let's try this one, no comma's in there: http://digg.com/health/Digg_This_Illinois_Boy_Loses_Glans_During_Optional_Circumcision_Surgey
An uncircumcised Jew is an oxymoron. It's that simple. Jews don't need to ape every non Jewish practice.
Jews are too ethical to maintain this practice. It causes too much suffering to others. Human rights are the greater imperative. Case in point, it was reported just today that an Illinois boy lost his glans to a Mogen clamp. If this had been settle privately instead of coming to a lawsuit, we'd probably never even know about it: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,141642.shtml
The petition referred to above may be joined at http://petition.nomorebris.org.
I would like to introduce some comments from http://petition.nomorebris.org - a petition directed to the leadership of the American Reform Judaism movement and it’s rabbinic assocation, to accept alternative Brit Milah (Jewish Circumcision) practices: “If [word deleted] cutting is such a powerful symbol of religious dedication men should elect to undergo the tradition not force it on an infant” “Jewish American vitality and continuity will be advanced only by education in our European Jewish and Jewish American heritage, not by removal of infant foreskins. Circumcision is anachronistic, sexist, and inconsistent with modern Jewish American belief and values. I support Brit Shalom ceremonies welcoming newborn boys and girls without damage to genitals” “There are so many elements of tradition which we choose to live without (stoning, gender oppression, etc.). In light of modern evidence about the value of the whole anatomy, and in recognition of basic human rights, perhaps our moral sense can let us adopt a tradition which lets a mature male choose the fate of his own body parts.” “Imagine a religion where a man was required to act out a “good deed” by cutting the [word deleted] of a person who has not elected to get their [word deleted] cut” I would encourage parties with similar beliefs to join the petition, at http://petition.nomorebris.org
"Do you have the right to prmanently alter another person's body without their permission?" That is the responsibility of a child's parents, who might also be asked to permit surgery, even of an elective nature, to strengthen and enhance the child's health. Perhaps Mr. Ungar-Sargon would prefer that a Jewish boy undergo a bris at age 13, or 18, or whenever? If it isn't broken, you don't fix it. The bris milah is our unbroken link to Abraham Avinu.
With a "Brit Shalom", reform Judaism is ushering in the death of Judaism. Why don't we have a mezzuzah, but leave out the Torah scroll. Let's say the hamotzi, but without bread. And forget keeping kosher: all food is provided by the heavens and should be eaten. And let's eat on Yom Kippur. It is better for our figures. By the way...all of the many health benefits of circumcison occur only if it is done in the newborn period. After that, it is too late. And I agree with Nicole. The anti-circ activists are married to shiksas, and their kids are not Jewish, anyway. Let them go, and continue their pathetic self hatred.
interesting that this is following an article by rabbi Eric Yoffee critisizing chabad for "watering down" the bar mitzvah ceremony... i wonder what he would say about this!
When I entered "circumcision" in the Forward's search box about six months ago, 1,210 citations were reported. Why such extensive coverage? Contrary to the impression apparently intended, "To Cut? Or Not To Cut?" is a live Jewish issue to few except those who wish that they could still buy tickets to a Yom Kippur Ball.
What's next, Jew-less Jews?
What's next, Jew-less Jews?
This is simply another example of Jews who believe they can be good Jews even if they do not observe any of the commandments. It is a "safety in numbers" approach that believes "if we get enough people to agree with our non-observance, it's OK". This is why the Reform Movement came into existence in the first place. The concerns enunciated by the people here are for freedom from pain, free choice and sexual pleasure, not for the fulfillment of God's desire and laws. Indeed, the notion that anything in the Torah comes from God is completely foreign to the Reform (and becoming increasingly foreign to the Conservative as well). My only response is that people are free to do and believe whatever they want; it's just offensive when they substitute their personal morality (amorality? immorality?) for the Torah's and call it Judaism.
What will all the "liberal" parents tell their children when they are asked "how could you rob me of the right to be entered into a covenant with G-d - as He explicitly asks us to do in His Torah - as soon as I was born?!" ? Remember, those who masquerade as liberals today are simply being fundamentalist about their liberalism. The new generation has begun seeking objective truths - and when they realize what their parents have imposed on them, they reject it for something of substance.
It's seems that the Forward has finally begun the end of its long slip of its grasp of reality. Soon it seems being Jewish at all will be questioned as either necessary or ethical to one's being Jewish. Which is fine enough, abandon everything. Be a Protestant if you like. But you need to find a new name for it.
What will all the "liberal" parents tell their children when they are asked "how could you rob me of the right to be entered into a covenant with G-d - as He explicitly asks us to do in His Torah - as soon as I was born?!" ? Remember, those who masquerade as liberals today are simply being fundamentalist about their liberalism. The new generation has begun seeking objective truths - and when they realize what their parents have imposed on them, they reject it for something of substance.
Someone already beat me to it, but I would point out that the focus on circumcision is really an argument about how seriously you take Torah. I remember neither the pain of circumcision nor have I missed my foreskin during the course of my life. On the other hand, I'm quite sure that I'd be angrier at my folks if I missed out on this important aspect of the Jewish life-cycle. At any rate, I've heard all the sniveling about the pain of circumcision from "intactivist" crowd, but I seldom hear health professionals unleash a torrent of activism against the arguably unhealthier penchant for tattoos and piercings that are so popular with our youth. Circumcision at least is a thousands-years-old tradition, a stud through the scrotum is not. If you don't want your kids cut, bully for you. But don't ask me or anyone else to view them as a part of the greater Jewish community. It would seem to me that intactivists are the ones with a choice to make.
Is Circumcision religious or folk law? In this 21st century we should have learned by now that "Everybody" has a right a to choice. Therefore it should be left to the adult Jewish male to make his own decision .Not the influence of the grandparents,parents, or Rabbi.
I have been told that women contract bladder and UTI infections much more often from a partner who is uncircumcised than one who is circumcised. Only women know just how uncomfortable and agonizing a UTI can be so if only for this reason alone I think circumcision is an excellent idea.
I'm pretty sure that Mr. Wolfe and the rest of the anti-circumcision Jewish fathers are married to shiksas. This assualt on Jewish traditions, by Jews, is the result of intermarriage, assimilation and self-hatred. None of these children will grow up Jewish anyway so who cares.
“If for thousands of years it was clear that the practice was harmful,” she said, “it would have gone away a while ago.” This is patently nonsense Rabbi Aaron - otherwise female genital cutting is harmless too. And before someone writes and tells me female circumcision is horrific and bears no relation to male circumcision do bear in mind that the common female circumcisions (such as clitorectomy) remove significantly fewer nerve endings than male circumcision. Its time we stopped peddling myths as a reason to hurt children, whatever their gender
....and by the way Robbins circumcision hurts a great deal - this has been proven by measuring cortisol and heart rate. It does Judaism no favours to deny a baby's pain in circumcision and that's why many Mohels admit it is painful. It is a sacrific after all. It's intended to hurt.
Pain from circumcision is not a possibility, it is a certainty. This is well-documented in the medical literature. Researchers report that circumcision is traumatic. Some infants do not cry because they withdraw in shock from the extreme pain. Usually there is no anesthetic. In any case, no anesthetic eliminates circumcision pain. Studies have also found behavioral changes resulting from circumcision, and there are over 20 potential complications. Most long-term effects have not been studied. Some Jewish parents report regretting their son's circumcision decades later. Sexual sensation of the foreskin is a documented fact from research. According to a recent study, circumcision removes the five most sensitive areas of the [word deleted]. Maimonides wrote that circumcision "weakens the power of sexual excitement" over 800 years ago. Regarding HIV prevention, condoms are much more effective, less costly, and less invasive. The benefit from circumcision is debatable. The U.S. has a high circumcision rate and the highest prevalence of HIV infection in the developed world. The American Medical Association says "behavioral factors are far more important risk factors for acquisition of HIV and other sexually transmissible diseases than circumcision status." Furthermore, babies are not sexually active. The practice continues because of cultural denial and conformity and a compulsion to repeat the trauma on the next generation. Some doctors and nurses refuse to participate in circumcisions for ethical reasons. For more information see http://www.jewishcircumcision.org.
Whether, as a parent, you choose to circumsize your son or choose not to, you should be ambivalent about your choice. If you choose to, you are imposing a contraindicated medical procedure on an infant. If you choose not to, you are breaking a four-tousand year chain of tradition. Either choice is fraught.
I wonder how many of these intact boys will later get tattoos and/or body piercings because "it's tribal," or when asked about the pain of these body modification will answer that the pain gives meaning? For that matter, how many of the parents who opt out of the bris from concern for their child's volition will hear "I never asked to be born"?
I wonder how many of these intact boys will later get tattoos and/or body piercings because "it's tribal," or when asked about the pain of these body modification will answer that the pain gives meaning? For that matter, how many of the parents who opt out of the bris from concern for their child's volition will hear "I never asked to be born"?
My questions to those who insist that bris mile (circumcision) is essential to a person's Jewishness: What physical sign of a bris (covenant) is demanded of girls? And, since there is none, why do you also insist that only children born of (non-marked) Jewish women can be considered Jewish by birth? As a Secular Jewish vegvayzer/madrikh/Leader in The Sholem Community, L.A. I proudly officiate at naming ceremonies for both boys and girls. Intercultural families, especially, are relieved and happy to find a Jewish community that emphasizes cultural and historical identity rather than slavish adherence to rituals that arose in antiquity.
I remember during my military service where men were lined up to stand what was called Short Arm Inspection. It will always be memorable to me the problems that surfaced occasionaly involving uncircucized men never with circucized men.
What makes brit milah (vkhn ,hrC), the ritual of circumcision, controversial? The critics of ritual circumcision have a number of points to make, arguing: 1. It is needlessly risky, involving trauma, pain, and potential medical complications, including excess bleeding, infection and ulceration, and occasionally permanent damage to the organ; 2. It results in “diminished sexual sensation”; 3. It is done without informed consent; and 4. It is without proven medical benefit. What is the scientific proof that circumcision involves trauma? We recognize two types of trauma, physical and psychological. After a century of widespread medically performed circumcisions, the evidence is that the procedure does not produce “serious injury or shock to the body” when performed competently—certainly far less than any number of popular elective cosmetic surgeries, which we’ll return to momentarily. Regarding emotional trauma, ordinarily defined as “substantial, lasting damage to the psychological development of the person,” the so-called scientific indictment of circumcision is an indefensible exaggeration. While many scientific studies report infant pain-reactions to circumcision, we have not been able to find any randomized surveys that query adult men on the subject. What the anecdotal literature does show is that typically when the procedure is performed on infants and very young children, they have no recollection of the event in later life, even as teenagers. And although far from a scientific survey, not one of dozens of men we’ve asked over the years had any recollection of his circumcision or any inkling that the procedure, per se, in any way affected his psychological development. One of the reported “scientific findings” regarding circumcision is that it reduces sexual pleasure. One can imagine the critics of the practice happily anticipating the negative impact of these reports on the performance of various religious circumcision rites. But at best what we have here is scientifically speculative studies; that is, scientists speculating on what ought to be the predictable effects of circumcision on sexual pleasure later in life. After reviewing hundreds of refereed journal articles on the subject, we have not found any controlled studies demonstrating this “scientific finding.” We do have, however, the conclusions of one refereed journal editorial that lead in the opposite direction on the question of reduced sexual pleasure: “The anti-circumcision lobby is committed to the emotional—not scientific—discussion of this issue. Their major contention is that circumcised men experience less sexual satisfaction than uncircumcised men. As evidence, they cite several single-sided questionnaire studies with poor scientific validity suggesting that circumcised men have decreased sensation and less satisfaction with sexual function. We reviewed a series of men undergoing adult circumcision for phimosis, balanitis, condyloma, redundant foreskin, or elective reasons. Following circumcision, they reported improved sexual satisfaction due to a more pleasing penile appearance and less pain than before circumcision.” Several reputable medical studies have found the seemingly contradictory result that after circumcision on adults, patients report both decreased penile sensitivity and greater sexual satisfaction. But for the moment let’s entertain the idea that there is a reduction in adult sexual pleasure as a result of circumcision at birth. Are we then about to discover a large constituency—nay, even a small contingent—of Jewish or Muslim men who, be-wailing their involuntary loss of sexual pleasure, have committed themselves to sparing their sons the same disappointing disability? If so, their protest of circumcision as a “barbaric ritual” has not been reported in any of the scholarly journals or popular periodicals. In our conversations with Jewish men in recent years, the consensus reaction to the claim of reduced sexual pleasure from circumcision was that they could not imagine experiencing more pleasure than what they had actually known. But nonetheless, for the sake of fully exploring the criticism, let’s say the claim is true, even if only marginally. Why aren’t the critics of circumcision equally vehement about body-piercing, facial Botox treatments, breast augmentation, and tattooing? All these popular practices run the risk of infection, pain, permanent disfigurement, and even death, but often only to “improve” one’s physical appearance. In the overwhelming majority of cases, no higher or noble purpose is served, although several do enrich medical practitioners. The most obvious defect in the argument that circumcision reduces sexual pleasure is that it underestimates the extraordinarily powerful psycho-emotional components of such pleasure. It’s self-evident that one who enters and sustains a relationship with a much greater commitment and capacity to promote and accept loving-kindness and justice—these ideals are central to the purposes and effects of entry into the covenant of circumcision—may well experience greater intellectual, emotional, and spiritual intimacy, as well as increased longevity of such intimacy, which in turn are primary sources of heightened sexual intimacy and pleasure. The notion of informed consent in matters of childrearing, particularly regarding medical and psychological decisions affecting infants, is a non-starter. During their children’s early years, parents must continually make decisions that affect their physical and psychological well being, almost always without their informed consent. Consider the definition of informed consent in the Nuremberg Code, which requires: 1. Legal capacity to give consent; 2. Ability to exercise free power of choice, with-out the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other form of constraint or coercion; and 3. Sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the subject matter and the elements involved as to enable one to make an informed and enlightened decision. Given these conditions, informed consent by an infant or small child is an oxymoron. Regarding the claim that circumcision does not have any proven medical benefits, contradictory articles have been rife for years in the professional and popular literature. Advocates on the various sides of the issue have marshaled new findings from week to week to promote their polemics. However, the findings of a study of 3,000 men in South Africa have shown conclusively that circumcised men were “more than 60% less likely than uncircumcised men to be infected with HIV when having sex with infected female partners.” A study in India found similarly that circumcised men were infected at a rate eight times less than uncircumcised men. A New York Times editorial concluded: “The South African study is the first to offer a high scientific standard of evidence that circumcision is responsible.” More recently, the National Institute of Health halted two clinical trials, in Kenya and Uganda, after concluding: “Circumcision appears to reduce a man’s risk of contracting AIDS from heterosexual sex by half. . . .” Under the circumstances, not making circumcision available to all the men in these studies would have been unethical. The most up-to-date findings, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, as reported in the New York Times, indicate that “Circumcision may provide even more protection against AIDS than was realized when the two clinical trials in Africa were stopped. . . ” —reducing a man’s risk by as much as 65 percent. Presumably the anti-circumcision lobby will be permanently silenced by the decision of the World Health Organization (WHO) when it “. . . officially recommended circumcision as a way to prevent heterosexual transmission of the AIDS virus . . . , setting the stage for donor agencies to begin paying for the operation.” As the New York Times noted about the WHO action, “The organization’s recommendation represents a triumph for a few public health experts who argued for years—in the face of skepticism from prominent scientists—that circumcision had a protective effect.” An interesting insight into the intensity of ideological opposition to circumcision in some scientific circles was revealed by a group of U.S. physicians. Before the South African study began, they took the unscientific position that “. . . no matter what evidence . . . was discovered . . . , [it] would have no impact on what the group thinks.” For citations to the studies we quoted above, included in our article on the subject which offers the "ritual" reasons for brit milah, see our article, "Brit Milah Is Not A Medical Procedure" (available at http://www.gatherthepeople.org/Downloads/BRIT_MILAH.pdf).
Next comes the Passover Seder without Matzoh or Haggadah, the Yom Kippur Day without fasting or prayer, and the Sukkoth Festival without booths or etrogim. If you don't want circumcision, don't make a BRIS. Save money on the catering and put it away for a good secular education. It's laughable to say, "We have a BRIS when the main part of the BRIS--the essential element around which all the other particulars revolve--is missing. The point of the BRIS was to make a sign in the flesh itself. In conversion of male Gentiles to Jews, the circumcision is an essential part of the process because it is this mark in the flesh that the Bible labels as as prime requisite of the "Covenant with G-d".
Why don't you people opposed to bris just have the entire Torah rewritten? That's what several demominations of Judaism are doing anyway with intermarriage, stance on homosexuality, etc. Jews for "J" know more about Judaism than many of you folks.
When we see HIV on the rise and cervical cancer a reality among women , now come along "men" who think they no more than the ancient Jews who for religous and I don't believe they understood the medical implications, have decided they don't need a bris for their new born boys. Give me a break. There are Jewsish parents who have risked their lives to give their new born boys a bris, former Soviet men and boys have come to this country and have wantedand had a bris,and rest assured it was a lot more painful then a little clip on a baby. I have never hear of one man say he misses what the mohel took away. Come on men grow up and be men. A bris not a Brit Shalom is what makes a a boy a Jewish boy.
When the jews went down to Egypt The tribe of Levi was the only ones who continued the Bris PROPERLY and they were the only ones exempt from servitude to the Egyptians. They remained the holy tribe. Those that discontinue the bris the covenant with god, God will chas vshalom discontinue his relationship...
1/ Just out of vague curiosity: Are there any Jewish Laws that the Reform/Conservatives are planning on keeping?
Enough about blaming the Reform movement for this controversy. Every boy in my synagogue that I know was circumcised. The two that I know who didn't are married to non Jews and do not participate in anything anyway.
bs"d One of the few links that join the generations father to son all the way back to Avraham avinu, and a couple of "new age", touchie-feely, tree hugging, really don't-know-much-about-authentic-Judaism-wacko's want to re-write a basic pillar on which Judaism has resided for thousands of years. These are the very same people who see no problem with what they call "patrilineal descent," happily protested to free Mandella but don't have a clue whom Ron Arad is, put a stupid Orange on thier seder plate, and somehow have themselves convinced that what they practice as "Judaism" might actually have some relevance in 50 years. What a bunch of morons!! It's said that Dovid HaMelech went to use the mikvah and as he stood naked about to enter the waters, he felt very detached from G-d. No mezzuzah on the door to the bathhouse, no t'fillin on his arm or head, no tallith... and then he recalled his brit milah...always with him...always there just like his connection to HaShem.
If the blood ritual was postponed until the victim was old enough to choose it for himself, wouldn't that be a much more meaningful symbolic bond through generations than a forced cosmetic amputation of healthy normal body parts?
Frankly, I am shocked that a man could hate his son and the children of others, so much as to deny him the medically established protection of circumcision! Especially to make this denial at a time when the media is filled with mention of HIV/AIDS and the fact that circumcision is a proven transmission preventative – just as it has proved to be in the case of many other STD’s. The Laws of Moses, including circumcision, are basic medical practice for those who would survive disease. Without those laws, Jews would have been victims of the mediaeval plagues which decimated Europe right into the Age of Enlightenment. The next set of petitions will probably involve saving water by dispensing with the need to wash after touch anything which could possible transmit illness. Now that would be a real “REFORM”. Maybe that will be a promoted by the “retired diagnostic radiologist” who also seem to be in the dark about current medical evidence related to proposals to introduce circumcision to fight the African and Indian HIV epidemics.
My parents didn't invite a mohel to the apartment on my eighth day, far back in 1933, so I made my own arrangement at the age of forty – representing those forty years of wandering in the desert (the bris was held courtesy of Chabad House, Santa Monica, CA, 1973). That year, Chabad had a pair of recent (1973) Russian émigré physicians who had developed a surgical technique for the bris that was relatively painless for adults. I was one of the earlier men to experience this surgery – and it worked! The “Greater Imperative” is not human rights but Jewish rites of passage. The bris is an important sign among Jewish men of belonging to the Jewish people. Perhaps these serious objectors to the bris as an induction ritual for Jewish men should also advocate rejection of the mikvah as an induction ritual for Jewish women?
Ron Low, you ignorant putz. A bris is not a blood ritual. To call it "cosmetic amputation" indicates to me that you must be pining for your foreskin. Have a sex change, become Rhonda and find a nice uncircumsized goy and live happily everafter.
Having been born in the Soviet Union, my parents did not give me a bris out of fear of the authorities. Upon arriving in America, I proudly had a bris in a hospital. It was painful, but worth it. I'm sure that if given the choice, the majority of the uncircumcised children of these ultra-Reformists would also opt for a bris when they get older. The bris is our covenant. It's a permanent reminder of who we are.
Primitive. Barbaric. Ideological.
Children have freedom of religion, too. No religious argument can justify circumcising a child before he can decide for himself whether to participate in that particular religious practice. It's wrong to force a religiously motivated body mutilation onto a child. It shows a deep lack of respect for their individuality. Human rights matter more than ancient practices.
“Your ethical certitude is disconcerting. Standards of ethics change, over time. We now recognize that individuals have the right to remain bodily intact. Circumcision can't remain an exception.” eveth Spare me the emotionalism, eveth. Not all standards of ethics change over time. Moreover, just because a standard changes doesn’t mean that it was a bad standard when it was held. Your standards are the standards of America circa 20000 and if you believe in change you should realize that circa 3000 these standards will change again. The idea that standards of ethics change is neither an epistemological nor a moral argument. The idea “that individuals have the right to remain bodily intact” as you put it is not a new idea. The Hellenists held the same idea over two thousands years ago. So much for ethical ideas changing! The Jew fought a war against the Hellenist in order to defend their right to practice their religion in their own way. Now, as to your argument about the “right to remain bodily intact” does that mean that infants born with serious illness should not be operated on? Where do you draw the line? In any case many doctors believe that circumcision can contribute to health, although this is not my argument. Jews do believe in the intact body (they reject tattoos, for example, but they believe that circumcision is a contract between them and their god. This makes circumcision a matter of the spirit and not just the body.
Laura MacDonald said: “....and by the way Robbins circumcision hurts a great deal - this has been proven by measuring cortisol and heart rate. It does Judaism no favours to deny a baby's pain in circumcision and that's why many Mohels admit it is painful. It is a sacrific after all. It's intended to hurt.” Firstly, male circumcision is very different from female circumcision and it has been recognized as such by most medical and religious authorities, at least in the west. (For one thing, female circumcision does affect the sexuality of the female which is not the case for males.) Now for the issue of pain: I underwent circumcision at birth and I have no memory of it. It has not stopped from having a full sexual life. Nor has it stopped me from participation as a full member of my community. This is true for most Jewish males who underwent circumcision. People as different as Einstein, Buber, Trotsky, Ariel Sharon, Chomsky, Spinoza, Freud, Sandy Koufax, Marc Spitz, and Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel have been circumcised. This should tell you that the practice has no effect whatever on the ability of individual Jews from functioning at a very high level of their profession, be they saints, or sinners. As to the measurement of pain, well little anesthetics will take care of that. People who hate the idea because it may diminish their sexual pleasure do so on subjective grounds. It strikes me though, that most people who object to the practice also object to the Jewish religion. I am not sure I know on what basis you make the argument, Laura. Are you speaking as a Jew, as a female (Jewsdon’t practice female circumcision and never had). Hence I don’t quite get what problem you have with this practice. Is it merely an ethical objection based on your own ethical theory? Please let us know.
btw: those Jews who do not chose to circumcize their sons are free to do. I for one, though, do not see them as being fully Jewish. Perhaps they can form their own "better improved" Jewish religion. Other Jews have certainly done so in ancient times. They left on legacy though within the Jewish world.
"Now, as to your argument about the “right to remain bodily intact” does that mean that infants born with serious illness should not be operated on? Where do you draw the line?" - Robbins It means that a consistent set of ethical standards must apply for medical interventions, without needing a special exception for male circumcision. Only a legitimate medical indication justifies removing normal body parts. You may believe that "circumcision [is] a matter of the spirit and not just the body," but not every person will want to sacrifice some of their body in a spiritual pursuit. Those people deserve the right to not be mutilated. We are no longer permitted to own other people, nor can we own their genitals. Only the owner may sacrifice part of his sex organ.
At a time when Jewish continuity is a significant issue for world (and particulaly American and European) jewry, the demand to cease giving Jewish male babies a brit mila, is simply awesome. The first mitzva (commandment) of the Torah and one of the singular signs of entering the Jewish People is not to be dismissed or disregarded lightly. Yes, it does hurt -- the child cries and the parents cringe -- but it's temporary for both. Frankly the baby cries when his diaper is removed and the cold air hits him. He also cries a little during the act, though if a proficient mohel is used, the entire procedure is but a second. And, yes, complications do occur, but they're a distinct minority. Ethics have NOTHING to do with the decision by some not to give their son a brit mila. It's a baldface attempt to distance themselves from being identified as Jewish. During the Hellenist period (the Hannuka story) Jews seeking assimilation went to great lengths (sorry for the pun/double entendre) to reverse their circumsion. In more modern period; (a) Socialists ("red diaper babies") uninterested in being identifies as Jewish refused to circumise their sons and (b) the Nazis would ask suspected Jewish men (who were trying to pass themselves off as Gentiles) to pull down their pants to proved their claim. All this leads to the conclusion that it's more an issue of Jewish identity than "ethical considerations."
"You may believe that "circumcision [is] a matter of the spirit and not just the body," but not every person will want to sacrifice some of their body in a spiritual pursuit. Those people deserve the right to not be mutilated. We are no longer permitted to own other people, nor can we own their genitals. Only the owner may sacrifice part of his sex organ." eveth You may believe what you will. No one is forcing you to circumcise your son. If you don't want to be a Jew (assuming you are Jewish) that is your business. None Jews have no right to tell Jews how to raise their children. I am grateful to my parents for circumcising me and my children all hale, healthy, and successful are grateful as they said that I circumcised them. There are no adverse effects to circumcision, but there are social adverse effects to anti-Semitism which has always targeted Jewish circumcision as "an evil" in order to get rid of the Jewish people. I am not saying that eveth is and anti-Semite, but I am merely pointing out the historical significance of his argument. Bottom line Jews will continue to circumcise and to excel in all aspects of human endeavor and anti-Semites will continue to rage.
As the sponsor of the petition mentioned in the article above, I appreciate the lively debate this controversial topic has encouraged. With that being said, I would like to offer some of my own comments and opinions: a) You will note that the petition I sponsored was not intended to universally force (or lean on) Judaism to abandon circumcision. It was directed exclusively towards the Reform Movement -- with the understanding that those with more traditional beliefs can find community in the Conservative and Orthodox movements. b) The key issue, and basis for the petition I sponsored, is that the Reform Movement embraces certain ideals which are inconsistent with what contemporary medical and ethical studies have found in the practice of circumcision. When the issue was first addressed by the Reform Movement in the 1800's, medical science was not advanced like it is today, and any debate on its medical harm was largely a matter of opinion. As a civilization we have also grown ethically, and abandoned practices like owning slaves. The Reform Movement, which is open to changes in its interpretation of Judasim, to be true to itself, needs to reconcile itself to the inconsistencies modern insight has provided. c) The petition asks the Reform Movement to address these inconsistencies by formally sanctioning an alternative ceremony, the "Brit Shalom". This ceremony is not to replace the Brit Milah -- but to be offered as an alternative to -- for those that choose it. You will note that such a recognition will not suddenly cause all of Judaism to cease -- the Reform Movement has already adopted an "alternative bris" ceremony some 20-30 years ago - a baby naming for girls - and Judaism has chugged merrily along, with little notice or impact. d) Now, it is true that the Reform Movement generally has some different interpretations of the meaning of the Torah, yet, I would like to point out that it is still the same Torah. Those of the Conservative and Orthodox movements of today should be gently reminded that today's Orthodoxy was the reform movement of biblical times. At that time, interpretation of Torah was not vested in the rabbis (Pharisees), but in the cohenim (Sadduccees). By that standard, as Orthodox as you may be, you too are following what ultimately is your "own" interpretation of the Torah, which you call "halakhah". Now, that's fine -- if your choose a very structured interpretation of the Torah and surround yourself with people that do the same, mazel tov. But whether or not it is "better" or the "more correct" is at best, a subjective opinion. e) I am disappointed in those that have suggested that only those Jews "aren't active in the Temple or the community" or "who marry shikshas" or, worse yet, "who are anti-semetic" could come up with an unconventional, but certainly valid argument. I would like to point out that such suggestions are prejudiced, hurtful, self-righteous, and inconsistent with the Judaism I follow, which seeks to be a compass to right moral conduct. Perhaps this is a Reform Movement leaning, but I was under the impression that study and debate of Torah was encouraged? I can at least respect Rabbi Moshe ben Asher's comments, as they are well thought out and address the issue -- not personally attack and disparage those that propose unconventional ideas. f) Lastly, I would encourage those here to visit the doctors opposing circumcision site and *learn* why someone like Dr. Reiss, a conservative jew, doctor, and educated man, might himself be opposed to the practice. Or why Dr. Leonard Glick, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, and author of both Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Abraham's Heirs: Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe (Syracuse University Press, 1999), would suggest: "Jewish American vitality and continuity will be advanced only by education in our European Jewish and Jewish American heritage, not by removal of infant foreskins. Circumcision is anachronistic, sexist, and inconsistent with modern Jewish American belief and values." -- Maybe they know more than you do? Respectfully-- Thomas Wolfe, reform Jew http://petition.nomorebris.org
Robbins in answer to your question I'm simply saying that mutilating children's genitals should not be allowed in the 21st century and asking that Jewish boys be allowed to reach 18 and make a choice on how, when and if they want to lose their foreskin. How much more valuable to God would a sacrifice be if the person who lost their asset actually CHOSE to give it up for God,rather than having it stolen to be given to God?0. I'm also concerned at the myths being put about to justify this practice - if it must continue at the very least be honest about the fact it is a blood rite and not a medical procedure. I'm writing from Britain where very most Doctors would refuse to amputate a healthy child's foreskin, on the grounds that it has an important sexual function, HE owns it, and there are no benefits to him in losing it in childhood. The adult benefits (all put forward by the circ lobby) can be debated but a childs risk of penile sores and other complications cancels out the much vaunted protection from urinary tract infection. My second point, and this is borne out by the evidence, is that the common female circumcisions are comparable to male circumcision - both can cause desensitisation although they don't necessarily prevent orgasm, and both are justified on the grounds of tradition and a prejudiced view of the natural body being dirty and ugly. God put around 8,000 nerve endings in the clitoral tip (more in the internal part of the clitoris which is not removed by circumcision) He put more than 20,0000 in the foreskin Around 80% of cut women believe - like you - that the cut has not adversely affected their life. Is this a reason to go on cutting girls? No, it simply proves that social conditioning can make us accept the most extraordinary things. PS Many African Jews do cut girls by the way (as do Christians) - this is well documented. Many people on here need to check their facts a bit better. Unless you are saying that facts don't matter - in which case i'll go away and leave you to it...
Once again the Forward cannot miss an opportunity to publicize the opponents of Jewish traditions. Things are quieting down re Kosher slaughter practices and treatment of undocumented workers so headlines proclaim the views of 70 Jews against circumcision. What is it about we Jews that makes us turn against ourselves and attempt to destroy what makes us a unique, distinct, and chosen people. Guys, if you don't like being Jewish you have lots of choices, but how about leaving those of us who choose our Jewishness alone. And talk about permantly altering a childs future. How dare any Jewish parent send an uncircumsized son out into the world telling them that they are fully Jewish. That to me is the ethical issue involved here. For shame.
Although I am on the opposite side of this debate, I find Thomas Wolfe's arguments cogent. If one is a Reform Jew who believes that the Torah was written by human beings, why should one feel obliged to observe an ancient ritual which is personally distasteful. I also agree that the medical arguments are irrelevant. No observant Jew gives his child a Bris for medical reasons. He does so because he believes God commanded him to. People like Mr. Wolfe and eveth obviously do not believe that God ever commanded them to do anything. They have the right to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong. Where they are dishonest is in believing that their personal beliefs have anything to do with Judaism. The religion they observe is "Thomas Wolfism" or "evethism", etc. They are their own god. Why they need a "Reform Movement" to validate their personal beliefs is probably due to some kind of Jewish guilt.
Most evidence for circumcision is positive. A case in point: my grandson was not circumcized at birth because father's preference. The boy came down with a urinary infection at age one that would not have occurred if circumcized at birth. So he had a circumcision at age one. Healthy ever since and he is now in college.
"You will note that the petition I sponsored was not intended to universally force (or lean on) Judaism to abandon circumcision. It was directed exclusively towards the Reform Movement -- with the understanding that those with more traditional beliefs can find community in the Conservative and Orthodox movements." Thomas Wolfe In other words you want to cause an even deeper split between Reform Judaism and the other two branches. Unfortunately for you many reform congregations have become more Conservative in recent years and I doubt they will pick up on your hair brained suggestion that Jews abandon circumcision. As I said above there is no medical reason not to circumcise. Any people which has produced so great scientists, financiers, artists, writers, fighters, and lovers, all circumcised, is in no need to change this practice. Perhaps other people should adopt it also.
"Robbins in answer to your question I'm simply saying that mutilating children's genitals should not be allowed in the 21st century and asking that Jewish boys be allowed to reach 18 and make a choice on how, when and if they want to lose their foreskin. How much more valuable to God would a sacrifice be if the person who lost their asset actually CHOSE to give it up for God,rather than having it stolen to be given to God?" Laura MacDonald This sounds thoroughly anti-Semitic to me. I will answer you the way I answered eveth and Thomas Wolfe: ‘Now for the issue of pain: I underwent circumcision at birth and I have no memory of it. It has not stopped from having a full sexual life. Nor has it stopped me from participation as a full member of my community. This is true for most Jewish males who underwent circumcision. People as different as Einstein, Buber, Trotsky, Ariel Sharon, Chomsky, Spinoza, Freud, Sandy Koufax, Marc Spitz, and Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel have been circumcised. This should tell you that the practice has no effect whatever on the ability of individual Jews from functioning at a very high level of their profession, be they saints, or sinners. As to the measurement of pain, well little anesthetics will take care of that. People who hate the idea because it may diminish their sexual pleasure do so on subjective grounds.’ ‘As I said above there is no medical reason not to circumcise. Any people which has produced so great scientists, financiers, artists, writers, fighters, and lovers, all circumcised, is in no need to change this practice. Perhaps other people should adopt it also.’ “I'm writing from Britain where very most Doctors would refuse to amputate a healthy child's foreskin, on the grounds that it has an important sexual function, HE owns it, and there are no benefits to him in losing it in childhood. The adult benefits (all put forward by the circ lobby) can be debated but a childs risk of penile sores and other complications cancels out the much vaunted protection from urinary tract infection.” This isn’t a serious argument against circumcision. There is no “circumcision lobby” (did you mean the Zionist lobby?) “PS Many African Jews do cut girls by the way (as do Christians) - this is well documented. Many people on here need to check their facts a bit better. Unless you are saying that facts don't matter - in which case i'll go away and leave you to it.” Excuse me, let’s see your facts? I don’t know what “African Jews” you are talking about. The fact is that Jews do not “circumcise” females and never have. It’s not in the Torah and you are making this up. Btw: I am not surprised that you are British. Do you also support the boycott of Israel?
another example of how reform and Judaism are two very separate and distinct religions.
Jews who do not circumcise their children open that child up to be active in every religious EXCEPT authentic Judiasm. I didn't know I was Jewish when my sons were born, so I didn't have them circumcised. Later, when my mother told me I am Jewish and I became religious, my sons were faced with getting a brit in their teens. They insisted upon it, although it was much more painful at this later date. When you make a decision to no circumcise your child, you are just giving up responsiblity and making your children take that responsiblity on themselves. This is not good parenting. Stick with Halacha and do not listen to those who are trying to destroy our religious traditions with their "new age" paganistic thinking. This is not something to be debated. It is a Torah commandment--for good reason.
Larry said: "another example of how reform and Judaism are two very separate and distinct religions." I do not agree that Reform is a religion. It is merely organized non-observance of Jewish law and practice. In a real religion, there are laws and rules and a belief in God. In Reform, one does whatever he/she thinks is right this week, and next week he/she can change it to something else. One claims reverence for the Torah, but one dismisses virtually all of its laws either by way of modern "interpretation" that pretends that the Torah agrees with him/her or by labeling a mitzvah as ancient and barbaric. I've read commentaries by Reform rabbis that describe Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son to God as a sin and a great mistake. Can there be a greater example of intellectual dishonesty than that? Do they even bother to read the text of the Torah? The Reform want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to do away with all of Jewish law and still be recognized as practicing an authentic expression of Judaism. This is really a quite predictable product of a western philosophy that focuses on individual rights, not obligations, and is therefore by its very nature antithetical to Judaism.
I am an agnostic Jew and I see nothing wrong with circumcision. I have circumcised my son and I hope he will do the same with his son or sons.
It hurts to see how many Jews still feel a need to further distance from the ways of their ancestors with their "enlightened" view point.
It hurts to see how many Jews still feel a need to further distance from the ways of their ancestors with their "enlightened" view point.
I see many comments claiming that those couples denying circumcision are all interfaith couples. This is simply not true. I get 2-5 phone/email consults per week from couples who are seeking an alternative non-cutting covenantal ceremony for their newborn son. Approximately 50% are from couples who are both Jewish, 50% from interfaith couples. Now that criticism of circumcision is not taboo, there is unquestionably a growing minority of Jews worldwide (yes, even in Israel) who are waking up and keeping their Jewish sons intact. Many of these boys will be Bar Mitzvahed and ultimately take their rightful place in the Jewish community. For more information on rabbis and other lay leaders who will officiate at Brit Shalom ceremonies, go to Celebrants of Brit Shalom at www.circumstitions.com/shalom.
Wouldn't it be nice if people like Mark Reiss would limit their heresy to themselves and not insist on trying to convince those who are ignorant of Jewish law to sin as well? The Mishnah states that one who causes others to sin has no portion in the World to Come.
Leave it to a bunch of liberals of jewish origin to come up with this foolishness and leave it to them to convince their left wing legislators to attempt to outlaw circumcision. What a rotten bunch!
"Leave it to a bunch of liberals of jewish origin to come up with this foolishness and leave it to them to convince their left wing legislators to attempt to outlaw circumcision. What a rotten bunch! David S. Levine Hey David, I am a liberal Jew who supports the right of Jews to practice circumcision. The people who want to outlaw it are not liberal they are dogmatic idiots.
Shriber wrote: "Hey David, I am a liberal Jew who supports the right of Jews to practice circumcision." Shriber, if only you would substitute the word "obligation" for the word "right" above, this would be a beautiful, authentically Jewish statement.
As a Jewish mother who had both of her sons circumcised, I have profound regret that I wasn't better informed. The foreskin isn't simply a "little flap" of redundant skin. It's composition is highly complex, and it's functions are critical for sensory, protective and sexual function. The "possible pain" has been measured and replicated in mulitple scientific studies measuring heartbeat, respiratory rate, cortisol levels, etc. demonstrating extreme pain suffered by our baby boys undergoing this ancient rite. We know that Jewish tradition forbids the infliction of pain on any helpless being. Spiritualizing circumcision does not change the damage. What is not ethical, cannot be spiritual. We need to stop our milennia of denial, and look at this for what it is: genital cutting of healthy sexual tissue on non-consenting adults. This is not holy.
A further comment to those recommending no circumcisions: Everyone has a free choice whether or not to circumcise their children, but what right do you have to say this has anything to do with Judaism when the vast body of Jews across all denominations chose to continue this practice and maintain solidarity with thousands of years of peoplehood and practice. Preach what you will but just as messianic Jews for Jesus (JFJ) are not representing Judaism, neither are Jews for Foreskins (JFF). Please stop using the word Jewish in your arguments.
Miriam Pollock wrote: "As a Jewish mother who had both of her sons circumcised, I have profound regret that I wasn't better informed. The foreskin isn't simply a "little flap" of redundant skin. It's composition is highly complex, and it's functions are critical for sensory, protective and sexual function." Amazing that the Jewish people was able to procreate for thousands of years without this piece of skin so critical for sexual function. give me a break. You can't really be stupid enough to believe that men who are circumcised don't enjoy normal, healthy sexual function. From what I see, the vast majority of men in this country are circumcised and if anything they're engaging in way too much sex. Miriam Pollock continues: "We know that Jewish tradition forbids the infliction of pain on any helpless being. Spiritualizing circumcision does not change the damage. What is not ethical, cannot be spiritual. We need to stop our milennia of denial, and look at this for what it is: genital cutting of healthy sexual tissue on non-consenting adults. This is not holy." This has nothing to do with "spiritualizing" circumcision. It has to do with a commandment in the Torah which before Reform Jews came into existence in the 18th Century, all Jews considered to be given by God to the Jewish people. The Jewish people's ethics (and in truth most of the world's) come from the Torah. The Torah as written by God saw no contradiction between being ethical and having a circumcision. If your ethics are different from the Torah's, that's your problem. It has nothing to do with Judaism. I'll continue to practice Judaism, not "Miriam Pollockism".
jeff schwartz said: "Shriber wrote: "Hey David, I am a liberal Jew who supports the right of Jews to practice circumcision." Shriber, if only you would substitute the word "obligation" for the word "right" above, this would be a beautiful, authentically Jewish statement." I have no problem with the term mitzvah to designate the act. As I said I am an agnostic Jew who loves his heritage and doesn' see either Judaism or Zionism as political ideology but as a cultural civilization able to accomodate all political spectrums from right to left and from religious to agnostics.
Ron Low said: "If the blood ritual was postponed until the victim was old enough to choose it for himself, wouldn't that be a much more meaningful symbolic bond through generations than a forced cosmetic amputation of healthy normal body parts?" What's "meaningful" to God is to do what he commanded us to do, and that's to perform the Bris on the 8th day.
Miriam Pollack you are just repeating arguments already put forward. Your personal experience, so called, doesn't make this argument any truer. The pain is minimal as has been said, and one can use anesthetic to eliminate it almost completely. Besides as has been cogently argued the Jewish people have done very well over the years with this practice. There is no medical, psychological, or moral reason to abandon the practice. NONE! The argument for its suppression have been either emotional or antisemitic. Circumcision has always bothered many non Jews. This isn't going to change any time soon. As for your reduced pleasure argument it's a non argument: This male has had a lot of pleasure with his circumcised [word deleted]. Besides, how would you know how much pleasure males have one way or the other?
Ron Low said: "If the blood ritual was postponed until the victim was old enough to choose it for himself, wouldn't that be a much more meaningful symbolic bond through generations than a forced cosmetic amputation of healthy normal body parts?" It's not a "blood ritual" Ron. You should acquaint yourself with the meanings (plural) of the practice in the Jewish religion and culture. No one is forcing you to circumcise your children, btw, or even to stay Jewish.
“If for thousands of years it was clear that the practice was harmful,” she said, “it would have gone away a while ago.” What kind of logic is this? Fear of being cast out from the tribe of Jews is what primarily coerces Jews to turn a blind eye to the obvious ethical and moral violation of the rights of the individual by imposing crippling alteration to a boy's genitals, and potentially to his future sexuality. Fear is often manifest as anger. Just look at some of the angry comments posted against those who question the circumcision. It is understandable, those of us with insight understand that change is scary for you and you are afraid. Attack us or our spouses as non-Jews or liberals or that our children don't matter if you must. Small minded people will always choose to stay with the status quo. Confront your fear. Ritual circumcision is enforced through fear and blind cultural inertia exploiting the human desire to belong. We are better than that; Jews are smarter than sheep following the herd. The time has come for enlightened, educated, rational Jews to seriously study, understand the history, motivation, and intent of circumcision, and then make an honest evaluation of its value. Think, question, be strong.
So here's a (maybe) tough question for some of you. When a child grows up and is appalled that he was mutilated in the name of religion, which would you prefer: That he work to change the unethical aspects of his religion, or that he consider it unchangeable, and thus abandon it entirely?
Nate said: "What kind of logic is this? Fear of being cast out from the tribe of Jews is what primarily coerces Jews to turn a blind eye to the obvious ethical and moral violation of the rights of the individual by imposing crippling alteration to a boy's genitals, and potentially to his future sexuality." Fear seems to be at basis of your own argument. Using terms like “moral” or “ethical” doesn’t make your argument either true or Ethical. Moreover, you posts anger, Nate speaks for itself. Nate, have you read the posts refuting the idea that circumcision is harmful? How can a practice be harmful to Jews if as a community Jews have given so much to the world? Your sexual hysteria notwithstanding circumcision hasn’t harmed anyone’s “future sexuality.” I’d bet that your sexual problems are due to other causes.
eveth said: "So here's a (maybe) tough question for some of you. When a child grows up and is appalled that he was mutilated in the name of religion, which would you prefer: That he work to change the unethical aspects of his religion, or that he consider it unchangeable, and thus abandon it entirely?" If I felt as you do I would abandon my religion! Of course I am not religious so I would have to abandon the Jewish people. Bottom line, as long as there exists a Jewish people males will be circumcised, end of story. For my part I have never experienced circumcision as a problem either sexually or medically.
Nate wrote: "Ritual circumcision is enforced through fear and blind cultural inertia exploiting the human desire to belong. We are better than that; Jews are smarter than sheep following the herd. The time has come for enlightened, educated, rational Jews to seriously study, understand the history, motivation, and intent of circumcision, and then make an honest evaluation of its value." Ritual circumcision is not "enforced" by anyone. It is a choice made by people who feel it is important, either because it is a fulfillment of a commandment given by God, or because it identifies one's child as a Jew. It is the people who don't have the courage to stand alone in their beliefs who try to change Judaism to accept their perverse "morality" and "ethics", because they fear not belonging. If they can't belong to mainstream Judaism, they create a Reform Judaism for like-minded sinners to which they can belong. And if even that perverse group will not accept their ideas, they create an even smaller band of sinners to which they can belong, such as "Jews Against Circumcision", etc.
Nate wrote: "The time has come for enlightened, educated, rational Jews to seriously study, understand the history, motivation, and intent of circumcision, and then make an honest evaluation of its value." Educated in what, Nate? Do you or your liberal friends have any education in Judaism whatsoever? How are you going to judge the value of Jewish practices with your pathetic lack of knowledge of anything Jewish?
Es iz shver tzu zein a Yid!
Eveth wrote: "When a child grows up and is appalled that he was mutilated in the name of religion, which would you prefer: That he work to change the unethical aspects of his religion, or that he consider it unchangeable, and thus abandon it entirely?" My religion doesn't have any unethical aspects. My religion comes from God and last I checked, He's completely ethical.
Shriber, are you sure you're an agnostic? We could use a few more agnostics like you.
Your attacks on me do not concern me. It is humerous that you characterize me as "liberal" when you know nothing about me or my politics. I will not validate your insults with rebuttle. I understand your fear and rage. I am comfortable with my knowledge, and do not need to defend or prove it or myself myself to any of you. I find your attacks typical, predictable, ignorant and quite frankly, very un-Jewish. In the end, I am comfortable with my ethics and knowledge. You have to live with yourself and your choices. Your anger indicates your uncertainity, fear and doubt. I pitty you. Jews and Judiasm's contributions and value to the world are not at issue here. Your reasoning is illogical. I refuse to have a flame war with any of you. Your raw emotions and attacks expose you for all to see for what you are. I wish you peace and hope you can approach life with an open mind to that which you presume to know.
"If they can't belong to mainstream Judaism, they create a Reform Judaism for like-minded sinners to which they can belong..." "My religion doesn't have any unethical aspects. My religion comes from God and last I checked, He's completely ethical." - jeff schwartz Jeff, the one good thing I can say about your religious fundamentalism is that it makes your position look ridiculous to most people, Jews included.
Nate: I apologize for the harshness of my words. By liberal, I do not refer to politics. I refer to religious practice. It is my hope that you and all Jews will take the time to learn authentic Jewish sources and to discover the truth and not the nonsense that is spewed by certain modern rabbis. Learn the Torah and the Talmud and discover real Jewish values that go back to the giving of the Torah on Sinai, not the words of people who try to disguise their own opinions as Judaism. Then you can make an informed decision as to what is really true. Shabbat Shalom.
eveth: My "fundamentalism" is what all Jews believed until a group of Jews in the 18th Century decided they wanted to assimilate and be accepted as good Germans, so they watered down Jewish practices and belief. the end result is the rampant intermarriage, assimilation, lack of observance and ignorance of Judaism that defines Judaism today. Those who try to do away with circumcision are just another stop on the slippery slope of cutting themselves off from Jewish destiny and the Jewish people. I fear that the reason this sounds ridiculous to you is that it doesn't really matter to you, which is a shame.
"Shriber, are you sure you're an agnostic? We could use a few more agnostics like you." yeap, a dyed in the wool, or should I say in the womb, agnostic.
Have a Good Shabbos, Shriber. We've always been a "stiff-necked people", but I'm not giving up on you.
eveth said: “Jeff, the one good thing I can say about your religious fundamentalism is that it makes your position look ridiculous to most people, Jews included.” His views don’t seem half as ridiculous to me as yours do, eveth. Most Jews practice circumcision, btw. If you got a problem with that tell it to your therapist and spare the rest of us your neurotic outpourings.
Zei gezunt, Nate. Hope you can overcome your trauma of being Jewish at some point in your life. Whatever your problem, circumcision isn’t the cause.
jeff schwartz, this time it's different. Genital Integrity rights are increasingly being recognized as fundamental human rights, and that movement in no way can be construed as anti-Jewish. I know that historically attacks on Judaism have included attacks on the practice of circumcision, but that does not place circumcision on a pedestal of ethical unimpeachability. Aren't the origins of this tradition to circumcise male children flexible enough, at least, to be satisfied by a pinprick drawing a drop of blood?
Over a thousand years after the putative life of Abram, Genesis 17, the biblical passage cited as the basis for infant genital mutilation, or circumcision, was inserted into the Biblical text by Jewish priests during, or after, the Babylonian Captivity. The original covenant between Abram and his God is found at Genesis 15. Nowhere does Genesis 15 mention circumcision. Evidently, during the years of Captivity, Jewish priests instituted the obscure tribal tradition of genital cutting (observed in parts of the Levant during the migrations by Abram and his people from their original home in Ur), as one (of many)means of differentiating the Jewish people from the greater, more sophisticated and learned society around them, which did not practice circumcision, but which threatened to absorb them. Having learned the value of written laws during their stay in Babylon, these Jewish priests slipped Genesis 17 into their texts. But the only religious basis for male infant circumcision begins here, in the absence of the Kingdom, among the late Jewish priesthood, as a method of wresting political control, particularly over their recalcitrant fellow Jews who had remained in Jerusalem and its environs during the Captivity. This act of writing the new "law" encased and instituted infant genital cutting as a Jewish "tradition". In truth, there is no evidence whatsoever that Abram was circumcised, or that he knew anything about a covenant other than that found in Genesis 15. Evidently Genesis 17 was very effective, however. Once a few priests can convince illiterate parents to mutilate the genitals of their children ... they could get them to agree to almost anything. Over time the practice becomes a tradition, but few remembered that it wasn't original to the Bible. Intelligent people are today more historically aware, and they reject the violence which would be done to their children by an outmoded and false doctrine. They find faith not in outward show or in genital mutilation, but in inner truth and in genuine Tradition. Rood
I knew a mohel from New Hampshire. They called him the Yankee Clipper.
Oh boy, Andrew Sullivan has taken an interest. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/07/jews-against-ci.html
It is summertime and the Forward is running its annual anti-circumcision article on Page 1. Big story with seventy YES 70! people signing on to this important petition. I an very sorry for the Wolfe family. It is a terrible tragedy. Did Mr Wolfe investigate the credentials of the surgeon? How many circumcisions had the Doctor done before this one? Any? Did Mr Wolfe realize that the clamp used in the surgery causes tremendous additional pain? Did he know that Rabbinic law prohibits the use of such a clamp? Why not? Did he discuss the use of this halachically proscribed clamp with his Reform Rabbi? If so did that Rabbi point out these very important nuances to him? Orthodox certified Mohels are highly trained in just this specialty. I believe that a very sharp proper knife is all that is required to do a circumcision properly with the least amount of pain. Traditional(Orthodox) Jews have had plenty of children for thousands of years. I guess no one stripped them of their reproductive organs or took away their pleasure.
Izzy, noting that circumcision doesn't prevent all sexual pleasure is a straw man. No, it doesn't eradicate sexual pleasure, but it is a surgical strike which reduces the physical elements which contribute to sexual pleasure, while introducing a previously absent element of pain. This is not a way anyone has the right to influence a child to be part of a religion. It's physical coercion.
eveth said: "Genital Integrity rights are increasingly being recognized as fundamental human rights, and that movement in no way can be construed as anti-Jewish." This is not an argument for your crusade, eveth. In the 1920's millions of people were enthralled by Communism and that too was the "human rights issue of the day." The result was that hundreds of millions of people lost their lives to this movement for equality and justice. I know that historically attacks on Judaism have included attacks on the practice of circumcision, but that does not place circumcision on a pedestal of ethical unimpeachability. Your anticircumcision tirades are anti-Jewish. If you can't see this you have no business in this debate. You are obsessed by this issue.
Ha, Andrew Sullivan's blog entry title "Jews against circumcision" is funny. It's like saying Catholics against Popery, or Muslims against the Hegira. It just doesn't make sense.
Rood Andersson is against circumcision. For those who don't know a "rood" is a "crucifix symbolizing the cross on which Jesus was crucified." Your name gives your game away, Rood.
I agree with Joel that eveth is too obsessed with this issue to be able to offer a dispassionate arguement on the issue. Using terms like "ethica" "moral" "human rights," etc. isn't in itself an argument. There is nothing wrong with circumcision and none of the posters have been able to show that there is. I am curious though about those people who oppose circumcision; do they also oppose abortions?
"I agree with Joel that eveth is too obsessed with this issue to be able to offer a dispassionate arguement on the issue." -Shriber I take that as a compliment. You can't effectively counter my arguments, so you must define me out of the discussion. Appeals to a consistent set of ethics and individual human rights are more dispassionate than appeals to divine mandate any and every day.
sheri deen said: "The sread of a brisless bris could further split Judaism." "A brisles bris" is like a bar mitzvah without the mitvah.
sheri deen said: "The sread of a brisless bris could further split Judaism." "A brisles bris" is like a bar mitzvah without the mitzvah.
Why don't you foolish liberals just make up your own religion rather then always trying to change Judaism to suit your needs and then try to jam it down the rest of our throats. Take what you want from the Torah and discard the rest. You do this anyway. Give your new bible and religion a name and go wallow in your insane liberalism. When I was a kid there was a joke about a low quality bread; "Wonder Bread. It's a wonder they call it bread. The same can be applied to liberal Jews; It's a wonder they call themselves Jews.
Rood Andersson said: "Over a thousand years after the putative life of Abram, Genesis 17, the biblical passage cited as the basis for infant genital mutilation, or circumcision, was inserted into the Biblical text by Jewish priests during, or after, the Babylonian Captivity. The original covenant between Abram and his God is found at Genesis 15. Nowhere does Genesis 15 mention circumcision." Thank you, Rood. That's the best laugh I've had in your years. Tell me, what heretic taught you this nonsense? You must be one of the 3 people alive who still believe in the Documentary Hypothesis.
Hmmm...Genital integrity...sounds serious. I just checked and all my parts seem to be working and functioning, a little too small maybe, but otherwise... I know many men's genitals cause them to lie. Is that what you meant by integrity? And you say I sound ridiculous.
eveth "I agree with Joel that eveth is too obsessed with this issue to be able to offer a dispassionate arguement on the issue." -Shriber I take that as a compliment. You can't effectively counter my arguments, so you must define me out of the discussion." You have no argument, eveth. All you have is a series of kvetches and emotional appeals to so called "ethics" without spelling out in what way circumcision is unethical.
The athical argument comes down to this: "I don't like being circumcised (or I was harmed by it) ergo no one else should be circumcised." People like eveth can't explain why most Jews don't feel they were harmed by circumcision and don't mind it in the least. This is why he has to introduced issues of "human rights." When someone today speakd of human rights you had better run for the hills because he will bring the Gestapo with him to impose his so called human rights on you.
Shriber, You've got the ethics based arguments wrong. If you try to defend infant circumcision, you will immediately find inconsistencies in your position. Infant circumcision is unethical because we each have autonomy over our own bodies, and that includes choosing whether to discard parts for religious purposes. The percentage of Jews who don't regret having been circumcised is material only if that number is 100%. Those who regret being being deprived of body parts have been wronged, and there's no way to know know the choice of an individual except to let him make it. The only ethical course of action is to let the individual decide for himself. I'd still like to know, do those supporting circumcision on the grounds that it is required religiously contend that it must be more than a drop of blood from a pinprick?
I don't consider Reform Judaism to really be a part of Judaism anymore. They have changed so many very basic tenets as to creat a whole new religion and to be cut off from the rest of us. For example, throughout the ages, to be considered a Jew, your mother had to have been a Jew. The reason for this is that there could always be a doubt as to who the Father was, but there was never any doubt out of which womb the child emerged. Reform rabbis convert people just because they want to marry a Jew. Conservative and Orthodox Rabbis do not. Actually, the original Christians were all Jews until Paul started indiscriminately converting the other nations and we could no longer go along matrilineal lines. Now, these secular humanists want to change the original covenant that G-d made with the Jewish people which is represented by the Brit Milah! Well, what's next? Let's declare the entire covenant invalid? Excuse me, but I don't consider these people to be authorities on these issues and they are not to be followed. I am a deceased Rabbi's daughter and although I am no longer Orthodox because it has been too difficult to do so, I am not so brazen as to try to change the tenets of Judaism to fit my convenience. Instead, I humbly and shamefully declare that unfortunately I am not strong enough to comply with such difficult edicts and I beg G-d for forgiveness. Reform Judaism, in my opinion has severed itself from mainstream Judaism and has, like Christianity, formed a totally new religion, which is their prerogative---but don't try to force these changes that go against everything written in the Torah on the rest of us.
Informatively, the site where Dr Mark Reiss maintains the database of rabbis and laypeople who will officiate at Brit Shalom ceremonies is http://www.circumstitions.com/shalom .
Gail Tenzer wrote: "I humbly and shamefully declare that unfortunately I am not strong enough to comply with such difficult edicts and I beg G-d for forgiveness." This just underlines that one main reason infant circumcision continues is that it is done to someone else.
BS'D: As I prepare for Shabbas, I'll add my two cents. Even as a frum person who might be classified as "Modern Orthodox," I actually believe that this debate will ultimately go away. It is a personal tragedy for a small number of Jewish children who won't share in the covenant Avraham made with G-d, but Reform Judaism is in the fast process of becoming extinct. To explain: many, if not most, of the Reform Movement "Jews" aren't actually Jews in the sense that traditional Jews accept--the children of a Jewish mother or ritually converted. Fifty or 100 years ago, when Reform Judaism became a refuge for nonbelieving Jews seeking to maintain a fig-leaf of identity, there were many actual Jews in the Reform movement. But that is just no longer the case. What remains of Judaism in the Reform Movement is vestigial nostalgia and a longing for identity. People who get a charge when a new Jewish player breaks into the major leagues or longingly remember when you could get good rye bread. The peopler up front are somewhat insidious, but largely harmless--nominal rabbis willing to rationalize any departure from halachah and who stand for absolutely nothing. But in a strange way, they are preaching a form of agnosticism to the uninterested choir. And as pleasant an idea as it is, you can't build a religion out of matzoh balls, Seinfeld jokes and "commitments to social justice." G-d has commanded certain things and we are HONORED to comply, since we are his people. Reform "temples" (never shuls--too ethnic, maybe) are filled mostly with non-Jews: people who were not born Jewish and were not formally converted in accordance with Jewish law. That is the hard, cold fact of things. What few Jewish children remain in these shuls are rapidly repeating the cycle of intermarriage. If the vast majority of young men marry non-Jewish women, simple math and logic dictates that very soon the Jewish Reform Jew will be extinct. (None of this takes into account the fact that most Reform families have two or fewer children, well below the generally accepted rate needed to maintain the size of a given population.) I would argue that there is no real point in frum people arguing this. Many of the respondents on the attack might very well not be Jewish themselves (as explained above), so there is absolutely no point in convincing them. Even those who are Jews think we are barbaric and won't listen to anything we have to say--they will claim it is further evidence of our barbarism. As has happened so many times in Jewish history, we are at a moment when a large portion of Klal Yisrael has been lost. While I weep for these people, I cannot stop them. I can only try to protect my own family and community from being infected by their influence. I admire the commitment of the Lubavitch and few others to reaching out to try to save some of what is left, but I am a realist. Even in my hometown of Scranton, PA, I hear the pews at Temple Israel and Temple Hesed are emptier and emptier. The list of children at the JCC camp doesn't read as Jewish. Even what is now called "Modern Orthodoxy" is dying. Most days, Beth Shalom couldn't get a minyan together without the presence of frum bachorim and Kollel members from the yeshiva. I understand the Satmar are going to colonize the city for cheaper housing. I'm not entirely happy about this, as my world of frum, modern Jews is replaced by a troublingly insular group. But if that is all that can survive of Yidishkeit, I can live with it. Good Shabbos! Dave
Let's see, what's left of Judaism? Oh yah, leftist Democrat politics. Can't think of much of anything else.
Eveth said: "Infant circumcision is unethical because we each have autonomy over our own bodies." Your issue isn't actually with circumcision, but with all of traditional Judaism and most organized religion. Most people's conception of god includes commands to do acts that an absolutely autonomous person might choose not to do (and prohibit some that an absolutely autonomous person would do). You know: tithes, fasts, jihads, human sacrifice, etc. Thus, most believers give up personal autonomy in order to honor the wishes of a god. It is your absolute right not to agree, but don't pretend like you're speaking for anyone who doesn't share your particular view of autonomy. Furthermore, most athiests and agnostics accept limits on autonomy. That is how the world prevents itself from falling into chaos. You could try to raise a child by telling her that she can choose not to brush her teeth, but that child will ultimately suffer for it. The child's autonomy is therefore limited for her own good.
Eveth said: "Infant circumcision is unethical because we each have autonomy over our own bodies." Your issue isn't actually with circumcision, but with all of traditional Judaism and most organized religion. Most people's conception of god includes commands to do acts that an absolutely autonomous person might choose not to do (and prohibit some that an absolutely autonomous person would do). You know: tithes, fasts, jihads, human sacrifice, etc. Thus, most believers give up personal autonomy in order to honor the wishes of a god. It is your absolute right not to agree, but don't pretend like you're speaking for anyone who doesn't share your particular view of autonomy. Furthermore, most athiests and agnostics accept limits on autonomy. That is how the world prevents itself from falling into chaos. You could try to raise a child by telling her that she can choose not to brush her teeth, but that child will ultimately suffer for it. The child's autonomy is therefore limited for her own good.
Eveth said: "Infant circumcision is unethical because we each have autonomy over our own bodies." Your issue isn't actually with circumcision, but with all of traditional Judaism and most organized religion. Most people's conception of god includes commands to do acts that an absolutely autonomous person might choose not to do (and prohibit some that an absolutely autonomous person would do). You know: tithes, fasts, jihads, human sacrifice, etc. Thus, most believers give up personal autonomy in order to honor the wishes of a god. It is your absolute right not to agree, but don't pretend like you're speaking for anyone who doesn't share your particular view of autonomy. Furthermore, most athiests and agnostics accept limits on autonomy. That is how the world prevents itself from falling into chaos. You could try to raise a child by telling her that she can choose not to brush her teeth, but that child will ultimately suffer for it. The child's autonomy is therefore limited for her own good.
Eveth said: "Infant circumcision is unethical because we each have autonomy over our own bodies." Your issue isn't actually with circumcision, but with all of traditional Judaism and most organized religion. Most people's conception of god includes commands to do acts that an absolutely autonomous person might choose not to do (and prohibit some that an absolutely autonomous person would do). You know: tithes, fasts, jihads, human sacrifice, etc. Thus, most believers give up personal autonomy in order to honor the wishes of a god. It is your absolute right not to agree, but don't pretend like you're speaking for anyone who doesn't share your particular view of autonomy. Furthermore, most athiests and agnostics accept limits on autonomy. That is how the world prevents itself from falling into chaos. You could try to raise a child by telling her that she can choose not to brush her teeth, but that child will ultimately suffer for it. The child's autonomy is therefore limited for her own good.
eveth said: “Shriber, You've got the ethics based arguments wrong. If you try to defend infant circumcision, you will immediately find inconsistencies in your position. Infant circumcision is unethical because we each have autonomy over our own bodies, and that includes choosing whether to discard parts for religious purposes.” You are still stuck in your emotional argument of what might have been. I don’t regret being circumcised. My wife doesn’t regret that I was circumcised, ditto for my children and their spouses. Your kvetch is based on your own private neurosis. Tell me, are you married? Do you have any children? Is your spouse unhappy with your circumcised [word deleted]? These are some of the down to earth questions I’d like you to answer. As to you so called infant autonomy, it is a myth, eveth. Infants are totally dependent on their parents. I didn’t know who I was till I was given a name and more importantly a language in which to express myself. I didn’t choose either my name or my language. My parents imposed English on me. I might have been more comfortable with Chinese or Swahili. Are dare my parents force me to speak English? They took away my autonomy. Tough they will say. If you didn’t like English you should have been born to a Chinese or Swahili speaking couple. Ironically, the Chinese couple’s child complained that she wanted to grow up speaking English and not Chinese. As you can see Eveth we are all determined by out circumstances. There is no absolute autonomy. I know this won’t convince you because your argument is based on a neurotic yearning to be someone else. My advice to you is to make the best out of the choices given to you. Being circumcised isn’t the worse thing that might have happened to you. Count your blessing, my friend. I’ll leave you with the Heine poem: “A single fir-tree, lonely, On a northern mountain height, Sleeps in a white blanket, Draped in snow and ice. His dreams are of a palm-tree, Who, far in eastern lands, Weeps, all alone and silent, Among the burning sands.” Then there is the southern Palm tree that dreams of the northern fir tree. There is no justice in this world. All creation wished it were otherwise.
Shriber said: "I didn’t know who I was till I was given a name and more importantly a language in which to express myself. I didn’t choose either my name or my language. My parents imposed English on me. I might have been more comfortable with Chinese or Swahili. Are dare my parents force me to speak English? They took away my autonomy." Poor examples. They had to give you some name. They had to teach you some language. You can change your name. You can learn another language. There aren't any other healthy parts of your body they cut off (or even can legally cut off, lacking pressing medical need), never to grow again.
Hugh said: "Poor examples. They had to give you some name. They had to teach you some language. You can change your name. You can learn another language. There aren't any other healthy parts of your body they cut off (or even can legally cut off, lacking pressing medical need), never to grow again." You are wrong, Hugh. The point is that infants are not autonomous beings as Eveth claimed they are shaped by family and culture in some way. Their primary identity is imposed on them by the world. Circumcision can be part of that shaping in some cultures. No, people can’t undo the effects of circumcision, but neither can they undo the effects of the identity and language imposes on them which is just as permanent as the cutting off a piece of useless foreskin. Perhaps even more so. Btw, if it's not your culture than you don't have any say in it. If it is and you want out then the door is wide open. What you are not allowed to do is tell people of another culture that they can't act according to its dictates. If the cultural practice were something detrimental to others or self than it would be another matter. No one has shown that circumcision harms either Jewish individuals or the Jewish community. As was said above, Hugh, given the high accomplishments of Jews in all areas of social life you may want to consider adopting the practice yourself.
My parents didn't invite a mohel to the apartment on my eighth day, back in 1933, so I made my own arrangement at the symbolic age of forty. The bris was held courtesy of Chabad House, Santa Monica, CA, in September of 1973). That year, Chabad had a pair of recent (1973) Russian émigré physicians in LA who had developed a surgical technique for the bris that was relatively painless for adults. I was one of the first men in the area to experience this surgery – and it worked! The “Greater Imperative” is not human rights but Jewish rites of passage. The bris is an important sign among Jewish men of belonging to the Jewish people – whether of religious or secular intellectual inclination. Perhaps these serious objectors to the bris as an induction ritual for Jewish men should also advocate rejection of the mikvah as an induction ritual for Jewish women upon reaching the time of their first menses?
Robbins wrote: "Ha, Andrew Sullivan's blog entry title "Jews against circumcision" is funny. It's like saying Catholics against Popery, or Muslims against the Hegira. It just doesn't make sense." Mr. Sullivan is a Catholic, but has a longstanding set of complaints about the Church--primary of which is its refusal to endorse his sexual preference. He has made a "Dr. Laura" style statement where he says he doesn't feel enough approval from the Church, so he won't continue going. I have respect for Mr. Sullivan and some of his causes, but things like this do him no credit. He has a documentable hostility towards tenets of his own stated religion--I will ignore his contempt for mine.
As a born and circumcised Jew, I just want to clear up a few things people have said about the Reform movement. The first thing you must understand is that Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism, like Orthodox Judaism, is a "big tent" denomination. There are actually several different factions influencing the official positions and real practices of people who call themselves "Reform Jews". 1) Classical Reform Judaism -- These people wanted to look and act German. They know very little Hebrew (not even enough to pray in) and even less Talmud. They pray (and lead prayer) in the vernacular instead of Hebrew for most of most services. They feel slightly uncomfortable around #3 and fear #2. They tend to cling to rituals like circumcision out of a sense of identity (to differentiate themselves from #3) rather than religious obligation. They tend to view Zionism as a slight positive, the crazy cousins overseas. 2) Reformadox Judaism -- I count myself among this sect, so I know the most about it. These Reform Jews tend to have some (often a reasonable amount) of knowledge of Jewish practices and traditions. They often learn enough Hebrew to pray in or more. They have often read commentaries on Torah portions. Quite a few have resumed traditional Jewish practices such as thrice-daily prayer or t'fillin. They almost always wear a kippah or some form of hat, and many wear tallitot k'tanot. Most keep some form of kashrut. Please note that the Reform movement simply can't hold on to these people; they leave for other movements. They despise #1, think that #3 are failing to carry on the Jewish religion and people, but welcome #4. They often spend time in the State of Israel and support it wholeheartedly. When Reform Jews make aliyah, they come from #2. 3) The Intermarried and/or Assimilated -- They believe in very little and maintain synagogue membership because they feel close to #1 or because their mother said so. The only thing really distinguishing them from #1 is their lack of identity with the Jewish people. They pay shul dues, but only show up for the High Holidays. These are the "anti-Zionist" Reform Jews and the idiots who want the children of their renunciation of Judaism to be considered Jewish. They like #4 and think #2 might as well throw the black coats on and become Haredim. 4) The Converts -- These are non-Jews brought in by the Reform movement either for marriage purposes or simply to convert without having to interact with the smug, nasty Orthodox (yes, that's how the public perceives you). They distribute pretty evenly between groups, and could probably make good Jews if given real conversions. Now let me tell you that the Reform movement is set to split in two over the issue of intermarriage, with #1 and #3 going to the "not-really but kinda-sorta Jewish" side, and #2 becoming the liberal wing of Conservatism or a new movement that attempts to find halachic justification for not continually thrusting things from the "permitted" category into "forbidden" or "required" as the Orthodox do.
I guess god was tired or hung over when he focked up making the male [word deleted].
Shriber wrote: "Btw, if it's not your culture than you don't have any say in it. If it is and you want out then the door is wide open. What you are not allowed to do is tell people of another culture that they can't act according to its dictates." I was doing no such thing. And you just made that rule up. "Culture" does not have "dictates" independent of the people who belong to it. Your rule - "X-culture, love it or leave it" - makes any change within any culture impossible. "If the cultural practice were something detrimental to others or self than it would be another matter. No one has shown that circumcision harms either Jewish individuals or the Jewish community." It certainly harms those who die from it or lose their glandes or suffer other disfigurements (such as those at http://www.circumstitions.com/Botched.html), and information is coming to light that even when done "properly" it does cause harm - short of preventing mere insemination. "As was said above, Hugh, given the high accomplishments of Jews in all areas of social life you may want to consider adopting the practice yourself." As sympathetic magic, you mean? There is certainly no rational way such an infusion of accomplishment might take place.
This is truly a lesson in Cognitive Dissonance! What is this bovine excrement about the right of a parent to permanently alter their child's body? G_d forbid that any of these people ever have to consider that a child of theirs should require orthodontics or pediatric orthopedics or worse.
Hugh said: "Culture" does not have "dictates" independent of the people who belong to it. Your rule - "X-culture, love it or leave it" - makes any change within any culture impossible.” Many cultural practices have dictates which are “independent of the people who belong to it.” Language for example, we don’t make up our own linguistics rules. If we want to make ourselves understood we have to follow the rules of ours specific language. As for change culture like language is in constant flux, but no individual (or groups of individuals) is responsible for these changes. If you ever tried to read Chaucer you will notice how different his English is from ours. Still, there is constant which doesn’t change. Hence we can still recognize his English as belonging to the same language we speak. This is what we mean when we say that we are English (or Chinese or Hebrew) speakers. Some changes though alter the social practice in such a way that it is no longer the same cultural practice. In our language this occurred when Anglo-Saxon (old English) changed into modern English. This happened by way of the Norman invasion of England. Often the introduction of foreign elements into a religion will change it irrevocably and make it a different religion. This occurred in Judaism when what we call the early Christians introduced a messiah. The effect was to create a new religion which was no longer Judaism. The abandoning of circumcision will have a similar rapturous effect which is why so many non Jews (Christians and others) are arguing for it here and elsewhere. I don’t know if this is your game or not, but it is the motive behind other posters who advocate such changes. "If the cultural practice were something detrimental to others or self than it would be another matter. No one has shown that circumcision harms either Jewish individuals or the Jewish community." It certainly harms those who die from it or lose their glandes or suffer other disfigurements (such as those at http://www.circumstitions.com/Botched.html), and information is coming to light that even when done "properly" it does cause harm - short of preventing mere insemination.” This is nonsense, Hugh. The anti-circumcision case isn’t strong enough to warrant stopping the practice. Moreover, no one is forcing you or anyone else to practice circumcision. That it’s not detrimental has been shown by posters who called attention to the success of the Jewish people in all human endeavors. If that practice had been harmful either it or the Jews would have disappeared long ago as have many other peoples in history. I would guess that peoples who refuse to have children and reproduce themselves will disappear long before Jews who practice circumcision. “"As was said above, Hugh, given the high accomplishments of Jews in all areas of social life you may want to consider adopting the practice yourself." As sympathetic magic, you mean? There is certainly no rational way such an infusion of accomplishment might take place.” You certainly lack a sense of humor, Hugh. The point is that circumcising Einstein, Freud, Mark Spitz and tens of thousands of other accomplished Jews didn’t stop them from achieving in their chosen field. Circumcision may not cause genius but it surely doesn’t prevent genius from flourishing. There is no medical, or moral reason to give up circumcision.
Do the opponents of infant circumcision also oppose the ultimate disfigurement, abortion?
skip said: "Do the opponents of infant circumcision also oppose the ultimate disfigurement, abortion?" excellent question. what is the answer, self righteous boy and girls?
For close to 3800 years every Jewish child has hd a Brit Milah. It is more than an "club membership sign". It marks the child as a member of the Covenant people who are linked to God. God is not a Heavenly Barbarian. He commanded the rite of Milah to teach us to control our sexual passions [not to deny them] thus elevating us to be a holy people.The Brit reminds the Jew to sanctify his body--to use all of his body ''in the service of God....How can one help another without EYES with which to see another's plight ? How can one help another without LEGW with which to run to lift someone who has fallen down, ARMS with whivh to pick someone up or with which to comfort someone, HANDs with which to take out one's change purse to give a few coins for charity. Holliness refers to being in control of our passions and bodily desires as per God's teaching,,,to blend pleasure with self restaint. It is sad that "modern sophisticated Jews see Milah as a primitive act and that Reform Rabbis are supporting the Anti Milah campaign. Yitzhack Rubin, Jerusalem ytzrubin@actcom.co.il
Hershl Hartman wrote: "I proudly officiate at naming ceremonies for both boys and girls. Intercultural families, especially, are relieved and happy to find a Jewish community that emphasizes cultural and historical identity rather than slavish adherence to rituals that arose in antiquity." This is I'm sure the same argument promulgated by PanHellenists over two thousand years ago to assimilate. Is this what we have survived for in America?
Jews can go to temple on a daily basis and noone is going to check whether they are cut or uncut. God created all body parts and skin for a reason. Also one must realise that the old covenant the old testament was written 5,000 years ago.. In the dessert folks did not shower on a daily basis;. Nowadays we shower daily..therefore is absolutely no reason to cut off the foreskin.
Hershl Hartman said: "As a Secular Jewish vegvayzer/madrikh/Leader in The Sholem Community, L.A. I proudly officiate at naming ceremonies for both boys and girls. Intercultural families, especially, are relieved and happy to find a Jewish community that emphasizes cultural and historical identity rather than slavish adherence to rituals that arose in antiquity." You must be joking. In the event you're not, Hershl, I hope that there are very few actual Jews among the children whose "intercultural" parents you sell to.
Hershl Hartman's organization, which can be found by a Google search, reflects a second-to-last step in a generational process of abandoning Judaism. I'm not going to get upset. The children Hershl works on by-and-large are simply not Jewish--i.e. "intercultural" families of a Jewish (maybe) father and a mother who is something else. And that's okay for the *son*--almost the entire world is gentiles and many are quite nice.
FASCINATING discussion, folks! Besides Israel, brit milah is one of those topics that gets Jews very worked up, especially Jewish men. I have my theories as to why this is the case. But if being circumcised marks God's covenant with the Jews, then half the Jewish population doesn't have that covenant---namely, females. What makes a Jew Jewish is the head and the heart, not the [word deleted]. That's what I told my Jewish son who is being raised Jewish and goes to a Jewish day school when he asked me years ago why he isn't circumcised. I also did not have him pierced or tattooed but should he decide to do so, that's HIS decision and his pain. (i hope he doesn't!). He's very Jewish identified, just ran a 2 1/2 hour service for his Bar Mitzvah, and despite his foreskin, he IS a Jew. Kol ha-kavod (all honor to you) to those who are questioning this practice as identified Jews. It's one thing to inflict pain on yourself; it's quite another to do so to an innocent baby. If mothers were making the decisions, things would change more quickly!
Shriber wrote: "Many cultural practices have dictates which are “independent of the people who belong to it.” Language for example, we don’t make up our own linguistics rules. If we want to make ourselves understood we have to follow the rules of ours specific language." But speakers of a languages collectively change its rules. Abandoning circumcision would be like abandoning "thou". English did not cease to be English when we stopped distinguishing the second-person singular and plural. "As for change culture like language is in constant flux, but no individual (or groups of individuals) is responsible for these changes." Of course groups are responsible for changes, who else could be? The role of different groups in linguistic change is well-recognised. And those groups are made up of individuals, some more influential than others. "Often the introduction of foreign elements into a religion will change it irrevocably and make it a different religion. ... The abandoning of circumcision will have a similar rapturous effect" I seriously doubt that. Half of all Jews have never been circumcised and are no less Jews for that. (And in some European countries it is said that as many as 40% of male Jews are not circumcised.) A large proportion of US Jewish boys are circumcised in hospital with no ceremony - just like gentile American boys. The focus at Brisot is more and more on the celebration, so much so that if the milah were omitted, many guests wouldn't even notice. See Leonard Glick's "Marked in Your Flesh" for details. "... which is why so many non Jews (Christians and others) are arguing for it here and elsewhere. I don’t know if this is your game or not, but it is the motive behind other posters who advocate such changes." I doubt that it is. Me, I am opposed to all infant circumcision and I try to avoid focussing on the Jewish variety, but that's unavoidable in this forum. The human rights issue is the same everywhere, if all human beings are (as I firmly believe) equal. "The anti-circumcision case isn’t strong enough to warrant stopping the practice." Doubtless this is what they said of slavery 150 years ago. Our understanding of human rights develops, and of where an individual's boundaries start and end. "That it’s not detrimental has been shown by posters who called attention to the success of the Jewish people in all human endeavors. If that practice had been harmful either it or the Jews would have disappeared long ago as have many other peoples in history." Perhaps this shows that Jews are more resiliant than other people, to have done so well in spite of circumcision. "I would guess that peoples who refuse to have children and reproduce themselves will disappear long before Jews who practice circumcision." That was certainly true in the case of the Shakers, but so what? "You certainly lack a sense of humor, Hugh." Your remark wasn't funny, so I thought it must be serious. "The point is that circumcising Einstein, Freud, Mark Spitz and tens of thousands of other accomplished Jews didn’t stop them from achieving in their chosen field." Einstein's parents did not practise and may well have left him intact. Freud's accomplishments are at least debatable, and he deplored the practice. His grandsons Lucien and Clement have both achieved in their chosen fields in spite of being intact. And who knows that an intact Spitz mightn't have won eight medals. "There is no medical, or moral reason to give up circumcision." The medical reasons are the many risks (and no medical reason is needed to abandon unnecessary surgery). The moral reason is the human right to decide for oneself what parts of one's own body one may keep - a right we take for granted for adults (into which baby boys grow), for the whole of the rest of the baby boy's body, and the corresponding part of girl babies.
Laura Wolf "FASCINATING discussion, folks! Besides Israel, brit milah is one of those topics that gets Jews very worked up, especially Jewish men. I have my theories as to why this is the case. But if being circumcised marks God's covenant with the Jews, then half the Jewish population doesn't have that covenant---namely, females. What makes a Jew Jewish is the head and the heart, not the [word deleted]. That's what I told my Jewish son who is being raised Jewish and goes to a Jewish day school when he asked me years ago why he isn't circumcised." You should be glad, Laura, that women do not need to be circumcised. As to your son not being circumcised, whatever your reason for not circumcising him you should know that you have deprived him of full membership in the Jewish people. This is a fact and as he grows older he will realize it too and will either curse you and have himself circumcised or abandon the Jewish people altogether.
"I am a deceased Rabbi's daughter and although I am no longer Orthodox because it has been too difficult to do so, I am not so brazen as to try to change the tenets of Judaism to fit my convenience. Instead, I humbly and shamefully declare that unfortunately I am not strong enough to comply with such difficult edicts and I beg G-d for forgiveness." Thank G-d for people like you. Your father raised you right. You have the ability to recognize that your non-observance of the mitzvot is your own personal failing, and you do not try to rationalize it as an acceptable alternative form of Judaism. If everyone were like you, the perversions of Judaism, such as Reform, never would have come into being. As long as you maintain this attitude, there is always hope of you doing t'shuvah. The liberal Jews on this site will never return to G-d as long as they cannot acknowledge that they are not following the will of G-d and that their faux-Judaism can lead only to their children and grandchildren assimilating and intermarrying their way out of the Jewish people altogether.
Dave said: "BS'D: As I prepare for Shabbas, I'll add my two cents. Even as a frum person who might be classified as "Modern Orthodox," I actually believe that this debate will ultimately go away. It is a personal tragedy for a small number of Jewish children who won't share in the covenant Avraham made with G-d, but Reform Judaism is in the fast process of becoming extinct. To explain: many, if not most, of the Reform Movement "Jews" aren't actually Jews in the sense that traditional Jews accept--the children of a Jewish mother or ritually converted. Fifty or 100 years ago, when Reform Judaism became a refuge for nonbelieving Jews seeking to maintain a fig-leaf of identity, there were many actual Jews in the Reform movement. But that is just no longer the case. What remains of Judaism in the Reform Movement is vestigial nostalgia and a longing for identity. People who get a charge when a new Jewish player breaks into the major leagues or longingly remember when you could get good rye bread. The peopler up front are somewhat insidious, but largely harmless--nominal rabbis willing to rationalize any departure from halachah and who stand for absolutely nothing. But in a strange way, they are preaching a form of agnosticism to the uninterested choir. And as pleasant an idea as it is, you can't build a religion out of matzoh balls, Seinfeld jokes and "commitments to social justice." G-d has commanded certain things and we are HONORED to comply, since we are his people. Reform "temples" (never shuls--too ethnic, maybe) are filled mostly with non-Jews: people who were not born Jewish and were not formally converted in accordance with Jewish law. That is the hard, cold fact of things. What few Jewish children remain in these shuls are rapidly repeating the cycle of intermarriage. If the vast majority of young men marry non-Jewish women, simple math and logic dictates that very soon the Jewish Reform Jew will be extinct. (None of this takes into account the fact that most Reform families have two or fewer children, well below the generally accepted rate needed to maintain the size of a given population.) I would argue that there is no real point in frum people arguing this. Many of the respondents on the attack might very well not be Jewish themselves (as explained above), so there is absolutely no point in convincing them. Even those who are Jews think we are barbaric and won't listen to anything we have to say--they will claim it is further evidence of our barbarism. As has happened so many times in Jewish history, we are at a moment when a large portion of Klal Yisrael has been lost. While I weep for these people, I cannot stop them. I can only try to protect my own family and community from being infected by their influence. I admire the commitment of the Lubavitch and few others to reaching out to try to save some of what is left, but I am a realist. Even in my hometown of Scranton, PA, I hear the pews at Temple Israel and Temple Hesed are emptier and emptier. The list of children at the JCC camp doesn't read as Jewish. Even what is now called "Modern Orthodoxy" is dying. Most days, Beth Shalom couldn't get a minyan together without the presence of frum bachorim and Kollel members from the yeshiva. I understand the Satmar are going to colonize the city for cheaper housing. I'm not entirely happy about this, as my world of frum, modern Jews is replaced by a troublingly insular group. But if that is all that can survive of Yidishkeit, I can live with it. Good Shabbos! Dave" Yasher Koach, Dave. All that you wrote is (unfortunately) very true.
eveth wrote: Aren't the origins of this tradition to circumcise male children flexible enough, at least, to be satisfied by a pinprick drawing a drop of blood? The answer is no. A pinprick suffices for one, for example, who had a medical circumcision as a baby, but never had a ritual circumcision. This is because he has no foreskin. But one who has a foreskin cannot be considered circumcised. The exact requirements for how much minimally must be removed are set forth in the 19th chapter of the Tractate of Shabbat in the Babylonian Talmud and in later halachic authorities, such as the Shulchan Aruch.
Eli said: "As a born and circumcised Jew, I just want to clear up a few things people have said about the Reform movement. The first thing you must understand is that Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism, like Orthodox Judaism, is a "big tent" denomination. There are actually several different factions influencing the official positions and real practices of people who call themselves "Reform Jews". 1) Classical Reform Judaism -- These people wanted to look and act German. They know very little Hebrew (not even enough to pray in) and even less Talmud. They pray (and lead prayer) in the vernacular instead of Hebrew for most of most services. They feel slightly uncomfortable around #3 and fear #2. They tend to cling to rituals like circumcision out of a sense of identity (to differentiate themselves from #3) rather than religious obligation. They tend to view Zionism as a slight positive, the crazy cousins overseas. 2) Reformadox Judaism -- I count myself among this sect, so I know the most about it. These Reform Jews tend to have some (often a reasonable amount) of knowledge of Jewish practices and traditions. They often learn enough Hebrew to pray in or more. They have often read commentaries on Torah portions. Quite a few have resumed traditional Jewish practices such as thrice-daily prayer or t'fillin. They almost always wear a kippah or some form of hat, and many wear tallitot k'tanot. Most keep some form of kashrut. Please note that the Reform movement simply can't hold on to these people; they leave for other movements. They despise #1, think that #3 are failing to carry on the Jewish religion and people, but welcome #4. They often spend time in the State of Israel and support it wholeheartedly. When Reform Jews make aliyah, they come from #2. 3) The Intermarried and/or Assimilated -- They believe in very little and maintain synagogue membership because they feel close to #1 or because their mother said so. The only thing really distinguishing them from #1 is their lack of identity with the Jewish people. They pay shul dues, but only show up for the High Holidays. These are the "anti-Zionist" Reform Jews and the idiots who want the children of their renunciation of Judaism to be considered Jewish. They like #4 and think #2 might as well throw the black coats on and become Haredim. 4) The Converts -- These are non-Jews brought in by the Reform movement either for marriage purposes or simply to convert without having to interact with the smug, nasty Orthodox (yes, that's how the public perceives you). They distribute pretty evenly between groups, and could probably make good Jews if given real conversions. Now let me tell you that the Reform movement is set to split in two over the issue of intermarriage, with #1 and #3 going to the "not-really but kinda-sorta Jewish" side, and #2 becoming the liberal wing of Conservatism or a new movement that attempts to find halachic justification for not continually thrusting things from the "permitted" category into "forbidden" or "required" as the Orthodox do." Thank you, Eli, for a very interesting post. I look forward to you and/or your children inevitably joining with us Orthodox Jews who take the Torah and mitzvot seriously in the very near future. We'll keep a light out for you.
Shriber wrote: "Many cultural practices have dictates which are “independent of the people who belong to it.” Language for example, we don’t make up our own linguistics rules. If we want to make ourselves understood we have to follow the rules of ours specific language." But speakers of a languages collectively change its rules. Abandoning circumcision would be like abandoning "thou". English did not cease to be English when we stopped distinguishing the second-person singular and plural. "As for change culture like language is in constant flux, but no individual (or groups of individuals) is responsible for these changes." Of course groups are responsible for changes, who else could be? The role of different groups in linguistic change is well-recognised. And those groups are made up of individuals, some more influential than others. "Often the introduction of foreign elements into a religion will change it irrevocably and make it a different religion. ... The abandoning of circumcision will have a similar rapturous effect" I seriously doubt that. Half of all Jews have never been circumcised and are no less Jews for that. (And in some European countries it is said that as many as 40% of male Jews are not circumcised.) A large proportion of US Jewish boys are circumcised in hospital with no ceremony - just like gentile American boys. The focus at Brisot is more and more on the celebration, so much so that if the milah were omitted, many guests wouldn't even notice. See Leonard Glick's "Marked in Your Flesh" for details. "... which is why so many non Jews (Christians and others) are arguing for it here and elsewhere. I don’t know if this is your game or not, but it is the motive behind other posters who advocate such changes." I doubt that it is. Me, I am opposed to all infant circumcision and I try to avoid focussing on the Jewish variety, but that's unavoidable in this forum. The human rights issue is the same everywhere, if all human beings are (as I firmly believe) equal. "The anti-circumcision case isn’t strong enough to warrant stopping the practice." Doubtless this is what they said of slavery 150 years ago. Our understanding of human rights develops, and of where an individual's boundaries start and end. "That it’s not detrimental has been shown by posters who called attention to the success of the Jewish people in all human endeavors. If that practice had been harmful either it or the Jews would have disappeared long ago as have many other peoples in history." Perhaps this shows that Jews are more resiliant than other people, to have done so well in spite of circumcision. "I would guess that peoples who refuse to have children and reproduce themselves will disappear long before Jews who practice circumcision." That was certainly true in the case of the Shakers, but so what? "You certainly lack a sense of humor, Hugh." Your remark wasn't funny, so I thought it must be serious. "The point is that circumcising Einstein, Freud, Mark Spitz and tens of thousands of other accomplished Jews didn’t stop them from achieving in their chosen field." Einstein's parents did not practise and may well have left him intact. Freud's accomplishments are at least debatable, and he deplored the practice. His grandsons Lucien and Clement have both achieved in their chosen fields in spite of being intact. And who knows that an intact Spitz mightn't have won eight medals. "There is no medical, or moral reason to give up circumcision." The medical reasons are the many risks (and no medical reason is needed to abandon unnecessary surgery). The moral reason is the human right to decide for oneself what parts of one's own body one may keep - a right we take for granted for adults (into which baby boys grow), for the whole of the rest of the baby boy's body, and the corresponding part of girl babies.
Laura Wolf said: "FASCINATING discussion, folks!" This is often the sort of thing an elitist says before he/she descends into condescension. Ms. Wolf is telling us our conversation is fascinating because she stands outside and above us, chuckling over our childishness. Let us go on.... "Besides Israel, brit milah is one of those topics that gets Jews very worked up, especially Jewish men. I have my theories as to why this is the case." Our stated reasons are inadequate in Ms. Wolf's opinion. We are primitives too ignorant to understand the reasons we perform our primitive rituals. Ms. Wolf declines to tell us, because she can't be sure whether she sounds smarter giving a pseudo-psychological explanation or letting us think she's thinking of something so amazing that we are too simple to bother telling us. "But if being circumcised marks God's covenant with the Jews, then half the Jewish population doesn't have that covenant---namely, females." Ms. Wolf brings in a falacious sort of feminist argument: if Judaism makes different demands of men and women, obviously any demands that differ are illegitimate for both men and women. After all, gender differences are not G-d given differentiations, but artificial constructions of ignorant primitives. "What makes a Jew Jewish is the head and the heart, not the [word deleted]." Back to the elitism masking, but now masking itself as sentimentalism! "The head and the heart"--charming metaphors that only the most ignorant could challenge. After all, the head gives us the power to see how stupid our religious relatives are being when they indulge in their savage mutilation of the body. The heart gives us the power to see how cruel our religious relatives are being when they don't say we have license to do whatever our "heart" wants. "That's what I told my Jewish son who is being raised Jewish and goes to a Jewish day school when he asked me years ago why he isn't circumcised. I also did not have him pierced or tattooed but should he decide to do so, that's HIS decision and his pain. (i hope he doesn't!). He's very Jewish identified, just ran a 2 1/2 hour service for his Bar Mitzvah, and despite his foreskin, he IS a Jew. Kol ha-kavod (all honor to you) to those who are questioning this practice as identified Jews. It's one thing to inflict pain on yourself; it's quite another to do so to an innocent baby." Well, I guess that settles it. He's "Jewish identified." What devotion! He ran a two-and-a-half hour bar mitzvah service! Nothing easy like merely davening all day on Yom Kippur, while fasting and standing. He got up, gave a speech about social justice, danced at the party afterward, and got out all the thank you notes for the checks written in multiples of 18 within six months. "If mothers were making the decisions, things would change more quickly!" Orthodox mothers have the absolute choice about being Orthodox mothers, just as you have made your choice. Unlike them, however, there is a high likelihood that their children will carry on Yiddishkeit--not simply be "Jewish identified," whatever that means.
Wow! There is so much discussion about this one article, I wouldn't have time to read all the entries. But I'd like to get people's reaction to this thought. We religious Jews believe that G-d commands that we circumcise our sons (Genesis 17:7-14). Even with all the objections raised, that circumcision hurts the baby, that it reduces sexual pleasure, etc., if G-d commands it, who are we to disobey?
Hugh: “But speakers of a languages collectively change its rules. Abandoning circumcision would be like abandoning "thou". English did not cease to be English when we stopped distinguishing the second-person singular and plural.” This is a bogus example. The structure of language is complex. Its phonetic system is beyond the ability of either individuals or groups to change. Its morphemic structure which comprises the minimal units of significance in a language is also beyond it speakers to change. Its semantic structure though can be affected by collective and sometimes by individual choices. Hence a Shakespeare can introduce new terms into the language. Dropping meanings of words already in use is much more difficult. This happens over time when new usages are adopted and words taken on new shades of meanings. The “thou” form was second person singular in the nominative case. The “thou” and “ye” were used instead of the modern “you.” The changes merely dropped the plural “ye” and we now use “you” as both plural and singular. I’ll leave it to you to decide if something was not lost when we dropped the distinction between the singular and the plural forms of the second person. In any case these distinctions did go out of usage but not completely. In some dialects in parts of England and Scotland it is still in use. In modern English we sometime use “yous,” “y’all,” and “you guys” which linguists frown upon. Still the persistence of these colloquial expressions suggests a need to distinguish between the singular and plural forms in second person pronouns. Its religious relevance is spurious. Some writers with an ear for effect by little knowledge would like to suggest that “thou” was an older religious form. This is probably do the fact that many Protestants sects like the Quakers use (or used to use) the older forms among themselves. In any case its analogy to circumcision is a stretch to say the least. If anything circumcision is comparable to linguist morphological rather than to its semantic structures. These modalities of language cannot be changed without affecting the language as a whole. “Of course groups are responsible for changes, who else could be?” Linguistic changes are introduced over time and these occur mostly at the semantic lever. Phonetic changes such as the Great Vowel Shift from the 15th to 17th centuries were not introduced by individuals or groups but were probably the result of the final stages of the amalgamation of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French. These have been much studied and there is no consensus among linguists about its origin. At the morphemic lever changes also occur over time and individual input is very limited. For example the prefixes and suffixes of terms are determined by the overall structure of a form and can’t be changed at will. “The role of different groups in linguistic change is well-recognized. And those groups are made up of individuals, some more influential than others.” Well, you have a poor understanding of the complexity of language if you think so. In any case I would like to tell me who exactly recognizes that individuals or groups with “great influence” can change the form of a language. “I seriously doubt that. Half of all Jews have never been circumcised and are no less Jews for that. (And in some European countries it is said that as many as 40% of male Jews are not circumcised.) A large proportion of US Jewish boys are circumcised in hospital with no ceremony - just like gentile American boys. The focus at Brisot is more and more on the celebration, so much so that if the milah were omitted, many guests wouldn't even notice. See Leonard Glick's "Marked in Your Flesh" for details.” You are wrong about a couple of things. The assertion that uncircumcised Jews “are no less Jewish for that” is true only in the sense of these people being seen as Jews either in a strictly “racial” or “ethno-racial” sense. In a religious sense these people are not Jews. Even in a cultural sense their Jewishness is not complete. Europeans tend to apply a quasi racial definition of Jewishness which is why people like you think of them as Jews. I doubt that other religious Jews in Europe (most of whom are either Orthodox) would recognize them as Jews. In any case, the number of Jews in Europe is very small and 40% of say fifteen thousand Jews in some European country is not a very large number, though I doubt the veracity of your statistics. What is your source? I also doubt the veracity of the comment “half of all Jews have never been circumcised” and would like to see some evidence in its support. “Me, I am opposed to all infant circumcision and I try to avoid focussing on the Jewish variety, but that's unavoidable in this forum. The human rights issue is the same everywhere, if all human beings are (as I firmly believe) equal.” Well as you are speaking as a non Jews then your input in this debate is limited to say the least. This is not a “human rights” issue nor an “ethical” issue and if you are interested in helping humanity try focusing on more important issues such as the ongoing genocide in Darfur, or the use of children as suicide bombers. Me: "The anti-circumcision case isn’t strong enough to warrant stopping the practice." Hugh: “Doubtless this is what they said of slavery 150 years ago. Our understanding of human rights develops, and of where an individual's boundaries start and end.” This antisemitic comparison is quite odious, Hugh. I was circumcised and I am freer than you are. I also don’t have the castration complex you seem to have. Me: "That it’s not detrimental has been shown by posters who called attention to the success of the Jewish people in all human endeavors. If that practice had been harmful either it or the Jews would have disappeared long ago as have many other peoples in history." “Perhaps this shows that Jews are more resiliant than other people, to have done so well in spite of circumcision.” Jews have done well in spite of massacres, pogroms, genocides, a Holocaust and run of the mill discrimination from people like you. We have done well in part because of circumcision not in spite of it. Me: "I would guess that peoples who refuse to have children and reproduce themselves will disappear long before Jews who practice circumcision." Hugh: “That was certainly true in the case of the Shakers, but so what?” It’s probably true in the case of the antisemitic anti circumcision league too which means that we will be around long after you and yours will have gone into the trash heap of ineffective history. Me: "The point is that circumcising Einstein, Freud, Mark Spitz and tens of thousands of other accomplished Jews didn’t stop them from achieving in their chosen field" Hugh: “Einstein's parents did not practise and may well have left him intact.” How little you know about Jewish history. I’d like some proof that he was not circumcised. My parents didn’t practice and neither do I. Yet I was circumcised and my children are their children are and will be circumcised. “Freud's accomplishments are at least debatable, and he deplored the practice.” You want it both ways, don’t you? I’d like proof the he opposed the practice. All he said was that gentiles fantasized that circumcision was akin to castration. Just as you seem to do. “His grandsons Lucien and Clement have both achieved in their chosen fields in spite of being intact.” I don’t know if they are “intact” whatever that means. I am intact and circumcised. Do you have nay proof? “And who knows that an intact Spitz mightn't have won eight medals.” Really, maybe he would have won two hundred, don’t you think? What he won was spectacular enough and he did it not being “intact.” Me: "There is no medical, or moral reason to give up circumcision." “The medical reasons are the many risks (and no medical reason is needed to abandon unnecessary surgery). “ This is pure superstition. Many doctors will tell you that circumcision reduces the chanced of many diseases including the chance of AIDS. However, I make no argument in support of circumcision based on medical advantage. One recent study suggested that the risks and benefits from the procedure cancel each other out. (Though the report doesn’t address the issue of AIDS in Africa.) Here is the reports conclusion: “"We're talking about trade-offs for very rare risks and very rare benefits," Christakis says. "Now, I can tell parents that one in 500 circumcised children may suffer a complication, and one in 100 children may derive a benefit. But people will weigh that differently. However, the vast majority of children will gain no medical benefit nor suffer any complication as a result of circumcision."” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000111074855.htm Hence, it’s up to parents to decide whether to circumcise or not to circumcise. It’s certainly not up to antisemitic organizations to decide. “The moral reason is the human right to decide for oneself what parts of one's own body one may keep - a right we take for granted for adults (into which baby boys grow), for the whole of the rest of the baby boy's body, and the corresponding part of girl babies.” I and others have already answered this tendentious question. Babies are not autonomous and just as they are born into a certain language and culture which will determine its future and just as parents have an obligation to care for the child they will do so in a manner that is most appropriate to them. Unless you willing to make each baby the ward of the State patents will always have discretion on how to best influence the moral development of the child. Not you HUGH and not the STATE. Finally Hugh, a question was asked above which I would like to pose to you: Do you support a woman’s right to abort her fetus?
We Want Moshiach Now! For how much longer will we not see the trancedental force continuously creating the world??? "When Moshiach comes we will look back at the golus days and sigh over the lost opportunity to make a change to the physical world!" (a Bris Mila is a physical change in the pysical world.) On a different note: As a new father, my baby was crying (out of pain) for a lot longer during the heel blood squeezing "procedure" than during the bris. is there a movement to save babys this pain (by finding another way or time to extract that blood, who knows like before birth)?
There are some patently ridiculous arguments being put on here - and as Nate says a great deal of unwarranted aggression. Robbins i make no apolgies for being British, nor for being what many people here would call a 'sh*ksa' I would like to state for the record that i find this kind of racial abuse just as unacceptable as anti-semitism, or calling someone a n*gger or a w*g. And by the way, the circ lobby does exist - it's not Zionist, it's not even particularly Jewish - Jewish people don't generally give a damn whether the average gentile baby is cut. Mass circumcision was introduced to America from Victorian Britain where it was considered (as Maimonides thought) necessary to reduce a boys pleasure in his [word deleted] and prevent sexual immorality. Various Doctors got carried away with this and began claiming circumcision also cured blindness, TB epilepsy and even paralysis. Their inheritors are the likes of B Morris of Australia who runs a website which claims the foreskin is 'fatal' and in case that doesn't impress us enought says that boys should be cut for reasons such as 'bathroom splatter' 'two tone colour' and especially if the owner of the [word deleted] is Indian (apparently the Indian [word deleted] inhibits procreation). American Doctors who promote circumcision talk about 'medical benefits' but tend to fall back on the 'he'll be bullied in the locker room' argument - which very much undermines their case as it shows an inability to grasp principles of child protection and medical ethics. They deliberately avoid addressing the fact that male circumcision has a 2-10% complication rate which cancels out any putative childhood benefits. They don't mention the huge profits that circumcision brings to the medical profession and the companies which manufacturer all the equipment (circumstraints, clamps, plastibells etc). Many foreskins are also sold on for medical research, skin grafts and use in cosmetic products - in fact many Jewish women probably use face cream which was manufactured using baby foreskin tissue. It seems unbelievable i know but it is factual. What upsets me most on this site is the double standards. I suspect most posters including Shriber are happy that in the US as in the UK we deny Muslims the right to remove the foreskin of their little girls ( a popular female circumcision promoted by clerics such as Yusuf Al Qaradawi)and yet they fiercely resist any attempt to restrict a parallel practice being done on little boys. What would you answer if someone called you 'Islamophobic'?? No one has seen fit to address the comparison between male and female circumcision simply because it demolishes your argument. People simply cannot be allowed to do what they like to their children - parents are guardians not owners. And stating that there are many cut men who are great contributors to society says nothing about the cut. Africa is powered by the uncomplaining work of many great women - many of whom are cut - are you REALLY implying that the human ability to absorb and deal with mutilation is a reason to go on doing it? On the subject of Jews cutting women - this is widespread among Ethiopian Jews (as with Ethiopian Christians). I didn't make it up - why on earth would i want to make it up?? Finally, I just have to address this because it's absolute nonsense and just spits in the face of medical science: "Most evidence for circumcision is positive. A case in point: my grandson was not circumcized at birth because father's preference. The boy came down with a urinary infection at age one that would not have occurred if circumcized at birth. So he had a circumcision at age one. Healthy ever since and he is now in college." For a start, circ'd men CAN get UTI's just like they can get penile cancer. Secondly urinary infections are treated by antibiotics not amputation. If the potential to harbour smegma or urine was a reason to amputate bits of genitals no woman would be allowed to keep her labia.
There is no Jewish people without circumcision. I'm sorry that some of you have a hard time "khopping" this, but there it is. You guys ever hear of Chanukah? A major reason for the revolt was that the Greeks banned Bris Milah, knowing that without it, Am Yisrael will cease to exist.
Don't we have more than enough Jews who don't observe the mitzvot? Why does the Reform movement insist on importing gentiles who not only will not keep the commandments, but will attempt to influence the gentile government to take away the rights of Torah-observant Jews to practice their religion? Why should any Jew care about Laura MacDonald's opinion about a mitzvah in the Torah anyway?
Hugh said: “Shriber wrote: "Hugh is also given to offer images of Jewish circumcision that come straight out of the pages of Julius Streicher's antisemitic papers." I don't "offer" any "images of Jewish circumcision" at all, nor had I heard about these papers till now.” It doesn’t matter if you did or didn’t hear about these papers till now. These images are part of the culture and unless you have been living in a paper bag you would come across them sometime. Did you ever read Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice? The image Shylock with a knife yelling for a pound of flesh has been interpreted by many readers as the image of the stereotypical Jew castrating gentiles. This is the image you offered on Sunday: Hugh: “What can one say to someone who simply denies that when a baby is held down and part of its body is cut off, human rights and ethical issues are involved, or thinks "circumcised" and "intact" are not antonyms?” This is the classic medieval image of the “Jew” hovering over babies in order to castrate them. “Paul only argued that circumcision is not necessary for salvation (whatever that is) because he wanted to convert Greeks, he wasn't actually against it. I'm no fan of Paul's either.” Well, whether he was or wasn’t against circumcision is irrelevant and Jeff is right on this point and you are wrong. “Paul said in Rom. 2:29, “real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. As the comment above shows, Paul did argue strenuously against it and the intemperate language he used has entered the anti-Semitic discursive tradition as any google search will quickly reveal. btw: why would you want a world without males?
Laura MacDonald said: "Robbins i make no apolgies[]for being what many people here would call a 'sh*ksa' I would like to state for the record that i find this kind of racial abuse just as unacceptable as anti-semitism, or calling someone a n*gger or a w*g." Ms. McDonald: you are welcome to feel offended. The use of the word shiksa is almost universally limited in context to gentile women *who marry Jewish men,* thus guaranteeing that the children of the men will not be Jews. As that condition is being discouraged when one says something like "You're marrying a shiksa?!", I'm quite happy with any negative connotations you take away. From my perspective, you are an interloper destroying the Jewish community in the guise of enlightening us to our primitivism. "What upsets me most on this site is the double standards. I suspect most posters including Shriber are happy that in the US as in the UK we deny Muslims the right to remove the foreskin of their little girls ( a popular female circumcision promoted by clerics such as Yusuf Al Qaradawi)and yet they fiercely resist any attempt to restrict a parallel practice being done on little boys. What would you answer if someone called you 'Islamophobic'??" The reason, Ms. MacDonald, for this double-standard is that those who are defending the practice of the bris milah are *Jews,* not Muslims. Jews should see the world as Jews, not from the artificially constructed perspective of "multi-culturalism." However, I'd note that in addition to not circumcising females, Jews also don't support Sharia, international terrorism, despotic monarchies, honor killings of rape victims and alleged adulterous women, fatwahs, the veil, forced marriages, or run around cursing non-Jews as "infidels" (shiksas yes, but you don't generally hear about Jews of any sort killing their shiksa daughter-in-laws, do you?).
Laura MacDonald: “There are some patently ridiculous arguments being put on here - and as Nate says a great deal of unwarranted aggression.” Yes, there is and much of it is coming from the anti-circumcision antisemitic side. Laura has put forth false claims about Jewish female circumcision just as “Hugh” has put forth false claims about the nature, the object, the means, the number of Jews circumcised. “… i make no apolgies for being British, nor for being what many people here would call a 'sh*ksa' I would like to state for the record that i find this kind of racial abuse just as unacceptable as anti-semitism, or calling someone a n*gger or a w*g.” Speaking for myself, Laura, you have no standing in this debate, as a non Jew. This is a fact and the idea that calling you a non Jew is the same as calling someone a “[word deleted]” is absurd. Your claims about the so called “circumcision lobby is also irrelevant to the debate. The issue here is circumcision among Jews and no one else. “American Doctors who promote circumcision talk about 'medical benefits' but tend to fall back on the 'he'll be bullied in the locker room' argument - which very much undermines their case as it shows an inability to grasp principles of child protection and medical ethics. They deliberately avoid addressing the fact that male circumcision has a 2-10% complication rate which cancels out any putative childhood benefits. They don't mention the huge profits that circumcision brings to the medical profession and the companies which manufacturer all the equipment (circumstraints, clamps, plastibells etc). Many foreskins are also sold on for medical research, skin grafts and use in cosmetic products - in fact many Jewish women probably use face cream which was manufactured using baby foreskin tissue. It seems unbelievable i know but it is factual.” This is very false and very stupid as well as irrelevant. I cited a study by a medical research team in the US which concluded that “"We're talking about trade-offs for very rare risks and very rare benefits," Christakis says. "Now, I can tell parents that one in 500 circumcised children may suffer a complication, and one in 100 children may derive a benefit. But people will weigh that differently. However, the vast majority of children will gain no medical benefit nor suffer any complication as a result of circumcision."” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000111074855.htm This is a neutral study and should put to rest your obsessively ideologically motivated anti-circumcision claims. The fact that doctors make a “profit” of the procedure is no more important to this debate than the fact that dentists make a profit extracting teeth. “What upsets me most on this site is the double standards. I suspect most posters including Shriber are happy that in the US as in the UK we deny Muslims the right to remove the foreskin of their little girls ( a popular female circumcision promoted by clerics such as Yusuf Al Qaradawi)and yet they fiercely resist any attempt to restrict a parallel practice being done on little boys. What would you answer if someone called you 'Islamophobic'??” Female circumcision is different from male circumcision and its practice among Muslims differs from those among Jews. My opinion about Muslim circumcision is not relevant to this debate. The idea, moreover, of a double standard is a figment of your imagination. No one here brought up Muslim circumcision because this is not the topic we are discussing. It is not relevant and if you want to argue about it I suggest you find a Muslim forum in which to do so. “No one has seen fit to address the comparison between male and female circumcision simply because it demolishes your argument.” Bull, Jews don’t practice female circumcision which is why no one brought it up. It isn’t part of the Jewish tradition either from a religious or a cultural point of view. “People simply cannot be allowed to do what they like to their children - parents are guardians not owners. And stating that there are many cut men who are great contributors to society says nothing about the cut.” I and others have answered this ideological driven point as nauseam. Children are cared for and protected by their parents who also educate them in their own traditions and outsiders have no say in how one should bring up ones children. I have no more right to tell Britons to teach their children Chinese (since there over a billion of them on the Planet) than you have a right to tell Jews whether to circumcise or not. There is no medical or ethical reason not to and the decision is best left to the parents and not to the State and certainly not to so called “human rights” organization with an antisemitic agenda. “Africa is powered by the uncomplaining work of many great women - many of whom are cut - are you REALLY implying that the human ability to absorb and deal with mutilation is a reason to go on doing it?” This is irrelevant to this debate. Stick to the issues. “On the subject of Jews cutting women - this is widespread among Ethiopian Jews (as with Ethiopian Christians). I didn't make it up - why on earth would i want to make it up??” Ethiopian “Jews” (who have been separated from the main Jewish world for over two millennia) hold many practices which are not Jewish and which the Jewish religion does not condone. This is not an argument against Jewish circumcision. Your argument Laura is both wrong and offensive. Wrong because the data doesn’t bear out the drastic conclusion that you attribute to it, and offensive because you keep injecting matter not pertinent to the discussion in order to bolster what you must realize is a stupid and malicious conclusion. Circumcision among Jews as a people has had no negative effects on their standing in countries that allows them equal rights. They have contributed much to humanity throughout its history well out of proportion to its tiny size and in spite of unimaginable hardships and for a non Jew like Laura to tell us how to live our lives is the height of chutzpah. Finally, what is your position on abortion, Laura?
“Robbins i make no apolgies for being British, nor for being what many people here would call a 'sh*ksa' I would like to state for the record that i find this kind of racial abuse just as unacceptable as anti-semitism, or calling someone a n*gger or a w*g. Laura MacDonald For the record I did not call Ms. MacDonald a “shiksa.” She just made it up like she makes up lots of things about circumcision. There are worse things I could call her but I will refrain from doing so in polite company.
Where do these anti-circumcision people get their ridiculous "facts" from anyway? "Half of all Jewish males are uncircumcised." What nonsense! "2 to 10% of all circumcisions result in complications." Well, maybe the ones performed by blind doctors. Never let real facts get in the way of hysteria. No doubt all the "facts" being cited here are gleaned from anti-circumcision websites started by anti-Semites. (Granted that some of those anti-Semites have been misled to believe by the Reform movement that they have had a valid conversion to Judaism. BTW, if one converts to Judaism on the condition that he/she does not have to keep any of the mitzvot, he/she's not Jewish according to Jewish law.) The only relevant fact is that Jewish baby boys have been circumcised for thousands of years and except in extremely rare cases, there is no evidence that any of them have been harmed in any way in the process.
Shriber wrote: "Circumcision among Jews as a people has had no negative effects on their standing in countries that allows them equal rights. They have contributed much to humanity throughout its history well out of proportion to its tiny size and in spite of unimaginable hardships and for a non Jew like Laura to tell us how to live our lives is the height of chutzpah." I'm finding it harder and harder to believe you're an agnostic, Shriber. You sound like a Rosh Yeshiva to me.
There are certain decisions we make for our children that are not rational but based on assumed values. The first is that they should be born at all. One could argue that the world is overcrowded and that life is pretty dismal in any case so why even bring in a new child when one can, for example, adopt one. But we have a religious imperative, which is also a moral value, to be fruitful and multiply even though we must know this will expose another individual to the trials as well as the joys of life and make the Earth a bit more crowded. As Jews we have another imperative, to continue the Jews as a chosen people. One could argue that, God forbid, we should bring up our children as Christians (in the US) so as to make them fit in with the majority and be less likely to encounter antiSemitism. I don't know of any rational way to prove that a Jew should try to pass on Judiasm to one's children, albeit it's a choice that a significant number of Jews make (I hope) What one can't do in my opinion is take the irrational approach that one can re define Judiasm by taking away fundamentals such as circumcision. Simple logic would say that "you can't have your cake and eat it...", you can't twist around Judiasm to remove key components based on some external consideration -- mainly foreign value judgements ---- and then say it's still Judaism. And, as the scientific study cited in an earlier post clearly points out there are medical pros and cons to circumcision, more pros, so there is no scientific basis to reject it and indeed one could argue that there is a humanistic imperative to circumcise. Rejecting circumcision is just based on the view that it's "too Jewish" -- that it's old fashioned and old means bad, etc. It, like the rejection of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state is at it's core antisemitic since it is effectively another way to destroy a key component of Judaism (as defined by the Jewish people of today and of all time).
jeff schwartz said: “Shriber wrote: "Circumcision among Jews as a people has had no negative effects on their standing in countries that allows them equal rights. They have contributed much to humanity throughout its history well out of proportion to its tiny size and in spite of unimaginable hardships and for a non Jew like Laura to tell us how to live our lives is the height of chutzpah." “I'm finding it harder and harder to believe you're an agnostic, Shriber. You sound like a Rosh Yeshiva to me.” Sorry, Jeff, I am a dyed in the wool Jewish agnostic. Btw: what you say about Reform Judaism may or may not be true but it’s not relevant to the discussion of circumcision even if some of the Jews pushing for its ban are “reform Jews.” There are too many good arguments for its retention without going after the beliefs of reform Jews.
R Lee Smith said: "There are certain decisions we make for our children that are not rational but based on assumed values." Excellent post, Lee Smith. I will only add that the risks of circumcision are no greater than those of infant vaccines. In fact there are people who object to vaccinating infants against disease because of the risks involved. As in the case of the circumcision their argument is a cover for a belief in the autonomy or naturalness of existence, and that human beings shouldn't temper with nature.
Robbins et all, you may call me what you like, please go ahead. I realise i've stuck my neck out in posting here but i don't accept accusations of prejudice - I'm as likely to post about this topic on Muslim sites and secular sites as Jewish ones. My real anger is reserved for those who cut children 'so they'll look like daddy' or simply because they find his (or her) body dirty. I can understand people doing it because they believe God told them to. But like many others - including people on this message board - i'm not sure that human rights /children's rights convetions actually allow harming a child's body on the basis of the parents' religious belief. Circumcision clearly does cause harm because it removes a large number of nerve endings - up to half the total penile nerve endings. Also, even in the most hygienic medical conditions, up to one in five babies experience penile sores as a result of circumcision and the resulting unnatural exposure of the glans to ammonia & faeces. (source Mackenzie's study of 140 neonatal circs) At the more serious end there are complications such as haemorrhage, septicaemia and death. In London at least one baby has died from his circumcision in the last six months. A death in Canada has also been reported this year, as well as numerous other deaths around the world, many in Africa. The figure of 1 in 500 experiencing harm from circumcision does not match the generally accepted complication rate of 2-8%. One of the recent randomised controlled trials in Africa had a complication rate for example of just under 4%. Please refer to Williams and Kapila: Complications of Circumcision published in the British Journal of Surgery Vol 80, Oct 1993 if you'd like to read more. Yes circumcision is believed to reduce the likelihood of urinary infections but i suspect the little boy in Illinois who has just lost his whole glans will not feel particularly cheered by knowing that.
Laura MacDonald said: "Robbins et all, you may call me what you like, please go ahead." I didn't call you any names. The fact that you have to resort to lies makes your whole argument suspicious.
Laura: is the following a statement you would agree with "Far more SERIOUS is the ethical issue raised through decisions to undertake invasive surgery upon defenseless children, when the long-term physical, emotional, and social impacts on children from this irreversible procedure -- which will alter the lives of these children -- have NOT been scientifically established." It's from a position paper in 1994 of the National Association of the Deaf re the ethical aspects of cochlear implantation which in the best cases provides useful hearing for children who are born deaf. If these children are not implanted at a young age they will never get the full benefits of the implant even if they chose as adults to hear via implants. Similarly with circumcision. One can say let an adult decide but this would have deprived the child of a key component of their Jewishness in the early years, and force them to undergo a procedure which has a much higher rate of complication among adults. It is true that one can say one doesn't have to hear, or analogously one doesn't have to be Jewish, to be a human being but that's really what the argument is about, isn't it. By the way, another study showing the medical benefits of circumcision has just been reported in tomorrows Sidney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/circumcision-benefits-backed/2007/07/22/1185042950465.html Circumcision benefits backed MORE than 5000 delegates will be presented with research confirming that male circumcision can reduce HIV infection rates by 60 per cent.
I have two questions for those who consider themselve "progressive" Jews and who also want to do away with circumcision. 1. Do you in general support the idea of determining "environmental impact" before allowing major construction which can potential cause drastic changes in the enviroment. 2. Do you support the need to respect and defend the diversity and historical practices of minority groups such as Native Americans. If your answer is yes to either or both of the above then why aren't you applying the same principles to the Jewish people when it comes to the time honored practice of circumcision?
I'm done posting for this article, but I want to state for the record how disappointed I am that the discussion has taken such a hostile and angry tone. An honest and enlightening discussion can't take place under these circumstances. All you have left is a mudslinging slugfest which doesn't change anybody's opinions, doesn't help anybody understand the issues, and is a complete waste of time. What a shame.
Laura MacDonald said: “Yes circumcision is believed to reduce the likelihood of urinary infections but i suspect the little boy in Illinois who has just lost his whole glans will not feel particularly cheered by knowing that.” Bringing up a particular example of complication doesn’t change anything. This is merely an attempt to inject emotion into a discussion about a medical procedure. There are complications, not to mention pain, from all medical procedures. That a particular infant was harmed by a polio vaccine isn’t an argument against polio vaccines. Your other point Laura is equally spurious: “Circumcision clearly does cause harm because it removes a large number of nerve endings - up to half the total penile nerve endings.” Gee, I as circumcised male can tell you what you don’t know. I got an inordinate amount of pleasure from intercourse. Laura all your points have been refuted and you are merely repeating points without taking into consideration all the objections raised against them. You have also been asked if you support abortion rights. Your silence speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of your stance. There is some emotional problem which seems to be driving your posting here. Imagine someone, not a male, so exercised about a medical procedure which isn’t compulsory that she spends day and night arguing against it. Why are you so obsessed with circumcision? I don’t believe that it’s a concern for human rights. There are many more pressing human rights issues which you could take up. These are the questions you need to answer, Laura. Otherwise those who feel that your motivation is antisemitism will certainly have a point.
Michael Klein says we must circumcise because God commands. The question is then how do we know exactly what God commands? It seems to me that what we really must depend on is the historical view of the Jewish people as to God's commands. It is this historical view that the opponents are taking it upon themselves to erase, and to claim that they are doing it in the name of Judaism. Thus the 70 signers of the petition have apparently concluded that they have a private line to God that is not shared by a single one of the recognized movements of Judiasm. When Reform, Orthodox and Conservative all agree that the circumcision is required, it really takes chutzpah to say "God is telling me you guys are all wrong". What I don't understand is why do some of those opposed to circumcision still claim that they want to have a Jewish ceremony of some kind? It's not Jewish so call it anything you want but why do you care if it's called Jewish since you are rupturing all of your ties with Judiasm by creating this new ceremony. Talk about a spiritual cut -- you are creating an amputation!!!
Circling the wagons to defend male genital mutilation might well be considered an act of desperation for those whose religious faith is too fragile to exist without an outward "show". The hobbling of a great religion by similar outmoded traditions, rules, laws, dress and dietary restrictions is to be deplored. One day the whole creaky structure will fall of its own weight, unless true religious Tradition is honoured. Putting one's head in the sand, as Jeff Schwartz appears to recommend, won't help either. Biblical scholarship sheds precious light on the historical basis for religious belief, just as it always has, throughout history. What are the Mishnah, Gemara, the Midrash and the Talmud, itself, but early interpretations of religious belief? Have people suddenly lost the ability to study, to investigate, to think and to reflect? How long can a religion persist whose very existence can only be assured through force of arms and by the genital mutilation of helpless infants? Those who express religious belief by mutilating helpless infants demonstrate not religious conviction, but fear, cowardice, and a singular lack of character. Jewish priests mandated *infant* circumcision because they knew that many, if not most, thinking adult males would blanch at the idea of mutilating themselves. Inevitably, Priestly control would have been ignored and discredited. Infants, of course, know nothing of religious belief. They express their "religious" reaction to forcible genital mutilation in the only ways available to them: through screams of pain and by a precipitous descent into shock. However, Robbins apparent glee over the source of my name, Rood, as demonstrating, ipso facto, that I am biased and prejudiced, and that, thereby, there exists a fatal flaw in my assertion that Abram undoubtedly lived and died intact (apparently, just as did Mohammed), is unfounded and beside the point, as I'm NOT a Christian. My religion is elemental and fundamental.
Rood Andersson, whatever your religion, your views about circumcion are irrelevant as no one is forcing you become circumcized. You like other non-Jewish posters have no standing in this debate. I'll repeat again, there is no medical, ethical, or human rights reason not to circumcize.
r lee Smith said: "It seems to me that what we really must depend on is the historical view of the Jewish people as to God's commands. It is this historical view that the opponents are taking it upon themselves to erase, and to claim that they are doing it in the name of Judaism." I agree.
Michael Klein says we must circumcise because God commands. The question is then how do we know exactly what God commands? It seems to me that what we really must depend on is the historical view of the Jewish people as to God's commands. It is this historical view that the opponents are taking it upon themselves to erase, and to claim that they are doing it in the name of Judaism. Thus the 70 signers of the petition have apparently concluded that they have a private line to God that is not shared by a single one of the recognized movements of Judiasm. When Reform, Orthodox and Conservative all agree that the circumcision is required, it really takes chutzpah to say "God is telling me you guys are all wrong". What I don't understand is why do some of those opposed to circumcision still claim that they want to have a Jewish ceremony of some kind? It's not Jewish so call it anything you want but why do you care if it's called Jewish since you are rupturing all of your ties with Judiasm by creating this new ceremony. Talk about a spiritual cut -- you are creating an amputation!!!
“If for thousands of years it was clear that the practice was harmful,” she said, “it would have gone away a while ago.” This is typical of the inane reasoning I used to get in Hebrew school. PS, wait until the country learns that the possible Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg condoned (f0r votes, of course) Brooklyn Rabbis sucking baby [word deleted] (I forget the "technical" term they used). You couldn't make this stuff up : <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/nyregion/06rite.html?ex=1294203600&en=44fff3caa4efdf02&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/nyregion/06rite.html?ex=1294203600&en=44fff3caa4efdf02&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss</a>
I note that the leftist elitists in this discussion are doing what leftist elitists frequently do when they are too lazy to get to argue an uncomfortable truth: they are feigning victimhood when their incendiary rhetoric is being met with an aggressive response. Laura has been reduced to lying and claiming that people are calling her names. These people look down their nose and say in their most condescending tone, throwing in as many buzzwords as they can, that the opposition is beset by fear, or ignorance, or hostility, or cruelty, or evil patriarchal attitudes. That relieves the Roods, the Eveths, and the Laura MacDonalds of the world of having to go toe-to-toe and argue that Judaism can be distilled into something untainted by uncomfortable obligations to G-d.
I note that the leftist elitists in this discussion are doing what leftist elitists frequently do when they are too lazy to get to argue an uncomfortable truth: they are feigning victimhood when their incendiary rhetoric is being met with an aggressive response. Laura has been reduced to lying and claiming that people are calling her names. These people look down their nose and say in their most condescending tone, throwing in as many buzzwords as they can, that the opposition is beset by fear, or ignorance, or hostility, or cruelty, or evil patriarchal attitudes. That relieves the Roods, the Eveths, and the Laura MacDonalds of the world of having to go toe-to-toe and argue that Judaism can be distilled into something untainted by uncomfortable obligations to G-d.
What a hot topic. And such denial. Judaism isn't 'modern'. It's traditional, and like it or not folks, it's about Torah (ooo, I said that word!; how dare I). We are commanded to circumcise our baby boys on their 8th day post delivery, and we believe it. Now, if you're Jewish and you don't like Judaism, there are alternatives, but telling other Jews to change our religion and religious practices are not among the options. The Reform Movement, for example, is a good alternative to Judaism. There, one can pretend to be Jewish without any obligation to practice Judaism, but instead spend one's efforts discussing and advocating politics. Have fun.
Net said: "“If for thousands of years it was clear that the practice was harmful,” she said, “it would have gone away a while ago.”" "This is typical of the inane reasoning I used to get in Hebrew school." Judging by your posts, Net, you wouldn't a valid argument if it hit in the face with a 2 by 4. Of course, socially harmful practices are dropped over time. The point is that circumcision has done no harm to the community and has helped hold it together. Net, no one is holding you prisoner in Kehilla. make sure the door doesn't hit your ass on the way out.
Michael Klein says we must circumcise because God commands. The question is then how do we know exactly what God commands? It seems to me that what we really must depend on is the historical view of the Jewish people as to God's commands. It is this historical view that the opponents are taking it upon themselves to erase, and to claim that they are doing it in the name of Judaism. Thus the 70 signers of the petition have apparently concluded that they have a private line to God that is not shared by a single one of the recognized movements of Judiasm. When Reform, Orthodox and Conservative all agree that the circumcision is required, it really takes chutzpah to say "God is telling me you guys are all wrong". What I don't understand is why do some of those opposed to circumcision still claim that they want to have a Jewish ceremony of some kind? It's not Jewish so call it anything you want but why do you care if it's called Jewish since you are rupturing all of your ties with Judiasm by creating this new ceremony. Talk about a spiritual cut -- you are creating an amputation!!!
Shriber's reply to me is so discursive, intemperate and in places incoherent, that I won't try to answer it all. What can one say to someone who simply denies that when a baby is held down and part of its body is cut off, human rights and ethical issues are involved, or thinks "circumcised" and "intact" are not antonyms? It's actually very hurtful to be called anti-Semitic because I have taken the side of all oppressed people all my life (and now I count male babies among them). My comparison of circumcision with slavery was an analogy only, with the one aspect that when something is culturally entrenched, a whole society can be blind to its faults that are glaringly apparent later, with the benefit of hindsight. Shriber has a dollar both ways when he drags in medical "benefits" of circumcision. He cites Christakis et al. who studied the patient records of over 350,000 babies and concluded that the medical risks and benefits of circumcision are about equal, but they did not include complications that did not require medical treatment, such as unaesthetic outcomes, complications that did not appear immediately, like meatal stenosis, or complications that can be ignored until puberty, like removal of too much penile skin. These swing the balance right against medical infant circumcision. Other studies such as Williams and Kapila, Complications of Circumcision. Br. J. Surg 1993, Vol 80, Oct, 1231-1236, and Patel H. The problem of routine infant circumcision, Can Med Assoc J 1996;95:576-581, found much higher rates. The AIDS studies have several flaws, the biggest being that they were not (obviously) double-blinded, opening the way to experimenter effects. The abortion issue is a red herring. Some Intactivists are "pro-life", others "pro-choice" - it depends (among other things) on when we think human beinghood begins, but everyone agrees it has begun at birth.
some last thoughts: Thank you to Mr. Rood for honestly acknowledging what this discussion is all about. As he asserts: “Circling the wagons to defend male genital mutilation might well be considered an act of desperation for those whose religious faith is too fragile to exist without an outward "show". The hobbling of a great religion by similar outmoded traditions, rules, laws, dress and dietary restrictions is to be deplored. …What are the Mishnah, Gemara, the Midrash and the Talmud, itself, but early interpretations of religious belief? Have people suddenly lost the ability to study, to investigate, to think and to reflect?” From the point of view of it’s critics, circumcision is just “one more” outmoded tradition, much like keeping Kosher, observing the Sabbath, etc, so the mutilation component is a red herring . However, what seems to irk them is that even those in the Reform movement who have given up on some of these other extremely fundamental practices, still want to keep to circumcision. How “unfair” it must seem to them but the truth is that there are many aspects to Judaism and Jews do have the opportunity to interpret and choose how to be Jewish (albeit they may be making wrong choices as in the Reform movement) but there is still an underlying necessity to define “who” is Jewish. Thus a circumcised Reform Jew who cooks and eats pork at a Saturday barbeque is still a Jew. However, if his “progressive” parents chose not to circumcise him his Jewish identity would be called into question. More importantly however, Judaism was not ever and is not now an “either or” religion when it comes to the outward “show” or actions and the internalized beliefs and investigations. Both study and action must go hand and hand according to the Jewish approach. It is only through this combined path that true “enlightenment” can be obtained in my opinion. When it comes to circumcision the act must occur – but it is not occurring in a vacuum. On the one hand there is the knowledge that the words in Genesis have guided the Jewish people throughout time “At the age of eight days, every male throughout the generations shall be circumcised… Thus shall my covenant be marked in your flesh as an everlasting pact.” No one can deny the existence of this pact down through history, and those who just to reject it are separating themselves from the Jewish people as defined by those who have the right to define it – the historical Jewish people. However, it doesn’t end as only a repeated historical action, it also represents a high spiritual concept (reviewed by Rabbi Klein in A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice) “The circumcision of the foreskin is but an outer sign of the circumcision of the inner hearts that we are called upon to perform…. The fact that it is performed on the generative organ imparts to it the mystery of life and its perpetuation. ..” So there is a lot to study, and investigate, to think and to reflect about but these thoughts for Jews need to be why we do it, and how to do it, rather than should we do it? The answer to the last question is self evident if one wishes to remain a Jew!
Rood wrote: "How long can a religion persist whose very existence can only be assured through force of arms and by the genital mutilation of helpless infants?" Uh, over 3000 years and counting, Genius! It is only those who continue to observe the mitzvot who keep Judaism alive. If all Jews threw away Shabbat and Mikvah and Kashrut, etc. as do the Reform, Judaism would have ceased to exist centuries ago. I suspect that those who say anti-Semitism underlies this debate are correct. It is no different than those who blame Israel for Muslims murdering people in Indonesia or the gentile world focusing on Israel alone for human rights violations and pretending that the plight of Palestinians is worse than what people face in places like Sudan and throughout the rest of the Arab and Third Worlds. And yes, Shriber, the Reform movement is very relevant to this discussion. It has brought all these gentiles into the religion and told them they're Jewish or that they can be full members of the tribe without converting or without observing anything. These people convert or decide to raise their gentile children as Jews for marriage reasons, not because they have any desire to be Jewish. And once inside, they try to destroy Judaism from within (reminiscent of the mixed multitude that left Egypt with the Jews and caused nothing but trouble in the wilderness). Do you think there is a serious debate about removing circumcision from Judaism in any other Jewish movement. More than half the members in any given Reform Temple are not even Jewish according to Jewish law.
Hugh said: “Shriber's reply to me is so discursive, intemperate and in places incoherent, that I won't try to answer it all.” How could you? You’d have to deal with facts and you that is something you don’t know how to do. “What can one say to someone who simply denies that when a baby is held down and part of its body is cut off, human rights and ethical issues are involved, or thinks "circumcised" and "intact" are not antonyms?” Gee, what dramatic nonsense. Ever been to a briths? I thought not. One can describe any operation is such overly dramatic terms, it changes nothing. From your description one would think that you were talking about the akeda. Yes, you do have a castration complex, “Hugh.” As far as the term “intact” goes, I am circumcised and intact, but you wouldn’t know anything about that would you, “Hugh?” “It's actually very hurtful to be called anti-Semitic because I have taken the side of all oppressed people all my life (and now I count male babies among them).” Gee, it’s more hurtful to Jews when they have to deal with antisemites like you. Jewish babies btw are not oppressed but you would certainly be oppressing them if they are denied a briths at birth.. “My comparison of circumcision with slavery was an analogy only, with the one aspect that when something is culturally entrenched, a whole society can be blind to its faults that are glaringly apparent later, with the benefit of hindsight.” It’s a stupid analogy and it doesn’t work on any level. Jews are not blind to anything. They are the most enlightened people on the planet. Get a clue, “Hugh.” “Shriber has a dollar both ways when he drags in medical "benefits" of circumcision. He cites Christakis et al. who studied the patient records of over 350,000 babies and concluded that the medical risks and benefits of circumcision are about equal, but they did not include complications that did not require medical treatment, such as unaesthetic outcomes, complications that did not appear immediately, like meatal stenosis, or complications that can be ignored until puberty, like removal of too much penile skin.” Nonesense, the medical complications are about the same as for most procedures including vaccination. Get a clue, “Hugh” “These swing the balance right against medical infant circumcision. Other studies such as Williams and Kapila, Complications of Circumcision. Br. J. Surg 1993, Vol 80, Oct, 1231-1236, and Patel H. The problem of routine infant circumcision, Can Med Assoc J 1996;95:576-581, found much higher rates.” These are politically driven studies and worthless. Their study is posted on an anti-circumcision web site: http://www.cirp.org/ “The AIDS studies have several flaws, the biggest being that they were not (obviously) double-blinded, opening the way to experimenter effects.” Of course, any study in Hugh’s eyes which favors circumcision for medical reasons is flawed. Try a little honesty, sometimes, Hugh. “The abortion issue is a red herring. Some Intactivists are "pro-life", others "pro-choice" - it depends (among other things) on when we think human beinghood begins, but everyone agrees it has begun at birth.” No it isn’t a red herring and you didn’t answer the question which is par for the course for you, Hugh. Finally, Hugh, no one is forcing you to have your children circumcised if you have any and as a non Jew you don’t have any standing in this debate.
Rood said: “My religion is elemental and fundamental.” What in the name of all that is fundamental and elemental is an “elemental and fundamental” religion? Is that something like the worship of elementary particles of physics or is it the worship of the periodic table? You and your friends here like “Hugh” talk about being intact but I don’t think either of you is mentally intact. You seem to be missing a few elementary particles, Rood!
Oh well, reduced to abuse, that's it for Shriber. Re Einstein: "The fact that Albert, born in Ulm on March 14, 1879, was, contrary to Jewish tradition, not given the name of his grandfather, shows that his parents were not dogmatic in matters of religion. Although they never renounced their Jewish heritage, they did not observe traditional rites or dietary laws and never attended religious service at the synagogue. Hermann Einstein regarded Jewish rituals as relics of an ancient superstition and "was proud that Jewish rites were not practiced in his home," as Albert's son-in-law Rudolf Kayser ["Anton Reiser"] wrote in his biography of Einstein. - Max Jammer "Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology" That is why I said he "may well have been" (not was) left intact. Stephen Hirsch said: "A major reason for the revolt was that the Greeks banned Bris Milah, knowing that without it, Am Yisrael will cease to exist." Because they regarded the human body as holy and circumcision as a desecration, more likely. (They banned it and all body modification across the board, not just Brit Milah.) jeff schwartz said: "Where do these anti-circumcision people get their ridiculous "facts" from anyway? "Half of all Jewish males are uncircumcised." What nonsense!" Nobody said that. I said "Half of all Jews..." mistakenly assuming that people would take my point, which is the same as Laura's, that they are the female half. A hypothetical: if the male sex became extinct (as in stories like "Consider Her Ways" by John Wyndham), would Judaism survive? I like to think that it would.
You don't think a Mohel has ever screwed up in 3000 years of circumcising? Let's say a Mohel screws up just once, and some poor kid looses his [word deleted] -- would you still think it's an acceptable practice? Do you think that kid would agree? What about God - was that meant to happen?
I can only say that the view of many Jews who condemn us for questioning circumcision because we view the baby as a person with rights is hurtful. I don't celebrate Christmas, most of my relatives were killed in the gas chambers by hitler, keep kosher, attend Temple weekly, and yet because I don't circumcise my son he is not Jewish. It is hurtful, the same way that it is hurtful to condemn a homosexual, which by the way, the reform has outright rejected despite it being in the bible. This is the 21st century. I hope reform Judaism can get rid of this last remnant of fundamentalism.
Mike: "It is hurtful, the same way that it is hurtful to condemn a homosexual, which by the way, the reform has outright rejected despite it being in the bible. This is the 21st century. I hope reform Judaism can get rid of this last remnant of fundamentalism." Mike just because something hurts you doesn't mean that is wrong. Lots of things hurt me but are not necessarily wrong. You offer a confused argument. The comparison of circumcision to the condemnation of 'homosexuality" is even sillier than it's comparison to slavery.
Hugh likes to make things up. He quotes pseudo fact from anti circumcision web sites and he indulges himself in unwarranted assumptions. Hugh said: "Re Einstein: "The fact that Albert, born in Ulm on March 14, 1879, was, contrary to Jewish tradition, not given the name of his grandfather, shows that his parents were not dogmatic in matters of religion. Although they never renounced their Jewish heritage, they did not observe traditional rites or dietary laws and never attended religious service at the synagogue. Hermann Einstein regarded Jewish rituals as relics of an ancient superstition and "was proud that Jewish rites were not practiced in his home," as Albert's son-in-law Rudolf Kayser ["Anton Reiser"] wrote in his biography of Einstein. - Max Jammer "Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology" " Like I said I too grw up in an agnostic home were we did not observe all the rituals yet all the males in the family were circumcised. Unless you have actual proof that he was not circumcised I would assume that he was. This was especailly true for most Jewish family in his day. Hugh is also given to offer images of Jewish circumcision that come straight out of the pages of Julius Streicher's antisemitic papers.
"Mohels "screw up" Too said: You don't think a Mohel has ever screwed up in 3000 years of circumcising?" So what, don't you think that some barber in the last 3000 years screwed up resulting in the death of the person he was shaving? Is that an argument for the abolition of barbershops?
I want to come to a couple of things Hugh said. Hugh said: “That is why I said he (Einstein) "may well have been" (not was) left intact.” The use of the word “intact” (implying that Jews are “unintact”) is insulting as Jews had always been attacked by non Jews for being circumcised with such terms. Words like “clipped prick” etc, which show the castration anxieties of those afraid of circumcision, had been hurled at Jews since time immemorial. The Nazis had their own menagerie of such insulting terms many of them showing a particular hatred of circumcision. Second, terms like intact and unintact tend to suggest that human beings think with their pricks. Why else would Hugh insist that Einstein was “intact” (when he was circumcised). Hugh also seems to think that circumcision diminished physical prowess. Note his suggestion that Mark Spitz would have gained many more medals at the Olympics had he not been circumcised. This is all of course superstitious nonsense. This observation lead to me to the second comment Hugh recently made. Hugh said: “…they (the Greeks) regarded the human body as holy and circumcision as a desecration, more likely. (They banned it and all body modification across the board, not just Brit Milah.)” The Greeks were as superstitious about the human body as they were about life in general. Their abhorrence of circumcision was part of that superstition. While the Hellenistic conquerors worshipped their own bodies they desecrated, mutilated, those of other peoples. They also committed murder on mass as the sorry history of ancient Greece shows. Hence using them as exemplars of humane behavior is nonsense. Those who would ban circumcision call it a superstition but as Hugh and other anti-circumcision posters here show their negative attitudes towards the practice is also based on superstition which they then try to justify by offering spurious medical evidence that it is dangerous, and come up with ridiculous claims that it is unethical. Not truth drives their claims, but superstition and castration anxiety.
Hugh asked: A hypothetical: if the male sex became extinct (as in stories like "Consider Her Ways" by John Wyndham), would Judaism survive? I like to think that it would. Good thinking, Hugh. Perhaps that's what Pharaoh thought when he decided to cast all the Jewish baby boys into the river. He may have been prescient enough to know that G-d would not allow the Jewish people as a whole to be wiped out, so he decided to kill only the males. Then the gentile Egyptians could marry the women without any fear of damage to Judaism. After all, the non-Jewish Egyptian father would be invited to join the Cairo Reform Temple. They'd even give him an aliyah. And he wouldn't have to be embarrassed by not knowing Hebrew or never having learned the Torah or the Talmud or not observing the Shabbat or kashrut or any other commandment, because the Hebrew Union College of Alexandria would issue rulings removing all these primitive, barbaric and divisive commandments from the religion and substitute them with the enlightened secular thought of the gentiles. Then they'd call the gentile Egyptian fathers Jewish and call their new religion Judaism to satisfy that pesky inner guilt of the few remaining actually Jewish members of their religion that have a Jewish soul. Of course, I may be wrong. It may be that deep down, like Hugh, Pharaoh wanted to destroy Judaism forever.
Mike said: "I don't celebrate Christmas, most of my relatives were killed in the gas chambers by hitler, keep kosher, attend Temple weekly, and yet because I don't circumcise my son he is not Jewish. It is hurtful, the same way that it is hurtful to condemn a homosexual, which by the way, the reform has outright rejected despite it being in the bible. This is the 21st century. I hope reform Judaism can get rid of this last remnant of fundamentalism." Don't worry, Mike. Reform is actively working on granting your wish and doing away with everything in the Torah. Before you know it, you won't be able to tell the difference between the service in a Reform Temple and a scientology meeting. Won't it be a good day for Judaism then! Those of us who believe in G-d and believe that He wrote the commandments in the Torah cannot concern ourselves with whether you will be hurt because we insist on applying G-d's definition of who is Jewish, rather than yours. Nor can we concern ourselves that G-d's definition of homosexual intercourse as an "abomination" flies in the face of your morality or the morality of Hollywood or the New York Times. We answer to a higher authority. (BTW, if a child is born of a halachically Jewish mother, he is Jewish, regardless of whether or not he has a Bris Milah. His status is that of an "Arel" which would disqualify him from certain commandments and he may have difficulty getting a future wife or a cemetery to believe that he's Jewish, but he is Jewish. Now if your son's mother is not Jewish or was converted by a Reform rabbi, that's another story entirely.) Now, since you don't believe in the divinity of the commandments, you have the right to discard everything and believe whatever you want. What you don't have the right to expect is that those who do believe in the divinity of the Torah will ever accept and honor your redefinition of G-d's laws. I assure you it is not our intention to hurt you, only to preserve the integrity of G-d's laws. One comment on something someone raised earlier. I do not think it is right to offend non-Jewish women who marry Jewish men by calling them "shiksa". They haven't done anything wrong. In fact, their willingness to marry a Jew shows they are not anti-Semitic. The only guilty party in this relationship is the Jewish man, who decided to cut himself and his children off from the Jewish people just because he fell in love with a nice, pretty non-Jewish girl. And even there, who can blame him? Why shouldn't he marry her? She's probably no different from his mother, who also didn't keep Shabbat or kashrut or any of the other mitzvot. She was raised with the same secular values as he was. And even if she's not Jewish, she'll be welcomed into the Reform Temple and told that she is a Jew and she'll feel that she can help to further universalize Judaism so that she will not have to feel like an outsider.
Shriber wrote: "Hugh is also given to offer images of Jewish circumcision that come straight out of the pages of Julius Streicher's antisemitic papers." More to the point is probably Paul's rantings against the circumcised in the Christian bible.
jeff schwartz said: "Shriber wrote: "Hugh is also given to offer images of Jewish circumcision that come straight out of the pages of Julius Streicher's antisemitic papers." "More to the point is probably Paul's rantings against the circumcised in the Christian bible." Could be, I am not a "Paul" fan and I am not familiar with his writings.
jeff schwartz This is off topic but there is an article about intermarriage in the Jerusalem Post which may be of interest to you: <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1184766034824&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter">http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1184766034824&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter</a> "Stop ostracizing the intermarried" BY Shmuley Boteach, THE JERUSALEM POST This is not the place to discuss this and I only offer it for information puposes only.
My link didn’t work, Jeff. Try this: <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1184766034824&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1184766034824&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull</a>
My link didn’t work, Jeff. Try this: One last try: Stop ostracizing the intermarried If this doesn’t work go to Jpost.com and go to ep ed contributors to read the article.
Thank you, Shriber. I did find Rabbi Boteach's opinion piece interesting. He, of course, is coming from a Lubavitch perspective that hopes that through tolerance and kindness we can ultimately return these Jewish souls to their roots and perhaps even convince their non-Jewish wives and children to convert according to halacha. Ultimately, I think this perspective is consistent with that of Bruriah, wife of Rabbi Mayer, in the Talmud that one should hate the sin and not the sinner. I certainly agree with that, and if anything I have written seems to indicate otherwise, I sincerely apologize. I have no hatred in my heart for any non-observant Jew. I recognize that virtually all of them are products of their upbringing, their environment and their profound lack of any meaningful Jewish education. That being said, we cannot sit idly by as they try to mislead thousands of other Jews with their twisted philosophies of Judaism and try to strip Judaism of all its fundamental beliefs and practices.
jeff schwartz said: "Ultimately, I think this perspective is consistent with that of Bruriah, wife of Rabbi Mayer, in the Talmud that one should hate the sin and not the sinner. I certainly agree with that, and if anything I have written seems to indicate otherwise, I sincerely apologize. I have no hatred in my heart for any non-observant Jew. I recognize that virtually all of them are products of their upbringing, their environment and their profound lack of any meaningful Jewish education. That being said, we cannot sit idly by as they try to mislead thousands of other Jews with their twisted philosophies of Judaism and try to strip Judaism of all its fundamental beliefs and practices." I don't know about the product of my environment. However, if I were an observant Jew I would also be very annoyed by those who would pervert the tradition by trying to delete some fundamental Jewish practices. As it is, even as a non observant Jew whose concern is with the continuity of the Jewish people I find the attempt to delete circumcision from the tradition a travesty. It’s as if someone decided to forbid the teaching of Hebrew. This said, what I liked about Rabbi Boteach’s article was the statement that ostracism hasn’t worked for hundreds of years and a new approach should be tried.
Ostracism may have been practical in Fiddler on the Roof times, as intermarriage was fairly uncommon, but today there's hardly any Jewish family that can boast that it is free of this plague. Both my wife and I grew up in non-observant homes. Her sister is married to a non-Jewish man. I have a first cousin who also is married to a non-Jewish man. We have not cut ourselves off from these relatives, because we believe (as I stated before)that they are not really to blame for their choice and especially considering that their children are halachically Jewish, we are probably their only exposure to an observant Jewish lifestyle. It does create a balancing issue, however, as to what effect exposure to them will have on our own children, but I am confident that my children understand the difference between acceptance of people and acceptance of their behavior.
jeff schwartz said: "Ostracism may have been practical in Fiddler on the Roof times, as intermarriage was fairly uncommon, but today there's hardly any Jewish family that can boast that it is free of this plague. Both my wife and I grew up in non-observant homes. Her sister is married to a non-Jewish man. I have a first cousin who also is married to a non-Jewish man. We have not cut ourselves off from these relatives, because we believe (as I stated before)that they are not really to blame for their choice and especially considering that their children are halachically Jewish, we are probably their only exposure to an observant Jewish lifestyle. It does create a balancing issue, however, as to what effect exposure to them will have on our own children, but I am confident that my children understand the difference between acceptance of people and acceptance of their behavior." Well said.
A few things. 1. Most circumcisions, certainly in the USA anyway, are not religious. 2. A religious practitioner performing circumcisions for his religious community is, at least, remaining true to his profession. 3. A physician, on the other hand, who derives his right to cut people from a medical license, is violating the ethics of his profession by cutting his patient, an infant, without his consent and without a medical indication. These highly divergent motives and environments for circumcision should be seen as very different. I basically agree that it's Jews who, internally, should work to modify this tradition, and that others can be more effective fighting medicalzed circumcision. Those here who are defending Jewish circumcision on medical grounds are similarly guilty of conflating things that should remain separate. Divine mandates need to defense from medicine. One last thing some people might be interested to see. One man who was ritually circumcised wrote a song about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoT0I9nCY1M
Hello again Robbins in answer to your point i was replying to your statement "there are worse things that i could call her but i won't do so in polite company' I've been called a liar, an anti-semite and been accused of having an emotional problem, so i'm not particularly bothered if you want to call me other names. Calling this 'polite company' is a bit of a joke really, considering the unbridled aggression and prejudice of so many posters. Clearly people are pretty rattled. And yet all i've done (like Hugh and others) is state some facts about circumcision harm and ask that people consider a child's basic rights to be the owner of his body, and not have healthy functional joyful bits of it wantonly removed. The foreskin is visibly a very very sensitive part of the body even if we didn't have the data proving this (try playing with your wife's foreskin if you doubt this). Circumcision is not being applied as a 'choice' as the boy himself is not being asked. Shriber states he's perfectly happy with the sex he has post cut, but so do 80% of women who've been cut - clearly this does not prove absence of harm. I won't answer the off-topic question about abortion unless someone is willing to address this point and also this question - why do most people, including the Jewish community, believe we're right to ban Muslims from even cutting off a girl's foreskin (or even less)? Jonathan Freedland the UK journalist has written scathingly about this practice in articles intended to highlight the dangers of Islamic cleric Al-Qaradawi:"He favours female circumcision, but does not regard it as obligatory and suggests cutting off only the prepuce of the clitoris, not the whole thing. So that makes him a moderate." For some unfathomable reason many Jewish people find removal of their son's prepuce acceptable but a muslim's removal of a girl's unacceptable. It's this kind of blind hypocrisy that infuriates people like me and drives us to post on sites knowing we will then be verbally stoned as 'anti-semites'. Finally in a peice of racial propaganda someone has suggested that the baby lost his glans in Illinois because the surgeon was Muslim. Jewish Mohels do it better apparently. What about the little Jewish boy who died of his ritual circumcision in North London this year?
"For some unfathomable reason many Jewish people find removal of their son's prepuce acceptable but a muslim's removal of a girl's unacceptable. It's this kind of blind hypocrisy that infuriates people like me and drives us to post on sites knowing we will then be verbally stoned as 'anti-semites'." This is neither blind hypocrisy nor unfathomable. Many of us Jews believe that G-d commanded us to cut off our sons' foreskins, which makes it right. We believe our religion is true and the Islamic religion is false. Now, was that so hard to understand? What I can't understand is why this bothers you so much. Surely there are more pressing injustices to which you can devote your time than outlawing a religious practice which has caused virtually no harm over 3000 years. Your citation of the occasional aberration where a circumcision went bad is really unimpressive. I'm sure there are many more cases of parents who allowed their children to undergo other types of elective surgery with much more disastrous results. Your attempts to stop Jewish people from practicing their religion are much more offensive than anything that's been said about you here.
Moses Maimonides (1134-1204) explained what the purpose of the Jewish circumcision is. "Similarly with regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible. It has been thought that circumcision perfects what is defective congenitally. This gave the possibility to everyone to raise an objection and to say: How can natural things be defective so that they need to be perfected from outside, all the more because we know how useful the foreskin is for that member? In fact this commandment has not been prescribed with a view to perfecting what is defective congenitally, but to perfecting what is defective morally. The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision. None of the activities necessary for the preservation of the individual is harmed thereby, nor is procreation rendered impossible, but violent concupiscence and lust that goes beyond what is needed are diminished. The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable. For if at birth this member has been made to bleed and has had its covering taken away from it, it must indubitably be weakened. The Sages, may their memory be blessed, have explicitly stated: It is hard for a woman with whom an uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate from him. In my opinion this is the strongest of the reasons for circumcision."
Jeff I think you're deliberately missing the point...circumcision has been causing harm for 3,000 years not just because some babies die or lose their [word deleted] but because the foreskin plays an important role in sexual joy. I've observed the harm of circumcision at close hand, and i've also observed the pleasure of the foreskin - even if i hadn't it would still be appropriate to defend men's rights to keep it. I don't see why a girl should be protected against even a ritual pin prick whereas a boy can have half his genital nerve endings removed without his consent.
eveth said: “Most circumcisions, certainly in the USA anyway, are not religious.” So, what is your point? “A religious practitioner performing circumcisions for his religious community is, at least, remaining true to his profession.” There is no law forbidding a mo'el from also being a physician. “A physician, on the other hand, who derives his right to cut people from a medical license, is violating the ethics of his profession by cutting his patient, an infant, without his consent and without a medical indication.” This is just another rant. Doctors, who perform the procedure, do so, on behest of the infant’s parents. As the link above showed there are some medical reasons for performing it. It’s up to the Doctor and the parents to decide if the procedure is appropriate it’s not up to some pretentious bigot like eveth with a castration complex to tell Doctors and Parents what to do. “I basically agree that it's Jews who, internally, should work to modify this tradition, and that others can be more effective fighting medicalzed circumcision.” Yes, this is a thread about Jewish circumcision. “Those here who are defending Jewish circumcision on medical grounds are similarly guilty of conflating things that should remain separate.” Sorry, but it it’s the anti-circumcision bigots who attacked the practice on medical grounds. I didn’t defend it on medical grounds. Others defended it on religious grounds. “Divine mandates need to defense from medicine.” This is incoherent. I assume you meant, “Divine mandates need (NO) to defense from medicine.” True, but then some people like Lee defended the practice on cultural and historical grounds. I defend the practice on the grounds of Jewish historical cultural and continuity. I also defend the practice against people who claim to speak in the name of “human rights,” the “infant,” and probably “god.” It’s the people who are against who need to justify their claims and so far all they have done is appeal to emotion. They offered no evidence that it is harmful to the Jewish people most of whom have been circumcised for thousands of years. Eveth, your castration anxieties are not sufficient reason to stop the practice of circumcision. Finally, Eveth, are you married? Do you support a woman's right to an abortion. You have forgotten to answer these questions.
Laura MacDonald said: You are one of the most bigoted posters here. You have no standing in this debate. You are neither Jewish nor male and you don’t intend to bring up you children Jewish. The whole circumcision issue is a purely theoretical matter for you. You should tell us what it is that makes you waste so much time on this issue. “Clearly people are pretty rattled. And yet all i've done (like Hugh and others) is state some facts about circumcision harm and ask that people consider a child's basic rights to be the owner of his body, and not have healthy functional joyful bits of it wantonly removed.” You offered factoids not facts. “The foreskin is visibly a very very sensitive part of the body even if we didn't have the data proving this (try playing with your wife's foreskin if you doubt this).” Wife’s foreskin? What the hell are you talking about? You are just using fake analogies in order to insert yourself in this debate. “Circumcision is not being applied as a 'choice' as the boy himself is not being asked. Shriber states he's perfectly happy with the sex he has post cut, but so do 80% of women who've been cut - clearly this does not prove absence of harm.” This is another bull[word deleted] comparison. I also don’t know where Laura got her statistics. Did she make them up? “I won't answer the off-topic question about abortion unless someone is willing to address this point and also this question - why do most people, including the Jewish community, believe we're right to ban Muslims from even cutting off a girl's foreskin (or even less)?” This is incoherent, Laura. You want answer the abortion issue because you can’t. The question of female “circumcision” is not part of this debate. “Jonathan Freedland the UK journalist has written scathingly about this practice in articles intended to highlight the dangers of Islamic cleric Al-Qaradawi:"He favours female circumcision, but does not regard it as obligatory and suggests cutting off only the prepuce of the clitoris, not the whole thing. So that makes him a moderate."” How long did it take you to find this quote on google? Moreover, Freedland does not speak for the Jewish Community? Try another tactic, Laura. “For some unfathomable reason many Jewish people find removal of their son's prepuce acceptable but a muslim's removal of a girl's unacceptable.” This is just more of the same grotesque and false comparison. “It's this kind of blind hypocrisy that infuriates people like me and drives us to post on sites knowing we will then be verbally stoned as 'anti-semites'.” Verbally, “stoned?” What the hell have you been smoking? You sound like you are already stoned poor little Laura. “Finally in a peice of racial propaganda someone has suggested that the baby lost his glans in Illinois because the surgeon was Muslim. Jewish Mohels do it better apparently.” You are the racist, Laura. The poster was stating a fact. “What about the little Jewish boy who died of his ritual circumcision in North London this year?” What about it? Do you have some data to offer or is this just another one of your factoids? How is this relevant to the issue of circumcision, Laura? How many infants die from vaccinations yearly, Laura? Shall we stop all vaccines, Laura?
Laura MacDonald said: “Jeff I think you're deliberately missing the point...circumcision has been causing harm for 3,000 years not just because some babies die or lose their [word deleted] but because the foreskin plays an important role in sexual joy.” Again, most Jews do neither agree with you that that is the case, nor even if you could quantify it, do they see “joy” as the most important human emotion. To you pleasure is like a religious commandment which is fine, but other peoples have other priorities. “I've observed the harm of circumcision at close hand, and i've also observed the pleasure of the foreskin - even if i hadn't it would still be appropriate to defend men's rights to keep it. I don't see why a girl should be protected against even a ritual pin prick whereas a boy can have half his genital nerve endings removed without his consent.” Who the hell appointed you the guardian of foreskins, Laura. Your “close hand” observation of foreskin pleasure is not an argument either for or against circumcision. Do yourself a favor, and go play with some foreskin. You will certainly be happier doing that than posting here.
shriber: 1. You called me a "pretentious bigot." Not only are you mistaken, but it's your own character that is highlighted by this attack, not mine. 2. Circumcision is not justifiable on healthy infants on medical grounds. That's why no medical society on Earth recommends it routinely. 3. There is a logical and ethical incongruity for a medical professional to not recommend circumcision, yet be willing to remove substantial amounts of tissue from a non-consenting person's sex organ. Which is it? If it's so marginally important that it's a take-it-or-leave-it-proposition to parents instead of a firm recommendation, then it must also be unimportant enough that it can wait for informed consent from the patient. 4. Your derision of persons who feel harmed and violated by their unwanted circumcisions, using such terms as "castration anxiety," suggests that you, personally, actually feel empowered by the harm that people inflict upon others in the form of genital cutting. You don't seem like a very kind person. 5. You asked whether I support a woman's right to an abortion. That's clearly not material to circumcision, yet I'll answer it for you anyway, if you'll answer this material question: Do you support the right of a family to choose a Harborview-style genital cutting for their underage, but consenting, female child? Harborview: "It would be a small cut to the prepuce, the hood above the clitoris, with no tissue excised, and this would be conducted under local anesthetic for children old enough to understand the procedure and give consent in combination with informed consent of the parents," said Harborview spokeswoman Tina Mankowski.
Mose_M said: Moses Maimonides (1134-1204) explained what the purpose of the Jewish circumcision is. "Similarly with regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question
Circumcision is a barbaric and ghastly concept. It is a mass brainwashing. Why not cut off your arm as well? That way, you won't be able to break it. It is also an easy way for the medical industry to make a few more dollars off you.
eveth said “Circumcision is not justifiable on healthy infants on medical grounds. That's why no medical society on Earth recommends it routinely.” You are wrong that doctors don’t say that it can’t be justified on medical grounds. There is a link above which said that statistically the benefits and risks are pretty much even. In some cases it can certainly be justified on medical grounds. “There is a logical and ethical incongruity for a medical professional to not recommend circumcision, yet be willing to remove substantial amounts of tissue from a non-consenting person's sex organ.” Now, just because something isn’t recommended routinely doesn’t mean that it is either wrong or immoral to perform the procedure. The injection of such emotionally laden phrases as “none consenting” and immoral in your response is what makes you a pretentious bigot, Eveth. “Which is it? If it's so marginally important that it's a take-it-or-leave-it-proposition to parents instead of a firm recommendation, then it must also be unimportant enough that it can wait for informed consent from the patient.” You are speaking in generalities, Eveth, I doubt that all doctors would agree with the above statement. In any case, this is something for the doctor and parent to decide not you or me, Eveth. “Your derision of persons who feel harmed and violated by their unwanted circumcisions, using such terms as "castration anxiety," suggests that you, personally, actually feel empowered by the harm that people inflict upon others in the form of genital cutting.” Wrong, I feel sorry for you Eveth, but I don’t think that your own personal psychological trauma is sufficient to call for a halt to circumcision. Most people who underwent circumcision that I know feel the same way I do. In fact it was a non issue until recently. This makes me think that it is another one of those manufactured psychological traumas. “You don't seem like a very kind person.” Yes, I am just another evil castrating Jew, Eveth. “You asked whether I support a woman's right to an abortion. That's clearly not material to circumcision, yet I'll answer it for you anyway, if you'll answer this material question” You sound like Laura, are you her? I don’t know what you are talking about and I am not going to play your game, Eveth. You obviously support a woman’s right to choose an abortion (as does Laura) why else would you (and her) be so hesitant in answering such a simple question? This makes you (and Laura) extreme hypocrites.
I am reposting this as my original post was truncated by the web: Mose_M said: “Moses Maimonides (1134-1204) explained what the purpose of the Jewish circumcision is. "Similarly with regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question…” Clearly Maimonides was wrong about this. Circumcision did not decrease either the frequency with which I have sexual intercourse which is daily, it used to be more often, but one must allow for age, nor the intense pleasure that I get from it. However, I don’t know how one would measure pleasure. What is a quantum of pleasure, anyway?
SF said: “Circumcision is a barbaric and ghastly concept. It is a mass brainwashing. Why not cut off your arm as well? That way, you won't be able to break it. It is also an easy way for the medical industry to make a few more dollars off you.” Another hysterical poster. Yea, all Jews have been brainwashed for over two thousand years. Here is a list of Jewish Nobel prize winners in Physics, most of whom were circumcised they have all been brainwashed: Year Nobel Laureate Country of birth 2005 Glauber, Roy J. "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence" USA 2004 Gross, David J. "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction" USA 2004 Politzer, H. David "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction" USA 2003 Abrikosov, Alexei A. "for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids" Russia 2003 Ginzburg, Vitaly L. "for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids" Russia 2000 Alferov, Zhores I. "for basic work on information and communication technology" Russia 1997 Cohen-Tannoudji, Claude "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light" Algeria 1996 Lee, David M. "for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3" USA 1995 Perl, Martin L. "for the discovery of the tau lepton " Russia 1995 Reines, Frederick "for the detection of the neutrino" USA 1992 Charpak, Georges "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber" Poland 1990 Friedman, Jerome I. "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics" USA 1988 Lederman, Leon M. "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino" USA 1988 Schwartz, Melvin "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino" USA 1988 Steinberger, Jack "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino" Germany 1979 Glashow, Sheldon L. "for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including inter alia the prediction of the weak neutral current" USA 1979 Weinberg, Steven "for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including inter alia the prediction of the weak neutral current" USA 1978 Penzias, Arno A. "for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation" Germany 1976 Richter, Burton "for their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind" USA 1975 Mottelson, Ben Roy "for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection" USA 1973 Josephson, Brian D. "for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effects" UK 1972 Cooper, Leon N. "for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory" USA 1971 Gabor, Dennis "for his invention and development of the holographic method" Hungary 1969 Gell-Mann, Murray "for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions" USA 1967 Bethe, Hans A. "for his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars" Germany 1965 Feynman, Richard P. "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles" USA 1965 Schwinger, Julian "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles" USA 1963 Wigner, Eugene P. "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles" Hungary 1962 Landau, Lev D. "for his pioneering theories for condensed matter, especially liquid helium" Azerbaijan 1961 Hofstadter, Robert "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his thereby achieved discoveries concerning the structure of the nucleons" USA 1960 Glaser, Donald A. "for the invention of the bubble chamber" USA 1959 Segre, Emilio Gino "for their discovery of the antiproton" Italy 1958 Frank, Il'ja M. "for the discovery and the interpretation of the Cherenkov effect" Russia 1958 Tamm, Igor Y. "for the discovery and the interpretation of the Cherenkov effect" Russia 1954 Born, Max "for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wavefunction" Germany 1952 Bloch, Felix "for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith" Switzerland 1945 Pauli, Wolfgang "for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli Principle" Austria 1944 Rabi, Isidor Isaac "for his resonance method for recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei" Austria 1943 Stern, Otto "for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton" Germany 1925 Franck, James "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom" Germany 1922 Bohr, Niels "for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them" Denmark 1921 Einstein, Albert "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect" Germany 1908 Lippmann, Gabriel "for his method of reproducing colors photographically based on the phenomenon of interference" Luxembourg 1907 Michelson, Albert A. "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid" Only SF (San Fran?) hasn’t been brainwashed only this poster knows the truth.
Laura MacDonald said: "Jeff I think you're deliberately missing the point...circumcision has been causing harm for 3,000 years not just because some babies die or lose their [word deleted] but because the foreskin plays an important role in sexual joy." I don't know a single circumcised man who ever said he does not get enough pleasure from sex. This is the most ridiculous argument yet. We have a society that is obsessed with sex. Just look at the adult entertainment industry, the commercials on TV, teenage pregnancy, STDs, prostitution... Do you think you're going to improve society by making sex even more pleasurable for men or just make it that much more decadent? Do you think the goal of making sex more pleasurable for men justifies your crusade to deny Jews the right to the free exercise of their religion? You've got some screwed up hedonistic priorities. I feel sorry for you. Maybe one day you'll find something more meaningful in life than "sexual joy". "I've observed the harm of circumcision at close hand," Perhaps you have been traumatized by witnessing a bad circumcision and that has affected your ability to be objective. By the harm of circumcision, do you mean a medical mistake or a man who complained he couldn't get enough "joy"? I can't tell, since you keep changing your mind about what the "harm" is. "and i've also observed the pleasure of the foreskin". How was that? Did you massage a foreskin and avoid touching the rest of the organ? How do you measure the pleasure of the foreskin, and how do you know that it's greater than the pleasure of the rest of the organ? Does caressing the foreskin elicit a louder moan? And what is the size of your personal control group?
shriber, don't twist my words. "You are wrong that doctors don’t say that it can’t be justified on medical grounds. There is a link above which said that statistically the benefits and risks are pretty much even. In some cases it can certainly be justified on medical grounds." I said it's unjustifiable on medical grounds "on healthy infants." Obviously, there is the occasional and rare case in which there is a medical justification. Now, imagine a controlled experiment is done to test the efficacy of a newly discovered drug. The new drug is found to have improvements in measured clinical outcomes which are "pretty much even" to that of the sugar pill. You know what that means, shriber? That means, as far as they can tell, regarding what they tested it for, it's useless! Well, that's what you just said about clinical outcomes from circumcision. If the benefits and risks are "pretty much even" that means there's no reason to put somebody through the surgery. Fine, for informed and consenting adults. Informed and consenting adults are welcome to have all the unnecessary surgery they can pay for. Not fine for infants who have no choice. "Now, just because something isn’t recommended routinely doesn’t mean that it is either wrong or immoral to perform the procedure." Actually, it might. Because doctors have a duty to their patients, and that is to provide competent medical care. Doctors are not required to perform surgery that they know is not in the best interests of their patient, especially when the patient cannot speak for himself. If it's unimportant enough that they don't recommend it, and the patient isn't saying he wants it (babies never do), and it removes functional body parts, then why would they operate? There are various rationalizations, but no ethical justification. And once again shriber, you shrink away from the truly tough questions. Whatever your view on the Harborview procedure, why not have the intellectual honesty to share it with us? Unlike your attempt to draw abortion into the discussion, my question is quite germane to the topic of male circumcision.
I could drive myself nuts reminding myself that a Jew who thinks the brit milah is an *evil*, who thinks ancient, G-d-given commands have to give way to the latest faddish theory, IS STILL A JEW (except when they aren't!). He is, but I'm not bothering with him. This argument demonstrates why traditional Jews need to disengage themselves from liberal Jewish institutions, including the Reform movement. They think their latest consciousness raising campaign is the apples-to-apples equivalent of--or better than--G-d-given laws that have lasted thousands of years. At some point, the preservation of a disfunctional community becomes pointless and counterproductive.
I am shocked at the tenor of the discussion here because many of those who are "for" circumcision personally attack those who bring up questions or are against it. There is no need for such aggression and it reflects poorly on those who engage in such behavior. Why the need to call others names and attack their integrity; why not deal with the ideas and issues? We no longer make sacrifices in the Temple so why not engage those who bring up questions about other ritual practices instead of slinging mud? Why is it so threatening to discuss and consider something different?
Shriber said: I am reposting this as my original post was truncated by the web: Clearly Maimonides was wrong about this. Circumcision did not decrease either the frequency with which I have sexual intercourse which is daily, it used to be more often, but one must allow for age, nor the intense pleasure that I get from it. However, I don’t know how one would measure pleasure. What is a quantum of pleasure, anyway? Nice that Mr Shriber considers himself more insghtful and intelligent than one of the most respected Jewish philosophers. Whatever! This egocentric position betrays your true ignorance, Mr. Shriber. Your statment is illogical. Since you were circumcised at birth, you have no point to compare to. You state that circumcision has not decreased your frequency and (as implied) your pleasure. You have no way to know this, and therfore cannot make such a statement (truthfully). If your going to argue for circumcision being harmless, you might say that you feel that you function fine, and that your pleasure is adequate. That would be honest. Since you never had sexual stimulation with a foreskin, you are unqualified to make a comparison. Maimonides was an honest insightful teacher. He understood what circumcision takes from the male, but considered this an adequate price for the gain in the morality and calming of the male. Jews can tame the powerful male libido which can dominate the male experience, by crippling the very organ central to the libido, just enough to "tame the urges" but allow for procreation. Maimonides had great insight and made no apologies for the intent of circumcision. What makes you so arrogant to declair Maimonides "clearly wrong" and that you know better? Any last shred of respect I had for your opinion has been lost. You seem to just be interested in bashing those whom you don't agree with. You present yourself as inteligent, enlightned, and rational. It now seems you are none of those. Your own words betray your ignorance and intollerance of intellectual exploration, how un-Jewish of you Mr Shriber.
Laura Wolf asks: Why is it so threatening to discuss and consider something different? My answer: First they tried to do away with us by murder but Hitler fortunately couldn't kill us all. Now they/you are trying to kill us off by assimilation into the surrounding masses. It is threatening because you are indeed presenting something different, but calling it under the name Judaism. It is threatening because you are liable to lead some uneducated Jews away from their religion and their destiny. Along with circumcision, another commandment is to not put stumbling blocks before the blind. Your views are indeed stumbling blocks. It is threatening because although anyone can invent their own religion and put it together from pieces of existing religions you have no right to use the name of our religion.
Shriber wrote: "Hugh is also given to offer images of Jewish circumcision that come straight out of the pages of Julius Streicher's antisemitic papers." I don't "offer" any "images of Jewish circumcision" at all, nor had I heard about these papers till now. "“Hugh” has put forth false claims about the nature, the object, the means, the number of Jews circumcised." Nature? Object? Means? He must be referring to someone else. I gave one unsourced claim about numbers in Europe tentatively, and one he's misunderstood. Jeff Shwartz wrote: "Shriber wrote: "Hugh is also given to offer images of Jewish circumcision that come straight out of the pages of Julius Streicher's antisemitic papers." More to the point is probably Paul's rantings against the circumcised in the Christian bible." Wrong again. Paul only argued that circumcision is not necessary for salvation (whatever that is) because he wanted to convert Greeks, he wasn't actually against it. I'm no fan of Paul's either. Jeff Schwartz wrote: "Hugh asked: A hypothetical: if the male sex became extinct (as in stories like "Consider Her Ways" by John Wyndham), would Judaism survive? I like to think that it would. Good thinking, Hugh. Perhaps that's what Pharaoh thought ..." Sorry, I should have spelt out the reference a bit more. In "Consider Her Ways" a man is flung some centuries into the future where he finds men have been wiped out and women have built a society without them (using some kind of artificial parthenogenesis). Nothing about Pharaoh or killing male babies or intermarriage. But a society without men would be a society without (male) circumcision, and I wanted to use it as a thought-experiment to challenge the oft-repeated claim that the Jewish people can not survive without circumcision. Isn't it, at the least, a little uncharitable, when I say "I like to think [Judaism] would [survive]." for him to imply that I want to "destroy Judaism forever"?
eveth said: “ Because doctors have a duty to their patients, and that is to provide competent medical care. Doctors are not required to perform surgery that they know is not in the best interests of their patient, especially when the patient cannot speak for himself. If it's unimportant enough that they don't recommend it, and the patient isn't saying he wants it (babies never do), and it removes functional body parts, then why would they operate? There are various rationalizations, but no ethical justification.” You are repeating yourself, eveth. I have already answered every point you brought up. You are really tiresome. “Now, imagine a controlled experiment is done to test the efficacy of a newly discovered drug. The new drug is found to have improvements in measured clinical outcomes which are "pretty much even" to that of the sugar pill. You know what that means, shriber? That means, as far as they can tell, regarding what they tested it for, it's useless!” This is another one of your insipid analogies, eveth. Circumcision is not a drug. The studies on circumcision show that they do reduce the chances of certain diseases. It actually does help some people. It may also help with the reduction of AIDS. Would you want to forbid people at risk from AIDS from becoming circumcised? You are being ridiculous. In any case this discussion is a dead end since we covered most of the medical issues involved in circumcision and since neither of us saying that circumcision for Jewish babies is viable for medical reasons alone. “And once again shriber, you shrink away from the truly tough questions. Whatever your view on the Harborview procedure, why not have the intellectual honesty to share it with us? Unlike your attempt to draw abortion into the discussion, my question is quite germane to the topic of male circumcision.” Oh stuff it. I told you that so called female circumcision is not the same as male circumcision. If you can’t deal with that that is your problem. The abortion question is pertinent because you said above that circumcision is immoral because it causes suffering and because it is done without the consent of the living being it is dealing with. Well, my morally dogmatic eveth, abortion too causes pain to living beings and the fetus isn’t asked to give its consent not to be, is it now? Hence your hypocrisy.
Here is another maven. Maimonides said: “Nice that Mr Shriber considers himself more insghtful and intelligent than one of the most respected Jewish philosophers. Whatever!” Hey, just because you call yourself Maimonides doesn’t mean that you are he. “This egocentric position betrays your true ignorance, Mr. Shriber.” So far you haven’t said anything intelligent, Maimonides wanna be. “Your statment is illogical. Since you were circumcised at birth, you have no point to compare to. You state that circumcision has not decreased your frequency and (as implied) your pleasure. You have no way to know this, and therfore cannot make such a statement (truthfully). “If your going to argue for circumcision being harmless, you might say that you feel that you function fine, and that your pleasure is adequate. That would be honest. Since you never had sexual stimulation with a foreskin, you are unqualified to make a comparison.” Congratulations you win the dunce cap award of the day. Try taking reading comprehension lessons. Here is what I said genius: “Clearly Maimonides was wrong about this. Circumcision did not decrease either the frequency with which I have sexual intercourse which is daily, it used to be more often, but one must allow for age, nor the intense pleasure that I get from it.” I said that I get intense pleasure from it. I did not compare my pleasure to someone uncircumcised jerk like you. In any case, I went on to say, “However, I don’t know how one would measure pleasure. What is a quantum of pleasure, anyway?” Get it, genius? There is no way of objectively measuring pleasure. This was my point, dunce. “Maimonides was an honest insightful teacher. He understood what circumcision takes from the male, but considered this an adequate price for the gain in the morality and calming of the male. Jews can tame the powerful male libido which can dominate the male experience, by crippling the very organ central to the libido, just enough to "tame the urges" but allow for procreation. Maimonides had great insight and made no apologies for the intent of circumcision.” Maimonides was right about a lot of things but he was wrong about this issue. Get it. Grat thinkers can construct beautiful and truthful systems like Aristotle a philosopher he deeply admired but who also erred on many particular points in his studies of biology. “What makes you so arrogant to declair Maimonides "clearly wrong" and that you know better?” Yes, on this issue I do. My experience and the experience of millions of circumcised men who experience deep pleasure form intercourse prove him wrong. Beside if Maimonides were alive today he would agree with me and not with you on this one issue. “Any last shred of respect I had for your opinion has been lost. You seem to just be interested in bashing those whom you don't agree with. You present yourself as inteligent, enlightned, and rational. It now seems you are none of those.” Try saying something intelligent. What have you read by Maimonides or about him? I suggest you read this book about Maimonides by a practicing medical doctor, if you know how to read: http://tinyurl.com/2cq666 “Your own words betray your ignorance and intollerance of intellectual exploration, how un-Jewish of you Mr Shriber.” Gee, coming from you that is quite a compliment, genius. So, are you for or against circumcision, and on what grounds, genius?
I think those of you that seem to take any opportunity to slam Reform Judaism for any reason you can find need to spend less time ranting on bulletin boards and more time refraining from hatred of Jews. I don't agree with ending circumcision, but that doesn't mean I have to lash out at my fellow brothers and sisters, name call, judge, and generally act in ways that make all Jews look bad. Shame on you.
The sread of a brisless bris could further split Judaism. If the mohel is required to have yearly examinations, then all risks will be negligable.
Shriber: I have enjoyed exchanging messages with you and would like to keep up the good fight, but I need to move on. Yasher Koach to all here who have fought to preserve Jewish practice and Jewish identity. To the rest of you who are Jewish, I pray that you'll take advantage of the many opportunities out there to learn authentic Jewish sources and discover the purpose for which G-d created you. To those of you who are not Jewish, I pray you'll learn to mind your own business.
Uh oh! Sheri Deen is in on this now!
I must correct one section of your article in which you say of circumcision "the possible pain experienced by a child during the procedure" I doubt you can ever have attended the amputation of a foreskin without anestehtic. Here in the UK at least one baby has died this year from shock as a result of this practice. The issue here is one of human rights as well no one should be allowed to sacrifice part of anothers body. Overruling a child's right to bodily integrity is done at a psychological cost to the child concerned. May we one day live in a peaceful and just world. Richard Duncker
Richard Duncker said: "I must correct one section of your article in which you say of circumcision "the possible pain experienced by a child during the procedure" I doubt you can ever have attended the amputation of a foreskin without anestehtic. Here in the UK at least one baby has died this year from shock as a result of this practice." This has been noted in the discussion and one such tragic accident is no reason not to circumcise. How many babies die of the side effects of vaccinations each year? "The issue here is one of human rights as well no one should be allowed to sacrifice part of anothers body. Overruling a child's right to bodily integrity is done at a psychological cost to the child concerned." This too has been answered ad nauseam in the discussions below. Try reading what's already been said, Richard.
Well Mr. Shriber you do have a lot of rage and angar. I thought I would look into this discussion after being absent since last week. I was surprised the "debate" is still on. How sad for you Mr. Shriber that you have resorted to nothing but insults and attacks. I understand that you are annoyed and irritated at all these heretical anti-circ folks. I understand you feel you are defending the integrety of Judiasm itself. Is this how you spend your time? Raging against the faceless who disagree with you? Yelling, cursing, insulting? I can't help but notice the other defenders of the tradition have moved on with their lives and are not wasting any of their mental energy here. Perhaps you could reflect on your own purpose and what it is you believe you will achieve with you bitter hateful attitude and words. Perhaps this is all just entertainment for you, slinging insults while foaming at the mouth. Put those damn antisemetic intactivists in there place damnit! You can attack me too, and I suspect you will. That is fine, and I don't mind at all. In fairness, I should let you know that I don't intend to keep "checking back" to this thread as I have an actual life to live back in the real world. I don't intend to get into some cheap flame war with you. I won't call you an idiot or a dunce as you have to others. I have to wonder about guys like you though. I sincerly hope you can relax, settle down, let go of some of your rage (its gonna kill you man!) and find peace. I wish you well.
Shriber: Do you ever sleep? Thanks for defending me re "Paul" while I was away observing Tisha B'Av, which by the way is why most of the defenders of circumcision have been away from this site since last night at about 8 pm. Paul's letters are replete with condemnation of the "circumcised", because Paul considered "circumcised" the same as Jewish, much as most of the anti-Semites here do. As for Hugh's stated desire for Judaism without circumcision, perhaps I was "uncharitable", and Hugh really does believe Judaism can survive without Jews observing G-d's commandments. He is wrong, however. Tell me, when's the last time you came across a 4th generation Reform Jew? By that point, they've either assimilated or intermarried their way out of the religion or they've done t'shuvah and become Orthodox. There are some Shribers out there who will cling to the religion for "traditional" or cultural or nostalgiac reasons. But it's rare that their children and grandchildren will see the need to continue in their path. If you remove G-d and His laws from Judaism, there will be no Judaism. As Ahad HaAm once said, "More than the Jews have kept the Shabbat, the Shabbat has kept the Jews." Finally, re Maimonides. Perhaps Shriber could have shown a tad more respect for his opinion, but there were many great rabbis throughout the centuries who did not accept Maimonides' rationales for the mitzvot. I doubt there's a religious Jew today who does not believe that Maimonides was dead wrong when he wrote in his "Guide for the Perplexed" that the reason for kashrut is health. It is very dangerous to ascribe reasons for G-d's commandments. The Talmud says that the Torah deliberately did not give us the reasons for mitzvot, because we would err and believe that if the reason does not apply, the mitzvah does not as well. In the end, there is only one reason for us to do any mitzvah, because G-d commanded us to.
Here's a little piece of Paul's letter to the Galatians: "2 Now I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is bound to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace." Not surprising, is it, that all these Christians who have been imported into Judaism by the Reform Movement are against circumcision. Maybe, like Paul, they're afraid they'll be required to keep the rest of the mitzvot, too, if they are circumcised. Or worse yet, they'll be cut off from Christ.
"Nate" said: "Well Mr. Shriber you do have a lot of rage and angar. I thought I would look into this discussion after being absent since last week. I was surprised the "debate" is still on." "Looked" is right. Try readin gwhat I wrote instead of just looking. Your contribution thus far has too meager to take seriously, "Nate." This is the sum of your contribution: "What kind of logic is this? Fear of being cast out from the tribe of Jews is what primarily coerces Jews to turn a blind eye to the obvious ethical and moral violation of the rights of the individual by imposing crippling alteration to a boy's genitals, and potentially to his future sexuality." I don't anyone who circumcised his or her son because they were afraid of being cast out from "the tribe of Jews." Calling Jews a "tribe" instead of a people is what antisemites like you do. Jews are a people and a civilization which something much more far reaching than a tribe. Of course an ignorant dwarf like you wouldn't know about that. Now, go ahead and accuse me of insulting poor pitiful little Nate again!
"....there were many great rabbis throughout the centuries who did not accept Maimonides' rationales for the mitzvot. I doubt there's a religious Jew today who does not believe that Maimonides was dead wrong when he wrote in his "Guide for the Perplexed" that the reason for kashrut is health. It is very dangerous to ascribe reasons for G-d's commandments." Jeff, I enjoy exchanging ideas with you. Though the above is off topic, I must say that Maimonides' Guide is something I truly respect and admire. btw: I am aware of Tisha B'Av and have nothing but respect for people who sincerely mourn the destruction of the Temple.
The words I used - "a baby is held down and part of its body is cut off" - are true, and nothing anyone says about me or Shakespeare or "Saint" Paul or anyone else changes that bleak fact. I use the passive, keeping the focus where it belongs, on the baby.
Sorry, there is just something creepy about people who spend their time time trying to ban (this is the ultimate aim) male circumcision which in the vast majority of cases causes some temporary pain and has some undeniable if relatively minor health benefits. The case against it is marginal and the effort insults a long tradition without sufficent cause. Yeah, yeah ... there are circumcision horror stories but there a foreskin horror stories and for that matter horror stories about people who amputate their [word deleted]es in zippers and accidently bit off their tongues So what? My guess is that anxiety about this issue correlates highly with belief in recovered memory thearpy, compulsive hand washing and too many years in therapy trying to find out how its mommy and daddy's fault I am all screwed up. Eveth, relax. The circumcised men, and their enablers, who are tortured about it in adulthood would find something else to suffer about if there parents hadn't circumcised them as infants. Jeff Schwartz - most any reform synagogue in the South is full of 4th, 5th, and 6th reform Jews. Cut to a man too.
Jeff Schwartz - most any reform synagogue in the South is full of 4th, 5th, and 6th generation reform Jews. Cut to a man too. Dor l'dor.
Jeff: "Tell me, when's the last time you came across a 4th generation Reform Jew? By that point, they've either assimilated or intermarried their way out of the religion or they've done t'shuvah and become Orthodox. There are some Shribers out there who will cling to the religion for "traditional" or cultural or nostalgiac reasons. But it's rare that their children and grandchildren will see the need to continue in their path. If you remove G-d and His laws from Judaism, there will be no Judaism. As Ahad HaAm once said, "More than the Jews have kept the Shabbat, the Shabbat has kept the Jews."" Well, my grandmother was an anarchist in Poland and my father was a Bundist they both lived full lives within the Jewish community without being religious. I while not politically of their persuasion, I am a conservative Democrat still follow in their tradition. One of my siblings, btw, without doing t'shuvah has embraced traditional Judaism. Had my father been chased away from his heritage this never would have happened! We should think of Judaism as a culture with many different kinds of members: some will be religious some will not, however, if we allow it to become a revolving door than people will who today reject religion their children may tomorrow embrace and vice-a-versa. My fear is that the Jewish community will split between those who see only Orthodoxy as being "Jewish" and those who will slowly drift away from it as a consequence. This has happened in Italy and in many other countries were some form reformed Judaism was not practiced. It may be true that reform tend to assimilate, but so do many Orthodox Jews. The problem in this country as I see it isn't reform Judaism it's the absence of traditional Jewish secular schools were Hebrew is taught is a second language. You can't mandate belief the best you can do is educated children in their tradition. Some will become Orthodox Jews some will not, but most will retain a sense of Jewishness in their lives. In the current secular religious divide we are all the losers. This is why I admired the article in the Jerusalem Post so much. I believe the author’s point of view offered a strong argument for trying to retain all members of the Jewish community who adhere to its fundamental principles. This is all off topic, though.
Gil Franco said: "Jeff Schwartz - most any reform synagogue in the South is full of 4th, 5th, and 6th generation reform Jews. Cut to a man too. Dor l'dor." Thanks Gil, I lived in the South for a while and I can attest first hand that what you say is true.
Hugh said: "The words I used - "a baby is held down and part of its body is cut off" - are true, and nothing anyone says about me or Shakespeare or "Saint" Paul or anyone else changes that bleak fact. I use the passive, keeping the focus where it belongs, on the baby." That's fine as long as you are aware of the antisemitic implications of that image. Babies, btw, "are held down" when they are vaccinated too.
Jeff, I enjoy exchanging ideas with you. Ditto, Shriber.
Gil Franco said: "Jeff Schwartz - most any reform synagogue in the South is full of 4th, 5th, and 6th generation reform Jews. Cut to a man too. Dor l'dor." Well, this northerner has not seen that, but thank you for educating me. I find that very interesting. I wonder if Southern Reform Jews take the Torah and mitzvot more seriously than the Northern ones.
Shriber: I, too, have nothing but the utmost respect for all of Maimonides' works. Where I went to school, they used to have a phrase (in Hebrew), "From Moses (of the Torah) until Moses (Maimonides), no one arose like Moses", which are pretty strong words, but Maimonides was a human being and no doubt sometimes he was wrong. Hey, even I'm wrong sometimes.
*** I have a better solution than circumcision for protecting against AIDS -- use some discretion where you stick your winky :-) ***
Why is it that none of the anti-circumcision people here seem to have a first and last name combination that sounds Jewish?
jeff schwartz said: "Shriber: I, too, have nothing but the utmost respect for all of Maimonides' works. Where I went to school, they used to have a phrase (in Hebrew), "From Moses (of the Torah) until Moses (Maimonides), no one arose like Moses", which are pretty strong words," Mi moshe lemoshe ain kmo moshe!
Actually, it's "MiMoshe od Moshe lo kam k'Moshe".
jeff schwartz said: "Actually, it's "MiMoshe od Moshe lo kam k'Moshe"." Thank you. I was improvising with modern Hebrew, my version.
Images don't concern me. Reality does. I spend much more time trying to persuade Gentiles not to have their babies held down and the same part of their bodies cut off. I guess I should be aware of the anti-Gentilic implications of that image too.
"Circumcision Key to Curbing AIDS Spread Jul 24 06:33 AM US/Eastern By MERAIAH FOLEY Associated Press Writer SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - A U.S. health expert urged governments worldwide Tuesday to endorse circumcision to slow the spread of HIV, saying men without the procedure have a greater risk of contracting the virus from infected female partners. Experts at an AIDS conference in Sydney also warned that HIV infection rates were rising among men who have sex with men in developing countries because of discrimination and lack of access to health services. The World Health Organization says male circumcision reduces the risk of female-to-male transmission of the disease by around 60 percent. But only 30 percent of men worldwide have had the procedure, mostly in countries where it is common for religious or health reasons. Robert Bailey, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois, said studies in Africa showed that uncircumcised men were 2 1/2 times more likely to contract HIV from infected female partners, though many health officials were still unclear about its benefits. "If we had a vaccine that was 60 percent protective, we would be very happy and we would be rolling it out as fast as we can," Bailey told reporters at an International AIDS Society Conference in Sydney, Australia. "The next step is to get the leaders of countries to actually come up with policy statements endorsing the practice," said Bailey, who has conducted circumcision-related studies in Africa and the United States. Without local support, international agencies would be unlikely to encourage the procedure to avoid being seen as imposing foreign cultures or values, he said. Circumcision, the removal of the foreskin from the [word deleted], has long been suspected of reducing men's susceptibility to HIV infection because the skin cells in the foreskin are especially vulnerable to the virus. In March, the WHO urged heterosexual men to undergo the procedure because of compelling evidence that it reduces their risk of getting the disease. However, it cautioned that male circumcision is not a complete protection against HIV, and said men should still use condoms and take other precautions such as abstinence, delaying the start of sexual activity and reducing the number of sexual partners." Read the rest here: http://tinyurl.com/3d5mrk
Someone explain to Dave that he is reform to the Satmars. Exactly what unmodern things have Modern Orthodox dumped from "unchanging" normative Judaism? Dave: Reform "temples" (never shuls--too ethnic, maybe) are filled mostly with non-Jews: people who were not born Jewish and were not formally converted in accordance with Jewish law. That is the hard, cold fact of things. Care to back up your ridiculous prejudice with some data?
Someone explain to Dave that he is reform to the Satmars. Exactly what unmodern things have Modern Orthodox dumped from "unchanging" normative Judaism? Dave: Reform "temples" (never shuls--too ethnic, maybe) are filled mostly with non-Jews: people who were not born Jewish and were not formally converted in accordance with Jewish law. That is the hard, cold fact of things. Care to back up your ridiculous prejudice with some data?
Circumcision is, fundamentally, barbaric. If there are any medical benefits -- and that can't be ruled out -- it's purely coincidental. But it's really a primitive practice that's similar to the scarring and other disfiguring of many primitive peoples around the world. Tatooing is harmless in comparison, if sometimes very ugly.
As a Reform Jewish mother of five sons, all of them are circumcised. While I know that there are occasionally (extremely rarely) complications, it would never cross my Reform mind to NOT circumcise my sons. Further, my two Reform grandsons were also circumcised. In fact, I know of no Reform Jewish males who are not circumcised. What disturbs me more is the ignorance about Reform Judaism expressed in many of the comments. While Reform Judaism is a "mixed bag" that includes many who are not very observant, it also includes many who are. And Reform Judaism helps keep Judaism alive so that children will choose to practice more as adults. The pendulum swings, and Reform Jews often choose to become more observant...Conservative or even Orthodox. Some Reform Jews choose to be observant and remain as Reform Jews. It is unfair, for lack of a better word, to condemn an entire group of people without knowing them. It reminds me of past history. I happen to teach in a Reform Jewish day school and I happen to teach about the life cycle. This year, I had the students study the various arguments for and against circumcision. We even had a class debate about it. On their unit exam, I asked them if when they were new parents of a baby boy, what choice they would make after having studied the "pros and cons." Out of my 80 students, only 1 said that she would not circumcise her son. Cicumcision is one tradition that even Reform Jews cling to. It is the age-long mark of being a Jew. It is the Brit, the act that ties us to God and our ancestors, and allows us to be a part of the Jewish people forever. I don't think circumcison, no matter how much we debate it, is going away.
Oh, please, folks, get over yourselves. I was circumcised, as were all of my male ancestors back to Abraham (or whomever). I have no recollection of the procedure (nor does my 2 1/2 year old son, whose interest in his own willy seems undiminished by the absence of a foreskin). This is not only an ancient Jewish tradition (with, apparently, some genuine health benefits) but a fundamental Jewish law that should not be lightly discarded.
I wonder if Eli Ungar-Sargon is against abortion on the same grounds.
‘Why would the foreskin be there if it wasn’t good?’ 'cause if it wasn't there you wouldn't have what to cut... What is going on out there? Are we letting our emotions take over? Up until this sick generation we fought FOR Bris, we did not let our "womanly" feelings get in the way of stuff. I think Christianity is a better choice for those who are uncomfortable with the way things are done in our religion... Judaism requires DEVOTION and some sacrifice. If you can't hack it GET THE H' OUT!
I think I will go start my own religion. I'll require that all girls have their left ear cut off on the 10th day of life. After all, the won't remember the pain, it will show the world their faith, and as I parent I have the right to impose this procedure, right??? Some of you people are down right hateful. Why pick and choose what you practice? Are you still doing animal sacrifices? Are you making boys drop their pants upon entering Temple? Why is this such an issue for you? Nobody I know of Jewish or otherwise is saying Jews shouln't worship or believe how that want to. But to say a Jewish parent is in the wrong for not circumcising is wrong. I have a Jewish friend who delivered a boy two weeks ago. He still has his foreskin. He will keep it as long as his parents have any say in the matter. It doesn't make him any less Jewish. Who are you to pass judgement? Isn't that G_d's job??? I am a medical professional. I'm an RN and I hold a Master's degree. Circumcision isn't the "cure-all" some are touting it to be. HIV is rampant in Africa. People are going to get it and die regardless of their penile status. Plenty of the cut men in the study contracted HIV, too. Look at the relatively high HIV rate in the US. It's mostly with gay men but most of them are statistically circumcised if they are anywhere over 25 years old. Being circumcised didn't save them. Then look at other countries where circumcision is virtually unheard of outside of bris. Places like Europe, Mexico, etc. HIV is much, much lower there. That should tell you circumcised or not is not a great indicator for HIV protection. Abstinence nad condom use are the only things that will protect from HIV - period. Besides, ritual circumcision is nothing like it was thousands of years ago and you know it. If you want to cut your child and feel superior to other Jews that allow their child a choice, then by all means go for it. But don't look down your noses at those who opt otherwise. Remember, you are NOT the judge! Hateful, hateful!
It seems to us that, for the most part, few of the posts in this thread have gone beyond mentioning mitzvah (commandment) to illuminate the raison d'être of Jewish ritual circumcision. Our hope is that the following points may disabuse some folks of the idea that brit milah (i.e., the covenant of circumcision) is nothing more than an antiquated ritual. Of course, brit milah is not primarily to be considered as a medical procedure--the name says it all. The Jewish people have long understood the powerful covenantal purpose furthered by circumcision, which is irrelevant to the medical and social critics of the procedure, although frequently it is the subtext of their barely disguised ridicule. Undoubtedly, adherence to that covenant has fostered the hallmark commitment of the Jewish people to loving-kindness and justice. Some slight, as yet unproven, loss of sexual pleasure may not be an excessive price to pay for 3,000 years of such unwavering commitment by a whole people. From our point of view, brit milah is a spiritual discipline that focuses, first, not on the subject of the ritual, but on those who carry it out--parents, family members, and friends, the community’s representatives and, ultimately, our entire people. It’s a common mistake to think that only the baby, the parents, and the mohel (ritual circumciser) are intimately involved in this ritual. In addition we have the direct involvement of the following protagonists: 1. The kvater and kvaterin, usually a married couple who are close to the parents, who carry the baby from the mother, in a private room, to the room where the brit milah will take place, and then carry the baby back to the mother. 2. The person who has the honor of placing the baby on the ceremonial chair of Eliyahu and then removing the baby from the chair. 3. The sandek usually the baby’s grandfather, who holds the baby during the surgical procedure. 4. The sandek meumad who holds the baby after the surgery, during the remainder of the ceremony. 5. The person who recites the two blessings--borei p’ri hagafen and koret habrit--after the surgery. 6. The person who recites the prayer that announces the baby’s Hebrew name. 7. And the mezamen who leads the birkat hamazon, the grace after the festive meal that follows the ceremony. Circumcision is initially the obligation of the father or, if the father is not present, the local bet din (rabbinic court). Parenthetically, as has already been indirectly suggested above, if it has not been done by the time a boy reaches the age of 13, he has an immediate positive obligation to assume responsibility for his own milah. As Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch (1808-1888) teaches us, brit milah serves to strengthen the resolve of the father particularly, but certainly the mother as well, to bring up the newborn son to a “true strong adherence to a Torah life before God.” And then there are the family, friends, and representatives of the community who are present and invariably feel deeply the power of the ritual. They certainly are not incidental to the ritual itself, because while brit milah marks the beginning of the individual’s moral career, initially its real impact is on the family, friends, and local community, whose members become singularly and jointly responsible for that career. The commandment to circumcise all males is repeated twice in the Torah. In Genesis 17:10, we read: “This is My covenant that you shall keep between Me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.” Then later in Leviticus 12:3, we read: “And on the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.” At the outset one might ask, why should we be commanded to circumcise on the eighth day--even when the eighth day falls on Shabbat (Sabbath)? Or Hachayim (Rabbi Chaim ben Attar, 1696-1744) teaches that the commandment is repeated to say that, “the Sabbath was not to take precedence over circumcision on the eighth day.” And from the Talmud we learn that, “. . . The Rabbis disagree with Rabbi Eliezer only in respect of the preliminaries of circumcision [which he would allow on Shabbat]; but as for circumcision itself, all hold that it supersedes the Sabbath. . . .” (Shabbat 132a) The connection between Shabbat and the covenant of circumcision should be the least of surprises to us. Certainly the basic meaning of Shabbat is that the Creation does not represent continuous random, haphazard cosmic development, but that God is the author and authority of Creation, including humankind--all being subject to God’s masterminding. And that authorship and authority was demonstrated for us cosmically by God’s ceasing to create on Shabbat, marked by the permanence of scientifically validated laws and constants, such as gravity and the mass of electrons. The dedication of a new life on Shabbat to the Abrahamitic mission of furthering the rule of God’s law is, therefore, entirely apropos. The context of our question about the eighth day is the immediately preceding verse (Leviticus 12:2) specifying that a woman who has given birth to a male child is ritually impure for seven days afterwards. Ritual impurity is to be understood, of course, not as some kind of physical miasma, but the symbolic communication of the overwhelming power of nature, paradigmatically associated with death, that leaves us implicitly or explicitly imagining ourselves to be without moral free will. The days immediately following the birth are marked by one and all--parents, family, friends, and community--with a sigh of relief, that mother and child are both well, a time of recovery from the emotional exhaustion that accompanies the worry associated with the life-threatening experience of childbirth. So the passage of seven days allows for the passing away of the mother’s fear and depression that potentially undermine or at least divert attention from moral spirituality--the essence of the ritual impurity of childbirth--in favor of the energy and enthusiasm associated with everyone’s dedication to focus their own sustained support for the moral career of the newborn in furthering the Abrahamitic mission. Not incidentally, the language of the mitzvah of circumcision includes “every male” (Genesis 17:10), which intentionally excludes the practice of female circumcision (i.e., clitoridectomy). But precisely what connection exists between the commandment of brit milah and the moral career of a Jewish man? One place to begin getting an answer to that question is in the meaning of the words “brit milah.” Of course, a brit is a covenant, but notably it’s one that is absolute, to be fulfilled regardless of external circumstances. Milah is from the Hebrew root that means to oppose, restrict, or limit. But that root also has the meaning of being face-to-face. So we may understand brit milah not as a symbol of denial, but of bringing us face-to-face with God’s limitations and boundaries. Like all other religious rituals, brit milah is a formal ceremonial means to communicate to ourselves symbolically that which we value most, and how we intend to practice and protect it. As Jews, what we value most highly is that, unlike animals, we are free-willed moral spiritual beings, created in the image of our Creator. We are not compelled by irresistible physical forces, and thus not to be selfishly dedicated only to our own physical needs and survival. But on the contrary, we can use our moral freedom to live by our covenant with the Creator who made and sustains us. To the sacred purposes of that covenant as revealed in the Torah--which may be summed up with the shorthand of chesed and tzedek, loving-kindness and justice--the purposes of male sexual energy are to be consecrated. That being the case, a Torah-observant Jewish man doesn’t commit adultery, sexual exploitation, lewdness or lasciviousness, and our history confirms that Jewish manhood has represented distinctively different values than those of the other nations. We take our behavioral model from the Talmud, which teaches that at the outset of our peoplehood Abraham achieved complete mastery over his body by brit milah. (Nedarim 32b) And, presumably not incidentally, it was only after his milah that the Torah relates his dedication to mitzvot of loving-kindness directed to the three travelers. When we assume the requirements of brit milah, we symbolically reaffirm to ourselves not the denial of our bodies and their natural drives, but that we use them according to the moral spirituality of God’s law. We acknowledge thereby a duty to be on the path of God’s law, to walk before God and be pure (Genesis 17:1). In this way we sanctify the body, make it kadosh--holy, separated and set aside for a special purpose, so the body does not direct the spirit, but the spirit directs the body--to serve God and all of God’s creation. As Rabbi Hirsch observes, “performing the act [of brit milah] only . . . achieves its full purpose when it is . . . taken to heart as such and the idea it expresses becomes a reality for us.” As we have already noted, however, the ritual, at the time it is performed, is not primarily for the child’s benefit. The Sefer haHinnuch (Book of [Mitzvah] Education) teaches that the “root reason” for the precept and procedure was that God wanted to place in the people “a permanent sign in their bodies to differentiate them from the other nations. . .” in respect to their moral spirituality. The commentary of Sforno (Rabbi Ovadia ben Yaakov, 1470-1550) is that the sign of the covenant is made “in the organ whereby the species is perpetuated,” symbolizing the “continuity of the covenant among later generations” (following Abraham and Sarah). (Sforno on Genesis 17:13) And certainly, if generations of Jews had failed to carry on the practice from one generation to another as a national commitment, we wouldn’t have inherited it. Rabbi Nosson Scherman teaches that circumcision is “a mark on the body, stamping its bearer as a servant of God. . . . placed on the reproductive organ to symbolize that circumcision is essential to Jewish eternity.” (Our emphasis.) What role does brit milah play day-by-day to ensure Jewish eternity--or the lack of it? A rabbinic colleague has reported a conversation between herself and some Jewish teenagers about one of their uncircumcised Jewish friends. One of the teenage boys says of the uncircumcised friend: “Bennie’s started talking about dating only non-Jewish girls, because he will seem normal to them. But Bennie wants to be Jewish, he cares about it. We keep wondering, what were his parents’ thinking?” So later our rabbi colleague asks Bennie: “What reason did your parents give you for not having a brit milah?” And the teenager answers: “They said they didn’t want me to be hurt.” Then he starts to raise his voice: “What were they thinking? I’d already been squashed through a birth canal hard enough to look like a shmooshed elf at birth. You can see it in the Polaroids! That’s got to leave an impression. Maybe mom should have had a c-section to save me the distress?”
""a baby is held down and part of its body is cut off" - pretty atavistic but not anti-semitic in particular. It's somewhat like when religious fanatics hang themselves up on fishhooks or when boys in Africa get circumcised as a manhood ritual. "Now, my Son, you have obeyed the will of Ougah-Bougah, and forever you shall be one of His chosen." Quaint, when it happens in Africa. In the case of Jewish circumcision, it's a Blast From the Past. I wonder if the practice of sacrificing the foreskin to the god started with religious fanatics who mutilated themselves while in a frenzy. Such practices are found even today in places termed "primitive." Diagnosis: Religion. There's no point in trying to comvince someone who believes that a god told him what to do to stop doing it. And, after all, it's not as if circumcision is human sacrifice. It's more like Santeria, where the chicken is cut (choking the chicken will be popular among the boys, later on ...) And if they outlaw circumcision, will that stop the practice? Mohalim in dark clothes will scurry through alleys to perform the Forbidden Ritual, among adherents willing to risk punishment for Their God. Is this is a familiar scenario or what? But even without a prohibition, the religious love to be persecuted every so often and if they're not, they invent legions of Satan, or hordes of anti-semites, or crusaders, or whatever, who are a supposed threat to their cohesion and devotion to God, the only One, the True God as opposed to all/any other gods. Yawn.
"Behold these are my commandments: but seriously if they dont work for you, just scrap them. You probably know better anyway! Especially, you laymen folk, dont let your severly limited knowledge about your religion get in the way of you changing laws and customs that date back thousands of years. Dude, if they dont make perfect sense to you, just forget that crap. You do what feels good; because, seriously what am I here for if not to make you feel good? Oh, and please make sure, if our ancient religion, doesn't fit into the modern culture you find yourselves in, by all means, please keep Judaism hip. Just remember, the rules that I and your patriarchs set forth thousands of years ago, were clearly meant for that time, not this one. 2007, as anyone can see, is the most happy, moral and ethical time the world has ever seen. So forget those lame laws and customs, and just make sure to do whatever your friends and neighbors are doing. Ill see you in 120. Your's truly... God"
The medical case for or against circumcism is debatable. This article just came out in NZ.
Religious fundamentalism rots the human condition like a virulent disease. The intollerance demonstrated in this debate illustrates how the vile extremists are not limited to one religion, and clearly exist in the Jewish community as well. Ironically this attitude expressed by these defenders of orthodoxy, only serves to heighten and increase antisemitism, not aleviate it. Sadly, these attitudes demonstrated here, by a select few, are the very attitudes that will destroy, not only Israel and the Jewish people, but potentially all of mankind. You fundamentalists are every bit as corrosive and dangerous as al Queda, the taliban, hisbollah, Islamic jihad..et al. You may not yet blow yourselves up with homicidal attacks on civilians,and random rocket attacks, but philosophically you are not that different in your rigid intollerance of other ideas. Shame on you, you bring nothing to Judiasm but hate.
This is a non-issue that the FORWARD felt it could sell more papers with. The issues are clear, if you want to be a REFORM JEW and you want to opt out of bris I say Halleluya. OPT OUT. You may not and CAN NOT tell other JEWS what to do or say. That is what you call EQUAL RIGHTS. As a TORAH JEW or A NON TORAH JEW I have the RIGHT to circumcize my son and if he does not like it he has a RIGHT to become a REFORM JEW when he grows up. I wish the REFORM movement which does not relate to the TORAH would just be HONEST with themselves and just call themselves JEW HATERS or JEW BASHERS for even the non jews dont attack Jews as much as REFORM JEWS do... REFORM JEWS should learn from the Humanistic movement (Rabbi Sherwin Wine)and move toward the movement of GODLESS this way no petition needs to be signed and you can have your kids as peopel who believ in NO GOD and NO TORAH I am a non religious Jew and my sons were circumcized. They are adults and not one has complained to me. Their only complaint to me is why I chose to be a non religious practicing Jew
Let me get this straight: Refraining from circumcision leads to greater sexual sensitivity in men? Presumably, leading them to ejaculate more quickly? AND makes them more likely to give their partner an STD? Ladies, for goodness' sake why aren't you standing up for circumcision?!? It sounds to me like we do it as a favor to you.
A GREAT BIBLICAL DISCOVERY: THE 2nd COMMANDMENT FORBIDS CIRCUMCISION Already in the middle of the 19th century, a German movement of Reform rabbis opposed circumcision on Biblical grounds: the Ten Commandments do not prescribe it, it was not practised during the Exodus (circumcision was set back into practice after Moses's death, in Gilgal) and Moses was opposed to his son's circumcision, were their main arguments. Rabbi Abraham Geiger, their leader, thought circumcision an attempt against the child (“a barbarous and bleeding rite”) and that the custom isolates the Jews. This provoked an outcry in the Jewish community, rabbinical authorities answered their arguments and, at the end of twenty years, the German Reform rabbis came back to circumcision. But the “heresy” gained the USA where several rabbis practise a non mutilating ceremony of nomination. Geiger and his friends had perfectly understood that Moses was opposed to circumcision but, unfortunately, they had not made our discovery of the falsification of the meaning of the Second Commandment by orthodox rabbis, from antiquity until now. This falsification hides that this commandment forbids circumcision. Indeed the orthodox interpretation understands the Biblical text: “For I, the Eternal, your God, I am a jealous God, who punish the crime of fathers upon sons up to the third and fourth generation... ” (Exodus, 20: 5), as if it said: “… who punish sons for the crimes of fathers…”, which it does not, merely meaning: “... who punish the crime of fathers upon sons up to... great-grandfathers... ” Beyond great-grandfathers, it's true, there is nobody alive to punish. But this means that such a crime must be punished without statute of limitations. Indeed, a crime striking a definite group of the population (male children) is a crime against creation (humanity). It would also be absurd that the Second Commandment would reduplicate the Sixth: “Thou shall not kill”. At the contrary, it points out crime against young boys as particularly reprehensible. Besides, it would be preposterous to consider this Commandment a condemnation that would strike irresponsible sons and grand-sons, making God suspicious till injustice. It must be added that, just a few lines below the 2nd Commandment, the Bible enlightens it saying: “If however you build a stone altar for me, do not build it with carved stones for by touching them with the iron, you made them lay.” (Exodus, 20: 21-22). Sigismond oldsigismund@hotmail.com This was a summary, read the whole article at http://intactwiki.org/Image:The_Ten_Commandments_against_circumcision.doc
Circumcision was instituted by Jewish priests during the Babylonian Captivity, as one of many means of establishing an identity for their people distinct from the dominant culture into which they had been transported. After the return from exile, the procedure was further mandated as an effective means of asserting political and religous control over those Jews who had escaped exile. Genesis 15 is an account of the original "covenant" between Abram and his God. Nowhere does it mention male genital mutilation. Genesis 17 was inserted into scripture by Post-exilic Priests. As such, these modern changes suggests that rituals are not written in stone, but that they can be made by almost anyone, at anytime. After all, Genesis 15 is completely ignored today, and the covenant ceremonies which it describes are nowhere observed.
A GREAT BIBLICAL DISCOVERY: THE 2nd COMMANDMENT FORBIDS CIRCUMCISION "... I am a jealous God, who punish the crime of fathers upon sons up to... great-grandfathers... " (2nd Commandment) Already in the middle of the 19th century, a German movement of Reform rabbis was the first Jewish movement in modern times to refuse circumcision, on Biblical grounds: the Ten Commandments do not prescribe it, it was not practised during the Exodus (circumcision was set back into practice after Moses's death, in Gilgal) and Moses was opposed to his son's circumcision, were their main arguments. Previous to Moses, worshipers of the phallus, the Egyptians practised it and had imposed it on the Jews as a token of slavery. Having freed the Jews, Moses could not tolerate that some would perpetuate the barbarous pagan custom. Thinking that a "jealous God" cannot admit idolatry of the phallus and that the denudation of the glans makes the phallus a fetish and an idol, he denounces chapter 17 of the Book of Genesis, through the Second Commandment. Assuming circumcision an attempt against the child ("a barbarous and bleeding rite") and that the custom isolates the Jews, Rabbi Abraham Geiger and his movement decided to follow Moses and abandon circumcision. This provoked an outcry in the Jewish community, rabbinical authorities answered their arguments and, at the end of twenty years, the German Reform rabbis came back to circumcision. But the "heresy" gained the USA where several rabbis practise a non mutilating ceremony of nomination. Geiger and his friends had perfectly understood that Moses was opposed to circumcision but, unfortunately, they had not made our discovery of the falsification of the meaning of the Second Commandment by orthodox rabbis, from antiquity until now. This falsification hides that this commandment forbids circumcision. Indeed the orthodox interpretation understands the Biblical text: "For I, the Eternal, your God, I am a jealous God, who punish the crime of fathers upon sons up to the third and fourth generation... " (Exodus, 20: 5), as if it said: "… who punish sons for the crimes of fathers…", which it does not, merely meaning: "... who punish the crime of fathers upon sons up to... great-grandfathers... " Beyond great-grandfathers, it's true, there is nobody alive to punish. This means that the "crime of fathers" can only be circumcision that Moses deliberately classifies as crime. It also means this crime is punishable regardless of the statute of limitations; Moses had the intuition that a crime striking a definite group of the population (male children) is not ordinary crime but crime against creation (humanity). It would also be absurd that the Second Commandment would reduplicate the Sixth: "Thou shall not kill". At the contrary, it points out crime against children as particularly reprehensible. Besides, it is preposterous to consider this Commandment a condemnation that would strike irresponsible sons and grand-sons, making God suspicious till injustice. At last, it must be added that, just a few lines below the 2nd Commandment, the Bible enlightens it saying: "If however you build a stone altar for me, do not build it with carved stones for by touching them with the iron, you made them lay." (Exodus, 20: 21-22). Therefore God, or Moses, did not wrongly word the Second Commandment. The rabbis – very likely deliberately – did ill interpret it through introducing an nonexistent double meaning, in order to conceal that "the crime of fathers" is circumcision perpetrated upon the person of the sons. We owe the great Jewish liberator and legislator the invention, against infantile sexual mutilation, of the juridical concept of crime against humanity, with imprescriptible penalty. Sigismond - oldsigismund@hotmail.com - http://groups.msn.com/circabolition This was a summary, read the whole article at: http://intactwiki.org/Image:The_Ten_Commandments_against_circumcision.doc
Circumcision has increasingly become recognized as a "barbaric ritual" primarily due to the attention that has been garnered over ritual female circumcision throughout much of the Moselem world. In Jewish circles however, it is surprising that there are so many female voices heard in this debate over what is clearly an issue between MALES and G-D. Nowhere in the bible do we read of a covenant being made between a female and god to be marked in flesh for all of eternity. It that were the case, would it not make sense to have SOME kind of cutting of the flesh upon the genitals of women (especially those who wish to become Mohelet) and baby girls, if only as simple as the "pin prick" applied by rabbi's during the conversion process of an already circumcised non jewish male. The idea of a bond in the flesh precedes Judaism by millenia, yet now, we profess to have evolved unto a new level of consciousness; one that recognizes a new role for females that more closely resembles that of the traditional male relationship with G-D. I chose NOT to allow my son to be circumcised as I see it as a violation of his right as a person free to choose his own faith. If my son chooses to have himself cirmcumcised later in life, that is clearly his perrogative and I choose not to be as arrogant as many of the proponents here seem to be, to assume that it is my obligation to perform this cutting, an obligation that obfuscates the real issue, the issue of personal choice.
Failing to circumcise is quite simply wrong. A declaration of herem is in order.
please dont let the anti circumcision lot spoil a practise that goes back to abraham I am not jewish but have jewish friends so i was there when the sons were brits at 8 days old p.s i am circumcised and my son is circumcised
There is no link to Abraham. He is a fictional Character. And if he were real, I would want no link to the guy... THis is a person who tried to kill both his sons. The one he cast to the desert with one day's worth of water. The otehr he actually attempted to slaughter with a sharp knife. He is not a good role model. Please leave him and his barbaric rituals where they belong; in the ancient past.
One of the most common myths about circumcision is that it makes the penis cleaner and easier to take care of.
This is not true. Eyes without eyelids would not be cleaner; neither would a penis without its foreskin.
The artificially externalized glans and meatus of the circumcised penis are constantly exposed to abrasion and dirt, making the circumcised penis, in fact, more unclean. The loss of the protective foreskin leaves the urinary tract vulnerable to invasion by bacterial and viral pathogens.
Before a baby is circumcised, his foreskin must be torn from his glans, literally skinning it alive. This creates a large open area of raw, bleeding flesh, covered at best with a layer of undeveloped proto-mucosa. Germs can easily enter the damaged tissue and bloodstream through the raw glans and, even more easily, through the incision itself.
Even after the wound has healed, the externalized glans and meatus are still forced into constant unnatural contact with urine, feces, chemically treated diapers, and other contaminants.
It was a facinating string of posts from over two years ago. From reading all, it is clear to me that Laura, Rood and Hugh, as well as Nate, are probably anti-semites who are wrapping their attempt to destroy Judaism in modern-style "human rights" issues, to make it 'kosher'. These people never change their attacks; only their justification for them. Now they are going to 'save us poor benighted Jews from ourselves', by cutting our G-D commanded sign of his covenant. Quick, Jacob Javits Jew-Lover Awards for all! Laura Wolff is simply an ignorant, 'liberal' woman who doesn't seem to realise that not doing a Brit Mila on her son, DEFINITELY DOES distance him from Klal Yisrael. And if he ever is among Jews, in Galut or in Israel, and is in a position to be seen (pool, showering, with the girl or boy of his choice...), it will be quickly, painfully clear, HOW far he is. Re. the Gay issue, I disagree with Jeff Schwartz, and suggest he recheck the "abomination" quotes; I was taught that they are a way of organising all laws dealing with Pagan worship. and that someone who is Homosexual is an 'Oness' (without choice) and therefore NOT punished for homo sex in public even after being warned by two witnesses (the ONLY situation punished by a Beit Din; all others are dealt with by G-D). Otherwise, I mainly agree with him. Shriber, Kol HaKavod. You are an example to Jews everywhere.
As a mom & grandma there are a lot of things I would not step up to die for, but as during our Hellenistic oppression, circumcision is one I would. Those who talk of choice know NOT what grief & mental misery uncircumcised ageing men's penises cause to themselves & others. That one wants to avoid pain & bloodshed to one's child is normal--just having birthed, having had basic necessary surgeries needs in a lifetime, having had dental care--one understands the need for this to be done as expediently & painlessly as possible. & don't worry, as parents you will continually be making choices for your child, so don't get too conflicted over this now. Be grateful for those who intelligently instituted & practiced it under the severe health conditions several millenia ago did so with good reason. Today, in our comfortable lives, we may have lost the knowledge & necessity of it.& of course, very few of all the miserable uncirc males will not tell you how disadvantaged they are...But you might want to explore all the uncirc males who later do have themselves circumcised.
Herem William?
Really?
Isn't that extreme?
Aren't all the sexually transmitted diseases the morons will get be enough punishment?
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