Forward article on the growing Jewish anti-circ movement

This week’s Forward sports yet another article, “Activists Up Efforts To Cut Circumcision Out of Bris Ritual,” that is sensitive and respectful to the anti-circ camp, something which should be alarming to those who might expect a snide dismissal of the anti-circ camp from the nation’s most important Jewish newspaper.

Jacob Victor writes,

“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.”

Why is this important? Because liberal and secular Jews – usually in-synch with the general American population, are now out of synch. When the circ rate is the minority, which it is fast becoming, the intensity of “rethinking” circ will increase dramatically.

Edgar Schoen, a pediatric endocrinologist,

“Argues that this decision [the equivocal 1999 American Academy of Pediatrics’ Task Force on Circumcision] 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

This is the ultimate in chutzpah. The U.S. position of still practicing routine neonatal circumcision is contrary to all other Western nations, and this is in large part due to Jewish influence. As Eli Ungar-Sargon noted in his film “Cut,” the U.S. is the only nation to practice routine neonatal male circumcision except for one other. Guess which one? That’s right, the State of Israel. And the form of circumcision – that is, the amount of the penis removed – is the same as Jewish ritual circumcision.

Schoen notes,

“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.”

This should “resonate”with any thinking person. There should be no such thing as a secular pro-circ camp in the West, because when there aren’t Jews or Muslims (but mostly Jews) there usually isn’t one.

“At the end of the day, every couple has to make its own decision,” said Rabbi Donni Aaron [head of the Reform’s Berit Milah Board who gets pounded in “The Cut" ] 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.”

This is absolute ethnocentric nonsense. Did FGM “go away?” Hardly. So what’s the difference? That we are Jews? That we are white? Both? Circular reasoning and complete drivel.