Category — Circumcision

The Guardian reports,

Rabbi Danny Rich, the chief executive of Liberal Judaism, said the movement considered ethical requirements to be of a higher order than the value of ritual practice.

“Circumcision is an ancient Jewish rite and the majority of our families still support and practise it. Circumcision does not accord Jewish status in even the most traditional interpretations of who is a Jew and thus an uncircumcised Jewish child would be treated exactly the same as a circumcised one in our communities.”

nhapmom writes,

I am posting this as a mom who is first, Jewish, and second, who has two sons who are circumcised. Since my pregnancy with my third son, however, I have researched the issue of circumcision and have left my third son intact, as will be this fourth son due in October. Below are a few of the reasons I made this decision. For anyone planning on giving birth in the future, this information is critical to protect your unborn sons. I am certainly in no position to judge anyone who has circumcised sons, as I have no stones to throw. However, I would like to share what I have learned and hope that it does some good to protect future little boys.

America’s pro-circ camp’s invasion of Africa continues, and the armies being used are African.

And while the pro-circ camp’s “benefits” are still uncritically touted in mainstream media even if most dubious, the Intactivist voices are still increasingly resonating more clearly and are being considered more seriously.

Alice Whalen didn’t know what was happening in the hospital nursery.

It was 1975, she’d just had her first child–a baby girl–and the hospital quiet was pierced by a cacophony of painful, frightened cries coming from the newborn nursery next door.

Whalen asked her doctor what was going on. The baby boys are being circumcised, he told her.

The LA Times recently had two different unbalanced stories on circumcision. Both stories downplayed the negatives, and both offered absurdities for a pro-circ position, i.e., appearance, penile cancer (1 in 100,000 cut as opposed to 1 in 300,000 intact — DO THE MATH!!!).

One reader complained,

The risk of penile cancer is minuscule, lower than for appendicitis. Should we remove the baby’s appendix as well?

In fact, this would be less illogical, as circumcised men can still get penile cancer.

Another reader noted,

Your article also failed to mention an article published last year in the peer-reviewed British Journal of Urology International titled “Fine-Touch Pressure Thresholds in the Adult Penis.” The results indicated that intact penises were four times more sensitive than cut penises.

So I asked myself…are the editors afraid of something? Who owns the LA Times?

Is it owned by a Jew? Is it owned by a right-wing Jew?

Yes. Yes.

The LA Times is owned by a Mr. Sam Zell. Mr. Zell supports numerous Jewish causes, including some right-wing ones.

Did the editors fear upsetting their new owner with balanced stories on circumcision? If so, this is no shame to Mr. Zell. But it reflects quite poorly on the editors who did not publish accurately or fairly on this matter.

The film “Cut” will be shown this coming Tuesday at the West Side JCC. I have to say that the crowd I met downtown at this film was sympathetic to a large extent. I wonder if the JCC crowd will be hostile…

Anyway, if you are around, it is an excellent movie on what for me, at least, was a very difficult issue for a long time. I became troubled by circumcision even while still in a haredi yeshiva, because of the commentaries I read on the subject. They suggest similar effects of male circumcision that are given for performing some forms of FGM on girls. Which makes sense. Some forms are quite similar. It was shocking to me to read these arguments absolutely in line with our sages on anti-circumcision sites years later, and infuriating to then see so many in the Jewish community denounce these people as liars, frauds, and “anti-Semites,” even though they are often in-line with our own texts. But I no longer expect honesty from the Jewish community, and I have come to peace that I can’t expect to find a solution within Judaism. Once you stop trying to resolve both worlds, it gets a little easier. Everything stops hurting quite as much. It still hurts, but not with the same urgency.

My review of the film is here on Jewschool. There is apparently a quote from it on the DVD back cover.

Wow, that’s so cool!

BP’s research, first reported on The Kvetcher, into the Hammerman rabbi/nudnik has been publicized by Jewdar on Heebmagazine.com, along with other info about the Hammerman/Rosenblatt alliance. Hammerman really is a sick puppy. So of course, Stupid Federation Newspaper has crowned him an expert on the internet because….well, no idea, really.

What did BP uncover? Oh, nothing. Just this:

“There is no greater primal anger than that caused by seeing another male in carnal contact with your wife, and there is no greater primal envy than that caused by looking down at the person who was brought into the world specifically to be your survivor.”

Hammerman was angry at his son for breastfeeding, and felt circumcising him was an appropriate way to “channel his anger.” But it’s cool — now he and his kid play Anne Frank Trump Card together.

All’s well that ends well.

The BBC reports,

“We will start this campaign with the new born and young men in universities, the army and police.”

While it will be nominally voluntary, correspondents say many in the armed forces will regard it as an order.

Why start with the army in terms of adults? Because once they have to go through it–for the sake of the health of the country of course– they will have less of a problem forcing it on others. That’s my prediction. If it happens, watch the powers that be feign shock.

Earlier: Is the U.N. promoting forced circumcision?

Circumcision is the third most common inpatient procedure in the U.S. And it is rumored to be quite a profitable one. It is absolutely in the hospital industry’s financial interest to find new myths to promote this procedure, and downplay any physiological cost to cutting off healthy parts of an organ.

And in much of Africa, the procedure can be implemented forcibly, and with impunity. And it’s all for saving Africa, of course. Even though it will prove negligible.

And that should cushion prop up falling domestic circ rates, and stave off lawsuits from an era when hospitals didn’t even ask for permission to cut part of a child’s penis off. They just did it. Kind of like how it will be in much of Africa now.

Listen to this Jew explain that only a vaccine will stop AIDS, and proceed to call for circumcision for every male in every country possible. Like him and his son Avi.

It seems the U.N., in its quest to have Africa in its entirety circumcised (because it helps prevent AIDS much, much less than condoms do), is relying on methods that seem not-so-voluntary. Not so voluntary at all.

afrol News reports,

The government has planned to train enough medical personnel for the operation and that uniformed men - police, soldiers and students - will be the first to be circumcised.

And what if they don’t want to be circumcised? Does this affect their job security? Does this affect their financial aid for schooling? What happens if they refuse to be circumcised?

This is just weirder than hell.

The Forward reports,

According to [Emily] Blake and Shoulson, non-Jews make up between 2% and 5% of their clientele. Some, like the DeCaros, are motivated initially by practical circumstances, but others seem drawn to the mohels for spiritual reasons, if not explicitly religious ones. Both Blake and Sherman have even been approached by “Torah-observant Christians� — those dedicated to observing Old Testament commandments — seeking to have their sons circumcised on the eighth day after the birth. In all cases, families say they are drawn to the intimacy and convenience of a nonritual circumcision performed at home.

Far-right Christians were traditionally one of the most important proponents for establishing routine neonatal circumcision.

Guess which other religious group was?

But fortunately, that kind of conflation of religion and health isn’t actively being pushed by Jews.

“Manhattan pediatrician Susan Levitsky makes a point of recommending non-Jewish patients to mohels. Levitsky said she’s been passing out Sherman’s number more often these days, because concerns over hospital-bred infections are rising. “Why would you want to be around an environment with germs?� she asked.�

Hey Susan, have you considered recommending that your non-Jewish patients don’t cut their baby in the first place? Cause there is no such mitzvah for the gentiles to do so, even if you are Reform

“As a former obstetrician/gynecologist, [Emily] Blake said she saw her work as a commitment to her patients as well as to her own faith. “I feel a calling to be a mohel; I feel a calling to do God’s work on Earth,� she told the Forward. “But I feel a human calling to do a good job for anyone I’m doing a surgery for.�

Isn’t it so lovely that there are some gentiles as well as Jews who get all spiritual and ecumenical when it comes to slicing off parts of the baby’s penis?

Ahhhhhhhhhh.

It’s Chanukah! What better time for an anti-circ rant?

According to Reuters, circumcision does not appear to help prevent AIDS in American men.

Black and Latino men were just as likely to become infected with the AIDS virus whether they were circumcised or not, Greg Millett of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

The Australian Medical Association has backed a proposed law banning “non-essential� circumcision.

This is ominous for the domestic pro-circ camp who are hoping that the AAP will reinstate a preference for routine circumcision in the U.S. I don’t believe they will do so, and predict they may even switch to a slightly negative bias.

The proposed ban does not cover religious circumcisions. But really, ritual circumcisions should not be provided by any hospital once it is accepted that this is not medically essential. It isn’t their place to provide surgical procedures that are harmful to a child. And circumcision harms. That’s why the Aussie docs are backing a ban.

The film “Cut� is now available on DVD. It’s a great movie, and apparently, a quote from my review on Jewschool is on the back of the package.

One of the problems with addressing circumcision is that we Jews can’t separate it from Judaism, and concurrently attempt to address a solution even as we grapple with what circumcision really is. I think we need to first approach these issues separately before attempting to negotiate the contradiction.