Category — Circumcision

In today’s multi-cultural times, we all celebrate the solstice differently. And who is to say that any one way is better than anyone else’s?

The Independent reports,

Hundreds of British schoolgirls are facing the terrifying prospect of female genital mutilation (FGM) over the Christmas holidays as experts warn the practice continues to flourish across the country. Parents typically take their daughters back to their country of origin for FGM during school holidays, but The Independent on Sunday has been told that “cutters” are being flown to the UK to carry out the mutilation at “parties” involving up to 20 girls to save money.

It’s just one after the other.

The facts appear to be as follows:
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What group talks like this about their own ritual? I can’t put my finger on it…but it’s so strangely reminiscent of something in my own community, even though it must surely have nothing in common.

VIN translates,

The birth of a son to a young couple from Israel’s Central Region turned into a string of nightmares when the mohel who performed the bris made a poor incision, causing severe injuries. As a result of the slip the infant had to undergo some ten operations and still requires further treatments.

During the bris the mohel bandaged the organ too tightly, causing excessive pressure. The infant cried all night and the next day. The worried parents called the mohel, who said he would come the next day, but did not arrive. The parents took the baby to the hospital, where doctors discovered how serious the damage was.

The Rishon Letzion Magistrate’s Court recently sentenced the mohel to six months’ community service and a fine of NIS 10,000 ($2,650).

Circumcision is just a little snip. No big whoop.

Hat tip: OTD

It seems our Israeli mass-mohel co-religionists have shown their scientific objectivity once again. Remember, these Jews have no cultural bias at all, and they take counter-points to their position seriously, as doctors should when we considering ablating healthy parts of a person’s body.

David Llewellyn reports,

At one of the last sessions, the speaker from “Operation Abraham,” an Israel-based group that apparently hopes to be engaged to assist the U.S. in circumcising black and Hispanic males, put a photo of an intact male up on the screen. The figure of an elephant had been drawn around the penis so that the intact penis looked like an elephant’s trunk. The words “Yes! A circumcision please!” had been added to the photo. I remonstrated loudly until this smear against intact males was taken down. I then promptly left the session.

Where did this happen? At the CDC sponsored 2009 National HIV Prevention Conference.

Dana Goldstein asks,

Why is it that even as Jews have assimilated and rejected many religious practices, such as strict Kashrut, we continue, as a community, to cling to circumcision?

Does Dana accept any other male-only ritual? Or just the one that involves penis slicing? Like most other Liberal Jewish feminists?

Keep in mind, these are the responses of a woman whose “endorsed” section includes such oh-so-gender-sensitive publications as Feminist Law Professors, Feministe, and Feministing.

Goldstein gives some typical responses.

But there’s also a deep emotional tie to circumcision; a feeling of pride that Jews are physically marked as such — that a Jewish man can never totally escape his Jewishness, because it is inscribed on his body through circumcision. During the Holocaust, this was one way in which Jews were identified by the Nazis. We Jews are rightfully attached to that history. One of my friends, who is studying to become a rabbi, recently told me he considers circumcision the single most important Jewish religious obligation.

Her answers don’t reflect the true answer. The true answer is quite simple.

Jews continue to “cling” to circumcision in such large numbers because the kid can’t refuse. That is the only reason. There is no other reason. If Jewish circumcision were done at age 18 or 21, the circumcision rate for Jews would drop dramatically.

Edgar Schoen: Among a long line of Jewish doctors seeking to circumcise all American boys for dubious reasons

Konner seems inclined to fear Intactivism as something prone to anti-semitism, instead of a reasonable concern about cutting babies’ genitalia.
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The article, “Circumcision: Once Banned for Jews, Now Proposed for Gentiles,” is sloppy and meandering. And yet, it is revealing in terms of how Jews conflate religious bias towards circumcision with health issues.

The expected self-congratulatory tone is salient, overriding.

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The pro-circ defenders — not unheard of in my own community — will often attempt to intimidate intactivists into silence through a myriad of tactics. To express skepticism about circumcision is to invite personal attacks and innuendos upon one’s manhood.

But there is one group who won’t be intimidated into silence about expressing their opinions on all things penis: the queers. And frankly, they probably understand the pragmatic differences between cut vs. intact better than any of us.

The adoption of intactivism by the gay community as a pressing human and child rights issue will present a formidable challenge to the powerful circumcision industry and its lobbies. Whatever dubious (and downright bogus) studies the pro-circ communities will invoke to support continued MGM, the queers will remind everyone that something tangible and valuable is being discarded. And that is, of course, the often overlooked core of the matter.

No serious person can effectively dismiss the gay community’s expertise on all things penis. And no one is going to succeed in getting them to change the general subject.

Hat tip: Male Circumcision and HIV

Not content with slicing and dicing half of Africa, Dr. Inon Schenker, the head of “Operation Abraham,” is coming to the U.S. to promote his panacea for AIDS.

David Wilton writes,

He wants to do it in the name of science despite the inappropriateness of the intervention to the local epidemic and in the name of an unspoken circumcision ideology/colonialism (Israeli and Jewish).

I can’t make it any more stark than that.

Jews should be wary of this kind of Jewish-led push. But they won’t be. Get ready for Jewish media to pop all over themselves in pride that, “Jews have understood that [male] circumcision is healthy for thousands of years!”

How hard is it to really reflect that maybe we have a religious and/or cultural bias on this one? How skeptical do we need to be about corruption with the flimsy and anecdotal data that we are using to “prove” the “need” for universal MGM?

Why is there greater HIV among Black and Hispanic Americans? Because they don’t use condoms, and injection drug use. Therefore, what should the push be? For them to use condoms, and not share needles. Instead, the Jews find any excuse to cut. Just any excuse.