Outlawing Circumcision: Good for the Jews? By Eli Ungar-Sargon

THE FORWARD, THE JEWISH DAILY, MAY 20, 2011
Outlawing Circumcision: Good for the Jews?
By Eli Ungar-Sargon
May 20, 2011
http://www.forward.com/articles/137577/
The Bris on the Ballot
A San Francisco ballot initiative that would outlaw infant circumcision is gaining momentum.

Eli Ungar-Sargon is an independent filmmaker who grew up in an Orthodox home. His first film, “Cut,” was about circumcision and Jewish identity.

The subject of circumcision is often relegated to the realm of jokes and cheeky double-entendres, but a San Francisco ballot initiative now gaining momentum would ban the practice, and it raises some very serious issues. At the heart of the current controversy are three fundamental questions. First, is circumcising an infant wrong? Second, should infant circumcision be against the law? And third, would banning circumcision infringe on the rights of those who practice it as part of their religions?

The answer to the first question is relatively straightforward. Though practiced by Jews for thousands of years and more recently adopted in the United States for its purported health benefits, infant circumcision is an ethically problematic act. By surgically removing the most sensitive part of the penis, we permanently alter a person’s sexual experience and we do so without their consent. The argument that we ought to circumcise babies for health reasons is very weak. Consider an analogous situation: If all women had one breast surgically removed, we could probably reduce the incidence of breast cancer in this country. This is clearly not a sufficient reason to implement such a drastic measure and neither are the claimed health benefits of circumcision.

The answer to the second question is not as clear. Not all ethically problematic behaviors need to be criminalized. For example, sleeping with your wife’s sister may be unethical, but it hardly warrants a law prohibiting the behavior. Proponents of the ballot measure often point out that female circumcision is illegal in the U.S., while male circumcision is practiced routinely. The comparison between female and male circumcision may seem outrageous at first, but upon closer inspection, it is actually reasonable. Female circumcision is an umbrella term that refers to a variety of practices, some of which are less severe than male circumcision. Contrary to common belief, most forms of female circumcision do not completely eliminate a woman’s ability to feel sexual pleasure, yet any form of female genital cutting, even something as minor as a ritual nick to the hood of the clitoris, is illegal in the United States. The comparison to female circumcision is useful in so far as it helps to uncover a cultural bias that has yielded a legal double standard in the U.S. But understanding this inconsistency doesn’t get us any closer to answering the second question. The law prohibiting female circumcision might be as unnecessary as the proposed ban on male circumcision.

Nevertheless, one of the state’s primary responsibilities is to protect its citizens. And by allowing parents to permanently alter the bodies of their children, the state is failing to protect its most vulnerable citizens from bodily harm. It seems reasonable to draw a legal line when it comes to body modifications that have life-long consequences.

To answer the third question, I will focus on the Jewish community, as my knowledge of Islam is insufficient to do that community justice. I would argue that a clear majority of American Jews do not circumcise their sons out of a sense of religious obligation, but rather as a means of ethnic identification. These people mostly have it done in the hospital by medical staff rather than a mohel, which, ironically, means that their sons do not and cannot have an actual religious brit milah. Criminalizing circumcision would not infringe on this group’s religious rights, as they are not doing it for religious reasons. But there are religious American Jews who circumcise their boys out of a sense of religious obligation. These Jews can be divided into two groups: the fundamentalists and the non-fundamentalists. The former are a sub-group of Orthodox Jews who believe that our human understanding of ethics should not play a role in shaping Jewish law and practice. A ban on circumcision would indeed infringe on their right to practice their faith as they see fit. The human right to body integrity would, in this instance, override their religious right.

On the other hand, non-fundamentalist Jews, who constitute a very large number of Reform, Conservative, and even some Orthodox Jews, believe that human ethics are an essential element in the Jewish tradition. If my answer to the first question is correct, then there is a Jewish tradition practiced by virtually all Jewish parents today that is morally wrong. This should give pause to any non-fundamentalist religious Jew, and it is a black eye for the liberal movements that they have not taken this issue more seriously. Perhaps a law prohibiting circumcision is just what these Jews need to start a serious discussion about the problem of brit milah.

Eli Ungar-Sargon is an independent filmmaker who grew up in an Orthodox home. His first film, “Cut,” was about circumcision and Jewish identity.
- Outlawing Circumcision: Good for the Jews?
By Eli Ungar-Sargon
The Forward, The Jewish Daily, May 06, 2011, issue of May 20, 2011.
http://www.forward.com/articles/137577/


Rabbi Nathan Segal writes...
'I believe circumcision is a major mistake...The code of the Jewish law is called 'halacha' (the way). Within the Code, there is a provision that if a mother looses a son because of circumcision, she is NOT obligated to circumcise her next son. I extrapolate from this, the inter-connection of my human family, that enough deaths and maiming have occured because of circumcision. Therefore - circumcision is no longer a requisite! Just as we no longer practice the animal sacrifices in the traditional temple, so let us not sacrifice an important piece of our mammal in the temple of tradition. '
- Rabbi Natan Segal, 2007
Rabbi of Shabbos Shul, Marin County, California, U.S.A.
Ordination: 1977 Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi Yeshiva B'nai Or Philadelphia, Pa.

A Jewish mother who kept her son intact writes...
This dynamic site is being created by, for, and about Jewish people. We won't always agree. But we're united by this principle: the genital cutting of infants and children is wrong and must stop, no matter their religion or gender.
http://www.beyondthebris.com/

In Israel, opposition to circumcision has happened in just two decades, and now these 'rebels' number in the tens of thousands, according to Ronit Tamir, founder of Kahal ( http://www.kahal.org ), a support group for parents who choose not to circumcise their children.
- Jewish World, 3/11/10.

'It's a mitzvah to fight to end circumcision!'
- Samuel Richmond, an Intactivist Jew who lives in the U.S.A. http://www.circumstitions.com/Jewish.html

'Coming from a European background... where many Jews reject a brit milla as an archaic and barbaric ritual... This author grew up in France in a traditional Jewish family. Not a single male of her generation or her children's generation within her large family (or in her circle of Jewish friends) was ever circumcised.' - Nelly Karsenty, Humanistic Judaism, 1988; 16(3): 14-20.

A marginal but growing number of Jewish Israelis choose not to circumcise their children, settled a breach of a millenary tradition which places them outside the social consensus and confronts them with their families.
However, in Israel the 'rebels' have happened in two decades of virtual absence to be counted in tens of thousands, said Ronit Tamir, a founder of Kahal, a support group for parents who choose not to circumcise their sons. ( http://www.kahal.org )
Danii Amir was not so clear from the beginning. Circumcised her first son from a previous marriage and was an experience as 'weird and traumatic,' and decided that would be the last.
'I do not think God would create man with something to be settled after eight days,' explains the musician, who describes the atmosphere around circumcision as 'very different from twenty years ago.'
His current wife, Ruth, feels even greater rejection of what he defines as 'barbaric and primitive'. The last thing my maternal instinct tells me is to my newborn son to a man with a knife,' he argues.
New father a few months ago, Ofir also spent the eighth day after birth at home with his girlfriend, away from sharp utensils and blessings of the mohel.
The night before the circumcision ceremony came almost by chance on Internet forums about the Brit Milah and decided to cancel the appointment.
Now he feels he made the right decision: to make his son 'his own body, so it has created a virtual forum,' Gonen Al Hayeled 'to shed light on the Brit Milah.'( http://www.gonen.us )
- Jewish World - March 11, 2010

'Removal of a healthy body part without medical indication has been viewed as being a violation of the Hippocratic oath, falling under the United Nations' definition of genital mutilation. As such circumcision is seen as being against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Declaration on the Rights of the Child.' - Canadian Medical Assocaition Journal, Volume 152, Number 11, Pages 1873-1876,
June 1, 1995.

'The myth is that all Jews circumcise. But in Europe, South America and Israel, as well as here, there are Jews who do not circumcise their sons.' - Dr. Ronald Goldman, Baltimore Jewish Times — May 23, 1997

'Theodor Herzl was one of the most prominent figures who did not circumcise his son, who was born in 1891.' - Dr. Ronald Goldman, Jewish Spectator, Fall 1997

AS AN INCREASING NUMBER OF AMERICANS - including a sizable number of American Jews question the act of male circumcision ( http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org ) , a group of San Francisco activists are advocating to ban circumcision, or what they call male genital mutilation ( http://mgmbill.org/hearing.htm )... Many of the leading activists against circumcision around the country are Jewish... Opponents of male circumcision believe that circumcision not only inflicts tremendous pain on babies, but also causes psychological damage to men, including feelings of anger, distrust and grief. They believe circumcision hinders full sexual satisfaction since the foreskin that is removed during circumcision includes thousands of sensitive nerve endings. ( http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/fleiss.html )
- Jerusalem Post, Challenging the Circumcision Myth, 04/10/2011

'Some families that have opted not to have their sons circumcised are resorting to an alternative ceremony called Brit Shalom -- meaning covenant of peace ( http://www.cirp.org/pages/cultural/kimmel1/ ). This ritual is a baby-naming ceremony done without removing the infant's foreskin, explained Rabbi Adam Chalom of Kol Hadash Humanistic Congregation in Chicago.' - Religion News Service

'an article in the January 1999 British Journal of Urology reported that women who had slept with both circumcised and intact men preferred sex with men who were not circumcised. The article reported that the women achieved orgasm faster, and were more likely to achieve multiple orgasms.' - Michael S. Kimmel, TIKKUN, Volume 16, Number 3, May/June, 2001.
http://www.cirp.org/pages/cultural/kimmel1/

'Also the singer and literary critic Menachem Ben didn’t arrange a Brit Milah for his sons—in spite of his firm belief in God and the Bible. “It is possible to do a Brit Milah at a level specified in the Torah: ‘And you circumcised the foreskin in your heart,’ ” he claims with insistence. “I circumcised my sons my own way, without cutting, by reading verses from the Bible.” - Yediot (Israel)

'as recently as the mid-nineteenth century, in Eastern Europe and Russia there was a widespread move to stop the practice... Led by women--what a surprise!--who thought the practice barbaric and patriarchal, the movement eventually even convinced Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, who refused to allow his own son to be circumcised.' - Michael S. Kimmel, TIKKUN, Volume 16, Number 3,
May/June 2001.
http://www.cirp.org/pages/cultural/kimmel1/

Betty Katz-Sperlich is a Jewish woman living in New Mexico, USA. A registered nurse, she is co-founder of Nurses for the Rights of the Child ( http://www.Nurses.cirp.org ). She refused to circumcise her son, now aged 13.
'I've been called anti-Semitic by non-Jewish people. But as a Jew, how could I not speak up against Jewish circumcision? I would be letting Jewish babies down.'
Jenny Goodman, from north London, also refused to circumcise her son. She is a doctor and a psychotherapist as well as a Jewish feminist ( http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/fourth/goodman.html ). 'I know at least a dozen non-circumcised boys whose parents are identified as Jews,' she says. She adamantly opposes circumcision, claiming that it is physically and psychologically damaging to the child and violates human rights: 'It also violates the most important of medical ethics, above all do no harm.'
Opposition to male circumcision in the UK had its first big breakthrough 18 months ago with the controversial Channel 4 documentary It's a Boy!, by Jewish director Victor Schonfeld. It slammed the practice of Jewish circumcision as unnecessary and barbaric, with potentially horrific consequences. Mr. Schonfeld claims that public consensus against it in the UK is growing.
- Nursing Times, p. 12-13, February 19, 1997

'Nancy Wainer is one such mother. When her son was born 34 years ago, Wainer and her husband had him ritually circumcised. She has regretted it ever since. 'I can still hear his cries,' she said. 'He cried for hours. He was inconsolable.' Now, as a midwife in Massachusetts, Wainer advises mothers to leave their sons' foreskins intact... 'There are ethical questions about forcing an unconsenting person [to be circumcised].' - Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh - May 24, 2007

I should like to suggest to my fellow Jews that perhaps the time has come to redeem the foreskin itself, rather than sacrifice it. Surely some substitute might be found for this rite, ... that would be preferable to this assault upon and mutilation of a newborn infant...'
- Professor George Wald, M.D
Harvard University Professor, Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine
[message edited by Homeopathy International 1 on Mon, 16 May 2011 00:15:36 BST]