The controversy over efforts by some Germans to ban circumcision has gone from bad to worse in the months since a Cologne court deemed the procedure illegal. Prosecutors have charged two rabbis for carrying out the procedure, though the one who was being investigated for merely saying he would on television is now to be left alone. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed that the country’s parliament will act this fall to ensure that it is legalized, but the discussion this vow has engendered has only complicated matters. That was made plain today when Berlin, one of the country’s 16 states in a federal system as well as Germany’s capital, issued a ruling declaring circumcision legal but only if a doctor performs it. This means that the brit milah ceremony — an integral part of Jewish identity — is still illegal and therefore constitutes a severe abridgement of religious freedom.
As the Associated Press reports, State Justice Minister Thomas Heilman said the measure was meant to allay fears in this “difficult transitional period.” But the refusal to allow circumcisions to go on as they always have under the supervision of Jewish religious leaders and according to traditional ritual is a defeat for those seeking to end this controversy. Though the use of mohels may be protected by national legislation, the Berlin decision may serve as a precedent by which the country as a whole may limit circumcisions and stop their performance under traditional Jewish auspices by mohels. These limits are a victory for those disingenuously arguing that the practice is unsafe, and means future debate in Germany on the issue will be conducted on an uneven playing field for the Jewish community.
The effort to ban circumcisions, which has spooked hospitals throughout the region to ban the procedure, is being represented as a health issue. However, this is a thin veil for the prejudice against minority religions and non-German natives. The rulings affect Muslims as well as Jews, but there’s no escaping the conclusion that a willingness to both limit the practice of Judaism and offend Jewish sensibilities in this manner demonstrate that the rules about anti-Semitism are changing in Germany. Such a decision would have been impossible in the past, because any German judge or official would have feared to be associated with a campaign that reeks of anti-Semitism in the country where the Holocaust was perpetrated. But 67 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Germans, and especially German intellectuals who have bought into the demonization of Israel, have no such compunctions.
It needs to be understood that if the Berlin ruling becomes the national standard for circumcision for all of Germany it will be more than a blow to that country’s post-war tradition of religious tolerance. It will be the end of the revival of Jewish life in Germany. Chancellor Merkel must act quickly to spike this trend and ensure that traditional Jewish practices are protected if she wishes to avoid seeing her nation being labeled as a beachhead for the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe.
"a beachhead for the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe". Not that there needs to be a "beachhead". The Nazi-likes are abounding everywhere in the EU, and they do have a "beachhead" here in the US – San Francisco is one such. But Germany (or should I refer to it as Nazi Germany II) must be made to pay dearly for this assault on the Jews of today. Germany should be at the front lines protecting Jews and Israel.
I think Jewish people may wish to spend their tourism dollars in friendlier places than Germany if the anti-brit fervor persists.
I disagree. It appears to much of the world that some Jewish traditions are now butting up against evolved notions of human rights, such as physical autonomy. Circumcision isn't even really the issue. It is consent of the circumcised to undergo the ritual. Babies clearly cannot consent. Judaism will need to find a way to reconcile this fact with a world in which the individual is considered an autonomous decision maker as to his own belief and participation in religious ritual – especially one that permanently changes his body.
Tried and true for 3000 years. I do not know of any such a complete and proven clinical test. As an enlisted man in the service 65 years ago, I encountered many young Christian men who wanted a circumcision and many did get it. They were happy to get it and only wished that they had gotten it in their infancy. Let's get over this garbage about "human rights". That is just so much BS. Dangerous BS. Really out and out clearly anti-Semitic. Go away you Nazi liars.
as I said in a comment on Commentary not long ago and as supported by American pediatricians, circumcision favors the health of men and boys. Simply put, dirt and germs accumulate inside the foreskin of the uncircumcised. But it has long been a German prejudice –also held by Kant & Hegel– that Jews are inferior in science, reason and progress.
Aw, will you please drop the Jewish persecution BS already. n nWhere, exactly, is the evidence Germans currently regard Germans as "inferior in science, reason and progress?" I am sure the comments about Kant and Hegel are legitimate but we are living in the year 2012 after all. I am not German but I do live here,and I can assure you that there is no attempt to sweep the Holocaust under the carpet over here. Walk around in the Frankfurt area and you will find no shortage of memorial plaques, museums, inscriptions etc. of what happened to the Jewish-German population during WW II. n nBTW, I assure you (from personal experience, grin) that the health argument in favor of male circumcision is bogus. Normal hygiene easily solves the problem. I note some adult males in sub-saharan Africa opt for voluntary circumcision e.g. because they think it reduces the risk of AIDS. Which is perfectly fine, of course … I just do not think it is right to make this decision for infant children as it does affect how males experience sex as adults later on in life. n n n
Thanks @MC_HIV. n nThe hysterical reaction in this forum is just disgusting. n nNOTHING prevents adult Muslims or Jews from mutilating their own genitals if they wish! However, this is the kind of decision that should be made by each individual. The secular laws of the land apply to everybody regardless of religious faith. Same story with the ritual sacrifice of animals: if you must do it, then you have to follow the laws regarding cruel treatment of animals. n nSo called "religious freedom" does not trump all other rights. To take one absurd example, some religions used to sacrifice children too. By the same logic, followers of Mayan cults should be allowed to execute their children as well! Or what about Pharaonic circumcision (i.e. complete removal of all external genitals) of girls, which is practiced in sub-Saharan Africa on religious grounds?
Yeah, that's what they said in the Soviet Union about teaching religion to impressionable children who could neither consent nor evaluate the information. And that's why the good of humanity required lengthy work camp sentences for any parent, teacher or other adult who endangered the public in that manner. n nEvolving standards should also require us to lock people up for conducting ritual slaughter (even though it causes no more pain to the animal, and perhaps less, than stunning), eating kosher meat, refusing to ordain women, sitting men and women separately at religious services, not allowing women to nurse in front of men without covering themselves, teaching that some religious status is hereditary, or believing that there are differences in religious status between some peoples and others. Not that we have anything against Jews or Judaism per se, mind you, but only because the world has evolved to the point that it can no longer afford to tolerate such backward notions. Right, Marcus?
ahadhaamoratsim, n nMost of the examples you cite are just red herrings. Ritual slaughter of animals without stunning is not OK at all in my book, but most European nations nonetheless allow the practice. The remaining part o your message is a total non issue … what you (or the Muslims) do in your temples of worship is not of any interest. E.g. the role of women in your religious rites is your internal business. Can you cite any examples of secular GOVERNMENTS forcing Jews to accept e.g. female rabbis?
Not yet, but there are those who would like to see it happen. What is total BS is your fantasisies about circumcision and ritual slaughter, and your theory that anti-Jeiwsh animus has nothing to do with the widespread acceptance of those fantasies in Europe.
It is amazing that Jewish families feel the need to live in Germany, the crucible of anti-Semitism in modern times. We are just shy of seventy years since this cataclysmic event and the innate anti-Semitism is clearly rearing its ugly head. The ground of Germany and so many European countries are soaked in Jewish blood. Thank God for the United States!
I'm not sure Germany demonstrated that it ever truly understood the horror of the Holocaust. I don't want to imply that Germans didn't regret it, but the regret emerged alongside a leprous image requiring a clacker. And current generation has only so much solidarity it can or will offer to the victims of a generation that has almost completely passed away. n nAnd so I think of Arend't Banality of Evil. When banality isn't possible, what remains is straight forward admission of guilt and a pledge (spoken once, not palliated through repetition) of vigilance. n nMy brother and I were talking about taking out Iran's capabilities on Sunday and when I told him of the circumcision ban he looked at me as if to ask if I was kidding and then gasped.
Look at the majority German opinion on Greece, a fellow European country. Most want Greece out of the eurozone and don't want to give a pfennig to help the Greeks who are suffering economically. There is common feeling or urge in Germany that the Greeks and other southern Europeans, less successful than the Germans, ought to be punished. Thus the Germans forget how lenient and generous the WW2 victors were with them after the war. They got $15 billion of Marshall Plan aid, part of it deemed to be loans. But the loans were mainly forgiven and the money paid back on the remaining loans stayed in Germany to help Germany as "counterpart" funds. The post-war German economic miracle was based Marshall Plan billions when a billion was still a big amount, not just on German hard work. So it seems that their harsh attitude to other Europeans is unjustified. Now if they want to be harsh toward other Euros, what can their attitude be toward us?
My Dad and Mom fled American bombs in WW II, he 17 and she 11. n nFrom the little I know about the work ethic of Germans and Italians I can't say they're unequal. Italians are hard workers, my Dad was a stone-cutter and when he died in 2009 he was the last stone-cutter in my area (that would cover many counties). I miss him a lot. n nThere is a natural antipathy between the two that reveals itself between the North and the South of Italy. Several years ago there was a billboard in the North that read "forza Etna." They don't think more highly of the Southern Italians further up the boot and south of Rome. n nItalians are not very good nationalists. They are the way I imagine Israelis would be (or maybe even are) they are happiest when "strawberries bloom," if their existence were not threatened.
Maybe a discouragement to the revival of Jewish life in Germany is not such a bad thing.
Baptism is a health hazard. It must be criminalized. You didn't ask for those babies to be practically drowned. Plus the water might not be sterile. No, I'm afraid Baptism is a barbaric rite of days of yore and the savages who practice it belong in jail.
And yet I am quite sure that Germans support the right of a woman to choose to abort that same child before it is born but not allow that same woman to make decisions for her child after it is born. This is statism at its ugly worst. Also