In May 2007 a small group of religious leaders met in the E.U. headquarters in Brussels with the three most significant leaders of Europe: Angela Merkel, German Chancellor and at the time president of the European Council; Jose-Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission; and Hans-Gert Pöttering, President of the European Parliament.
The meeting was one of those semiformal occasions at which little is said, and a great deal of time taken in saying it. Concerned at the return of anti-Semitism to Europe within living memory of the Holocaust, I decided that the time had come to break protocol and speak plainly, even bluntly.
I gave the shortest speech of my life. Sitting directly opposite the three leaders, I said this: "Jews and Europe go back a long way. The experience of Jews in Europe has added several words to the human vocabulary -- words like expulsion, public disputation, forced conversion, inquisition, auto-da-fe, blood libel, ghetto and pogrom, without even mentioning the word Holocaust. That is the past. My concern is with the future. Today the Jews of Europe are asking whether there is a future for Jews in Europe, and that should concern you, the leaders of Europe."
It took less than a minute, and after it there was a shocked silence. We adjourned for lunch, and over it Angela Merkel asked, "What would you like me to do, Chief Rabbi?" I did not have an easy answer for her then. I do now. It is: reverse immediately the decision of the Cologne court that renders Jewish parents who give their son a brit milah, even if performed in hospital by a qualified doctor, liable to prosecution.
It is hard to think of a more appalling decision. Did the court know that circumcision is the most ancient ritual in the history of Judaism, dating back almost 4,000 years to the days of Abraham? Did it know that Spinoza, not religious but together with John Locke the father of European liberalism, wrote that brit milah in and of itself had the power to sustain Jewish identity through the centuries?
Did it know that banning milah was the route chosen by two of the worst enemies the Jewish people ever had, the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV and the Roman emperor Hadrian, both of whom set out to extinguish not only Jews but also Judaism? Either the court knew these things or it did not. If it did not, then how was it competent to assess the claim of religious liberty? If it did, then there are judges in Germany quite willing to say to religious Jews, in effect, "If you don't like it, leave." Do judges in Cologne today really not know what happened the last time Germany went down that road?
The case -- like the banning of shechitah (ritual animal slaughter) by the Dutch parliament, now thankfully reversed -- illustrates the deep difficulty Jews are facing in Europe today. Both cases initially had nothing to do with Jews. They were directed predominantly against Muslims, whose population vastly outnumbers that of Jews in almost every country in Europe. They are part of the backlash against the misguided policy, adopted by most European countries in the 1970s, known as multiculturalism. This was meant to promote tolerance. Its effect was precisely the opposite. It encouraged segregation of ethnic minorities, not integration, and instead of getting people to ignore differences it made an issue of them at every stage.
The Muslim communities of Europe have been in the frontline of both the policy and its discontents. The result has been that in Germany the court, and in Holland the Parliament, have sought to ban a Muslim practice, while the Jewish community has suffered collateral damage in both places.
That is part of the problem but not all of it. I have argued for some years that an assault on Jewish life always needs justification by the highest source of authority in the culture at any given age. Throughout the Middle Ages the highest authority in Europe was the Church. Hence anti-Semitism took the form of Christian anti-Judaism.
In the post-enlightenment Europe of the 19th century the highest authority was no longer the Church. Instead it was science. Thus was born racial anti-Semitism, based on two disciplines regarded as science in their day: the "scientific study of race" and the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer and Ernst Haeckel. Today we know that both of these were pseudo-sciences, but in their day they were endorsed by some of the leading figures of the age.
Since Hiroshima and the Holocaust, science no longer holds its pristine place as the highest moral authority. Instead, that role is taken by human rights. It follows that any assault on Jewish life -- on Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state -- must be cast in the language of human rights. Hence the by-now routine accusation that Israel has committed the five cardinal sins against human rights: racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, attempted genocide and crimes against humanity. This is not because the people making these accusations seriously believe them -- some do, some don't. It is because this is the only form in which an assault on Jews can be stated today.
That is what the court in Cologne has done. It has declared that circumcision is an assault on the rights of the child since it is performed without his consent. It ignored the fact that if this is true, teaching children to speak German, sending them to school and vaccinating them against illness are all assaults against the rights of the child since they are done without consent. The court's judgment was tendentious, foolish and has set a dangerous precedent.
In historical context, however, it is far worse. By ruling that religious Jews performing their most ancient sacred ritual are abusing the rights of the child, a German court has just invented a new form of Blood Libel perfectly designed for the 21st century. Chancellor Merkel, the answer to your question, "What would you like me to do?" is simple. Ensure that this ruling is overturned, for the sake of religious freedom and the moral reputation of Germany.
Originally published in the Jerusalem Post.
Georgette Bennett, Ph.D.: Jesus Christ Superstar Resurrected
That's not anti-semitism, which is just a word wused to avoid the real issue. Jewish behavior and other people's right to protect themselves against it.
Now this is the most irrational thing I have read lately.
How can you compare chopping off parts of people without their consent with teaching them a language ?
Nobody stops you teaching your children your beliefs (similar to teaching them a language, isn't it ?). Nobody stops them from having their own parts chopped once they're past the age of consent. Nobody stops you from caring for their health as best you can, although they have to think about what's best for a society, and an epidemic is obviously not it, hence the vaccinations.
But you will be stopped from non-reversible practices if you don't have the victim's consent. Let them have the circumcision later. They won't be less Jewish for it. If you want to live in a community, it's not only the community who has to compromise. You must compromise as well, or move to a country where your practices aren't against the law.
If your religion would require the beheading of 10 victims each year, would you expect any civilized country to condone it ? Obviously yes, since it's all about religion, isn't it ?
Or are you regretting your own circumcision and are trying to convince yourself that somehow you're better than others by missing part of your penis ? LOL !
Being uncut is NORMAL and NATURAL for a man used to soap an water. If you prefer not to wash, that's your business.
Also, if circumcision improved your sex life, that means you didn't get one as a baby, without being asked if you want it, but as an adult who made his own choice.
If you like piercings for example and they improved YOUR life, why force them on infants ? Tell them how good piercings are when they're ADULTS.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/papua-new-guinea-cannibals_n_1670688.html?utm_hp_ref=world
"We adjourned for lunch, and over it Angela Merkel asked, "What would you like me to do, Chief Rabbi?" I did not have an easy answer for her then. I do now. It is: reverse immediately the decision of the Cologne court (...)"
I am appalled, dear Rabbi, by the enormity of your claim.
Do you really expect the chief of state, representative of the executive power, to reverse the ruling of a legal court and therefore interfere with the judicial power? In a democratic country?
That's corruption.
You have scant respect for the values of democracy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/germany-promises-freedom-circumcision-_n_1671775.html
Physical alterations that cannot be fully undone, cause actual detriment and only have religious reasoning (there is no medical reasoning, unless the child has some specific circumstance like phimosis) that the child may or may not subscribe to later in life do not really qualify.
That something is cultural and religious is not enough of a reason when the issue at hand involves painful physical alterations that cannot be reversed and do actual damage.
I'm sure that "some studies" would show that female circumcision is a good thing........for someone........certainly not the girl.
Decent hygiene eliminates any medical advantage to circumcision.
But you already know that.
http://www.cirp.org/library/anthropology/bell1/
http://historyofcircumcision.net/images/stories/resources/rd-rose07.pdf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/germany-promises-freedom-circumcision-_n_1671775.html
And how do you determine that it is health and not religious?
And what happens when it is for BOTH reasons?
By visiting a pediatrician. The magic words: medical indication.
Problem solved.
These actions do not physically harm the child in an irreversible way, as does circumcision.
It is not that something is without the consent of the child, exactly. It is that it is permanent and restricts the eventual adult.
Really?! The executive branch interfering with the legislative? Just like that? We had that, way back. Thankfully there's a constitution in Germany now that would prevent that.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/traditional-circumcision-raises-risk-of-infection-study-shows-1.258882
"Circumcision as performed by mohels, men whose profession is performing the Jewish ritual of brit milah, leads to a high rate of urinary tract infections among babies, according to a report released recently by physicians at Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petah Tikva."
"...they found urinary tract infections to be far more common among babies who had undergone circumcision by a mohel rather than a physician."
oops.
I guess who wrote that law must had miss the Germany of the late 30s to mid 40s
The court works with the 1949 german constitution.
Much of his logic is just poor: "Bad people tried to do the same thing; therefore it is bad." "Because prior standards that are now disavowed were used to justify similar things, we must assume that the standard by which this is justified will one day be disavowed." "If cutting the genitals of infants is wrong, then teaching children to speak must be wrong as well."
Parts of this article are truly, remarkably bad.
The real argument here is between the rights of individuals and the 'rights' of communities.
There is no real advantage in Europe for a male child to be circumcised (as opposed to being taught to speak German or being immunized against disease, Rabbi Sachs' contrary suggestions notwithstanding). The effect of circumcision on a Jewish child in Europe is to bind him to the Jewish community, strengthening and perpetuating the community.
Does a community have the right to perpetuate its continued existence as a distinct community, even to the point of mutilating its children? That is what the Rabbi is really arguing.