Friday, August 31, 2012

TEL AVIV: Dissenting voices in Israel

Haaretz (Subscription required)
August 28, 2012

The national consensus on the mutilation of every newborn male

By Eyal Meged  
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It's an irony of fate that the Germans, of all people, are calling us to order in Jewish matters. It's an irony of fate that they are the ones telling us the religious precept, which even complete heretics among us keep without blinking an eye, is a barbaric, primitive act, not to say a violation of the law.

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What disaster would have befallen had the president turned to us, his flock, and asked us to reconsider the automatic sacrifice of every Jewish male on the circumcisers' altar? I too had to go through most of my life and two male sons before I acknowledged the sin of circumcision, which I committed light-headedly.

If we think rationally for one moment, why should the Germans - and the Swiss who followed their lead, or any other Western state - allow a Jewish rabbi to perform a surgical act forbidden to anyone else who isn't a doctor? What chutzpah on our part to ask for ourselves a privilege that is a blatant infraction of the law, which is intended to protect people from various charlatans.

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