March 24, 2014
Russian Chief Rabbi calls circumcision opponents anti-Semites
by Sam SokolBUDAPEST- European attempts to ban circumcision and ritual slaughter are outright antisemitism, Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar stated Monday evening. Addressing a conference organized by the Rabbinical Center of Europe, the Chabad hasid blasted efforts to legally proscribe Jewish practices as continuing the work of the Nazis using different methods.
Opponents of the rites, which are currently under attack in several countries, “are trying to fight Judaism,” Lazar averred. “I’d even call them, sadly, anti-Semites.”
“I think that they dress it up in nice clothing but sadly what they are trying to do is again take away Judaism from the Jews. In the Holocaust it was done with force by killing, today they realize that death doesn’t work, they are trying to [attack] our souls.”
The call of the European Rabbinate should be to ensure a circumcision for every Jewish child, the Rabbi continued, calling such an effort the answer to anti-Jewish prejudice.
“I think the call of this conference, the call of our meeting, should be - we will do all that is possible that every Jewish child is going to be circumcised whether they like it or not we are going to fight till the end that not one [Jewish] child in Europe is going to left without circumcision,” Lazar implored the gathered Rabbis.
[So he plans to take the choice away from not only the boys and men, but also their parents? In other words, only he has the right to decide who shall keep all their genitals and who shall not.]
The end goal, he added, is to “rebuild the Jewish community in Europe even stronger than it was before the Holocaust and Communism.”
Since last January both Poland and Denmark have banned ritual slaughter without prior stunning. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in a controversial resolution last October described circumcision as a “violation of the physical integrity of children.” While the resolution carried no legal weight, PACE recommendations carry a great deal of moral weight in Europe and prominent figures in several countries have issued calls to restrict the practice.
