BERLIN: Metzitzah may break new law

Jewish Light
April 12, 2013

Circumcision ritual under investigation in Berlin

by

BERLIN (JTA) -- Berlin's District Attorney is investigating complaints about a circumcision that took place last month in the German capital.

A spokesperson for the office of the public prosecutors, Martin Steltner, told JTA that several complaints were formally lodged in the past two weeks regarding the March 3 circumcision of the infant son of Berlin Chabad Rabbi Yehudah Teichtal and his wife, Leah Teichtal. The department is looking into the charges and had not yet launched a formal investigation.

News of the investigation comes months after Germany's parliament passed a law protecting the rights of Jews and Muslims to religious circumcision.

The Teichtal circumcision involved mezizah b'peh, an tradition common only in limited Orthodox circles in which blood is sucked orally from the circumcision wound. The practice has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years due to the risk of transmission of viruses to the infant. Prosecutors have not said if Teichtal's son was harmed by the procedure.

Germany's main Jewish newspaper, the weekly Juedische Allgemeine Wochenzeitung, reported that one of the complainants was Christian Bahls, a mathematician from the city of Rostock who heads the Mogis association for victims of sexual abuse and which has a "working group on victims of circumcision."

In an online statement, Bahls said he decided to sue after seeing a video of the circumcision. He said that the new German law did not legalize the practice of mezizah b'peh, but rather required that all circumcisions be performed according to modern medical standards.

Rabbi Teichtal was in Israel and could not be reached before the Sabbath, but the Chabad office in Berlin confirmed that the formal complaints mentioned Teichtal as well as Menachem Fleischman, a well-known mohel in Israel, and the child's maternal grandfather, Rabbi Yochanan Gurary of Holon, Israel.

Some Orthodox communities have adopted the medically recommended use of a glass pipette for the procedure, but this protective measure allegedly was not employed in the recent ceremony.

The case arises against the background of public disapproval of the circumcision rite in Germany. In December, the Bundestag passed a new circumcision law after months of heated debate over efforts to ban the practice.

Gideon Joffe, head of Berlin's Jewish community, issued a statement Friday defending the right to practice traditions handed down over generations. [One can think of many evil traditions handed down over generations until they were stopped. This is the fallacy of Appeal to Antiquity.]

"We were hoping that the new circumcision law would finally restore legal security and that the recent debates, which were very stressful to the Jewish community, were finally over," Joffe said. "The Jewish Community of Berlin is a unified community and members of every denomination should be able to live out their Judaism as they learned it from their parents and grandparents."

Earlier German law story
Earlier NY metztizah story

BERLIN: Majority oppose new circumcision law

Unternehmen-heute.de 22. Dezember 2012 Umfrage: Klare Mehrheit der Deutschen lehnt Beschneidungsgesetz ab von Bernd Seeger Berlin - Das vom Bundestag mit großer Mehrheit beschlossene Gesetz zur Beschneidung von Jungen wird von 70 Prozent der Deutschen abgelehnt. Das ergab eine repräsentative Umfrage des Instituts Infratest dimap im Auftrag des Vereins Mogis (Missbrauchsopfer gegen Internetsperren), die der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung vorliegt. Nur 24 Prozent der Befragten hielten das Gesetz demnach für richtig. Es erlaubt - mit einigen Auflagen - die bestehende Beschneidungspraxis. Im Bundestag hatten sich Mitte des Monats 434 Abgeordnete für die Annahme des Gesetzes entschieden. Für die Meinungsumfrage wurden 1.000 Personen am 18. und 19. Dezember befragt.

Unternehmen-heute.de December 22, 2012 Poll: Clear majority of Germans reject circumcision law by Bernd Seeger Berlin - An infant male circumcision law overwhelmingly adopted by the Bundestag is opposed by 70 percent of Germans. The findings of a representative survey by the institute Infratest dimap on behalf of the Mogis Association (abuse victims against Internet censorship) were presented in the Sunday edition of Frankfurter Allgemeinen. Only 24 percent of respondents considered the law appropriate. It allows - with a few conditions - the existing practice of circumcision. In the Bundestag at the middle of the month 434 MPs had decided to pass the law. In the survey, 1,000 people were questioned on 18 and 19 December. Earlier story

BERLIN: Bundestag legalises circumcision, 100 oppose

Reuters
December 12, 2012

Germany passes law to protect circumcision after outcry

by Madeline Chambers

Protestors in front of the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin REUTERS-Pawel Kopczynski

(Reuters) - German politicians passed a law on Wednesday to protect the right to circumcise infant boys in a show of support for Muslims and Jews angered by a local court ban on the practice in May.

The ban - imposed on the grounds that circumcision amounted to "bodily harm" - triggered an emotional debate over the treatment of Jews and other religious minorities, a sensitive subject in a country still haunted by its Nazi past.

The outcry prompted Germany's centre-right government and opposition parties to draw up legislation confirming the practice was legal - overruling the decision by a court in the western city of Cologne.

The new law passed by an overwhelming majority in Bundestag lower house said the operation could be carried out, as long as parents were informed about the risks.

[Hardly "overwhelming" - the 100 votes against were considerably more than expected.]


[By party: Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU most toed her line; only among the Communsts did most vote to protect children:]


Jewish groups welcomed the move.

"This vote and the strong commitment shown ... to protect this most integral practice of the Jewish religion is a strong message to our community for the continuation and flourishing of Jewish life in Germany," said Moshe Kantor, President of the European Jewish Congress.

Germany's Catholic Bishops Conference said it hoped the bill would help safeguard religious freedoms. No comment was immediately available from the country's Central Council of Muslims.

PAIN MINIMISED

The May ruling centered on the case of a Muslim boy who bled after the procedure [requiring surgery under general anaesthetic and 10 days in hospital] and the ban only applied to the area around Cologne.

But some doctors in other parts of Germany started refusing to carry out circumcisions, saying it was unclear whether they would face prosecution.

Under the new law, a doctor or trained expert must conduct the operation and children must endure as little pain as possible, which means an anesthetic should be used. The procedure cannot take place if there is any doubt about the child's health.

Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said no other country in the world country had made the religious circumcision of boys an offence.

"In our modern and secular state, it is not the job of the state to interfere in children's' upbringing," she said. [Cutting what other body part off is "upbringing"?]

Child welfare group Deutsche Kinderhilfe disagreed, saying the government had "(pushed) through the legalization of the ritual of genital circumcision ... against the advice of child right campaigners and the medical profession." [And against German's Grundgesetz - Basic Law]

BERLIN: 50 Bundestag members against circumcision legalisation

NECN.com
November 12, 2012

German lawmakers want circumcision ban under 14

BERLIN (AP) — Left-wing lawmakers in Germany are threatening to oppose government efforts to keep male infant circumcision legal.

More than 50 lawmakers from three parties are proposing that parents should have to wait until their son is 14 so he can give informed consent for the procedure.

The proposal obtained by The Associated Press on Monday would radically amend a government bill that would give parents the power to decide.

The bill was prompted by a regional court ruling that circumcision could amount to criminal bodily harm. The government has enough votes to pass the bill and defeat amendments.

The June court ruling prompted outrage in Germany's Jewish and Muslim communities. Jews circumcise boys on the 8th day after birth and Muslims usually perform the procedure early in a boy's life.

Earlier story

BERLIN: Muslims, Jews demonstrate for male cutting

Reuters
September 9, 2012

German Jews, Muslims unite to protest against circumcision ban

Berlin, Germany - Hundreds of German Jews and Muslims held a joint rally in Berlin on Sunday demanding that their "freedom of religion" be respected, in a rare show of unity to protest against a court order that banned ritual circumcisions.

The June ruling by a court in Cologne has sparked an emotive debate about religious freedom in a country which is sensitive to any accusations of intolerance because of its Nazi past.

Although the ban applied only to the Cologne region, doctors across the country have refused to carry out operations because of what they say is a risk of legal action.

Some 300 Muslim and Jewish protestors and their supporters gathered together at Berlin's Bebelplatz square, known as the site of the infamous Nazi book burning ceremony.

They waved banners reading "Foreskin? No Thank you", or "Finally, Germany is a colonial power again" against a cartoon image of a boy whose foreskin was the colors of the German flag. Some came wrapped in the Israeli flag.

"We were getting sick and tired of all the heated and incompetent gibberish on circumcisions," Lala Suesskind, the former head of Berlin's Jewish community, told Reuters.

"So today, we want to clarify a few things through our rabbi ... what circumcision really is and what circumcision means to our religion," she added.

...

Berlin last week became the first of Germany's 16 states to protect the practice, saying that doctors could legally circumcise infant boys for religious reasons.

...

Earlier story

BERLIN: Jews denounce conditions of circumcision acceptance

Vosizneias
September 6, 2012

Berlin - German Jews Reject Circumcision Terms

Berlin, Germany - Berlin’s Jewish community denounced on Thursday the city’s rejection of male circumcisions conducted by traditional specialists, saying the restriction was “flagrant interference” in religion.

The city-state of Berlin had announced a day earlier that it would not prosecute doctors conducting the ritual on boys in accordance with ancient Jewish and Muslim practice. But it said a mohel, a professional Jewish circumciser, could not claim the privilege.

The assembly of the city Jewish community passed a unanimous resolution saying, “this is flagrant interference in a Jewish tradition going back more than 3,000 years.”

A mohel is trained in the circumcision of baby boys and must live strictly according to kosher rules. Jewish groups said it would be rare to find a man who is both a mohel and a doctor at the same time.
The city-state said immunity from prosecution would apply on its territory if doctors used painkillers and obtained written parental consent and proof that the family belonged to a Jewish or Muslim community. Two other states said they had set similar conditions.

...

Jews are also concerned that Germany will demand use of a local anaesthetic during circumcision. One of Israel’s two chief rabbis has visited Berlin to say that this is not allowed in traditional circumcision.

Germany’s President Joachim Gauck released Thursday a letter to his Israeli counterpart, Shimon Peres, assuring him “the way of life and beliefs of Jews in Germany” needed to be protected. Peres had earlier asked Gauck to intervene and speak up for Jews.

Jewish groups plan a demonstration on Sunday in Berlin with Christian supporters to protest against the restrictions on circumcision. They have appealed to Muslims to also take part.

Muslims in Germany mostly ask doctors to perform circumcisions and have no equivalent of the mohel.

Earlier story

BERLIN: Ritual circumcision conditionally permissible

Haaretz
September 5, 2012

Circumcision declared legal [allowable] in first of 16 German states

Ruling in Berlin city-state follows recent controversy that erupted when a Cologne court indicted a doctor with inflicting unlawful bodily harm by circumcising a 4-year-old boy.

Infant male circumcision was declared legal Wednesday in one of Germany's 16 states, following weeks of controversy about whether the Jewish and Muslim ritual is a crime or not. [What follows falls short of declaring it legal. It's more like turning a blind eye to it.]

The city-state of Berlin became the first to rule on the issue, saying its prosecutors had beeninstructed not to charge doctors if the boy's parents had consented in writing and proved they were religiously motivated.

...

While Berlin has moved more swiftly than the federal government or the other states to restore the procedure's legality, it has also imposed restrictions on it, including the duty to inform parents about any medical risks.

"If these criteria are fulfilled, circumcision will remain immune from prosecution," the state justice minister, Thomas Heilmann, said. "If medical standards are observed, circumcision at home or in a synagogue is also acceptable."

He said those standards included using all possible means of reducing pain and limiting bleeding. However, only doctors would be legally allowed to perform the procedure.

Heilmann said the state government did not have the power to authorize a mohel, or Jewish person trained in circumcision, to carry out the ritual. He said only the upcoming federal legislation could change that aspect of the law.

Earlier story

BERLIN: Infant ear-piercing goes wrong, charges considered

iol.com
August 31, 2012

Parents may face piercing probe

Berlin - A German couple who filed for damages from a piercing studio where they had the ears of their 3-year-old daughter pierced could face charges of harming her after a court said it might ask police to investigate whether their actions were legal.

The case at a Berlin court could further heat up a debate in Germany about parental consent after a court in the western city of Cologne ruled in June that a doctor had inflicted bodily harm by circumcising a 4-year-old Muslim boy at his parents' request.

A Berlin court approved the parents' demand for 70 euros (88 dollars) in damages for excessive pain inflicted on their daughter during the piercing. But noting the Cologne case, judge Uwe Kett raised the possibility of referring the parents and the piercing artist to the police.

...

[Maybe Romani will claim their culture makes piercing little girls' ears mandatory...]

BERLIN: Jewish hosptial suspends circumcision

Expatica
June 29, 2012

Berlin hospital suspends circumcisions after court ruling

Berlin's Jewish Hospital will suspend circumcisions after a German court ruled this week that performing the procedure on religious grounds is unlawful, a hospital spokesman said Friday.

"We are suspending circumcisions until the legal position is clear," Gerhard Nerlich told AFP, citing head of internal medicine Kirstof Graf.

The hospital performs 300 circumcisions a year, a third of which are for religious reasons and the remainder due to medical concerns.

"We regularly performed circumcisions before this ruling but we don't have the legal freedom to do so any more," said Nerlich, adding that two procedures had already been cancelled.

Earlier on Friday German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle weighed in the debate, saying the country protected religious freedom and traditions.

"The ruling on circumcision has provoked annoyance internationally," Westerwelle wrote on his official Twitter account.

"We have to be clear: religious traditions are protected in Germany," he added.

...

Westerwelle was also quoted in the Bild's online edition on Thursday saying that Germany "is an open and tolerant country where religious freedom is well established and where religious traditions like circumcision as an expression of religious diversity are protected." [Cutting infant male genitals may be "an expression of religious diversity" but it also expresses many other things, none defensible.]
 
Earlier story