A San Francisco man has proposed a ban on circumcision. If such a thing became legal, what would that mean for the Jewish tradition?

The organization Jews Against Circumcision was established to protest what its members believe to be genital mutilation and a procedure that leaves emotional scars as well as physical ones. Unlike the ancient Jewish Hellenists who avoided circumcision or tried to reverse it, these modern opponents of circumcision are not motivated by a desire to fit in to the majority culture. Theirs is an ethical objection. The claim is that the procedure is medically unnecessary and is tantamount to any other form of intentional injury to a defenceless infant. Parents, on their view, should be protectors of their children rather than instruments for their injury.

 

Some Jews defend circumcision on the basis of recent medical reports that link circumcision with a significant decrease in penile and cervical cancer and the transmission of AIDS. But this defence is flimsy. Medical reports seems to change: some years doctors advocate circumcision and in other years dismiss it. Besides, Jewish practice ought not be contingent on current scientific opinion which then gives ultimate authority to external experts in determining how Judaism is to be observed. If, for example, nutritionists claimed that kashrut is unhealthy would Jews then be compelled to abandon kashrut?

 

Interestingly, even those Jews marginally connected with Jewish living still insist on circumcision. It is as much a statement of Jewish identity as it is a mitzvah. So while there will always be some Jews who repudiate circumcision, I do not believe the practice is in jeopardy.

 

The question that you raise is far more significant. Given a climate in which society has taken a special interest in protecting children from pedophiles, corporal punishment, and other abuses, it may come to a point in which legislation may be proposed to prohibit circumcision. In that case, Jews would be faced with the choice of violating civil law or rejecting Jewish law. First, I do not believe that this will ever happen in the United States or Canada. But in jurisdictions where it might, we may take a cue from the answer given by Moses Mendelssohn to the question of what to do after the Prussian government legislated that burial must be delayed until 72 hours after death. Apparently, a funeral was interrupted when the “deceased” demanded to be released from the casket. He had been in a come and not dead but his pulse was imperceptible. Mendelssohn ruled that the government policy be followed in that it had the function of protecting human life. Thus the Jewish imperative to bury within 24 hours was to be set aside. Jewish boys who are not circumcised are still Jews. And circumcision, if not on the eighth day, may be performed later. Should some government pass anti-circumcision laws, those who go uncircumcised could follow civil law and wait until such time that the government changes its view of the Jews affected move elsewhere.