Jews will continue to circumcise

Dr. Eli Schussheim

The resolution issued last week by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, suggesting that circumcision is an immoral act, was most likely viewed by the council as the height of enlightenment and progress. That is probably also what Greek King Antiochus IV Epiphanes believed when he classified the Jewish faith as a primitive hindrance to the progress of Hellenistic culture and outlawed circumcision. 

The same is probably true of the Roman Emperor Hadrian who, alongside banning circumcision, also took additional steps to eradicate the Jewish identity. For example, he did away with the name Judea and named the region Syria Palaestina. 

 The communists of the former Soviet Union most likely also believed that the eradication of religion was a most progressive and indispensable step toward the completion of the revolution, having also banned circumcision. It is no coincidence that today we are seeing these three cultures -- the Seleucids, the Romans and the Soviets -- represent not the forefront of progress but rather the essence of primitiveness. If Europe continues to move toward the same kind of circumcision ban, in the future, our Jewish offspring will probably look at the European continent as primitive and dark as well. 

 Another culture that boasts the questionable honor of banning circumcision is, of course, Nazi Germany. The circumcision ban took the form of a military order that was imposed on the Jewish ghettos during the Holocaust. Needless to say, the Jews risked their lives to fulfill this mitzvah in defiance of the order. 

The survivors of the ghettos who live among us can recount how the Nazis went as far as prohibiting births on certain dates, and a woman with a forbidden due date would be compelled to abort. But Jewish women courageously gave birth in the ghetto as well, even on the forbidden dates. 

Though it is possible for a woman to give birth in silence to avoid being detected, you cannot expect a newborn baby to muffle his own cries while being circumcised. Regardless, the Jews of the ghetto did not stop circumcising their sons, while endangering the lives of the baby, his mother and the mohel performing the procedure. Circumcision is simply that important to the Jews. 

History has proven that whatever the European nations decide to do with the European council's resolution, there is no law in the world that can stop the Jews from circumcising their sons. Such a law would simply land all of Europe's Jews in prison. After all, circumcision is a rather intricate mitzvah that 98 percent of Israeli Jews observe. The Council of Europe maintains that circumcision causes bodily harm to a child without his consent, but in fact, it is a precious gift that we give to our children. 

Children do not hold grudges against parents who circumcised them. The proof is the fact that when the time comes, circumcised men circumcise their own sons. There are documented cases, however, of uncircumcised men who have not forgiven their parents for withholding circumcision from them. 

 Next Shabbat we will be reading the Torah portion Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1-17:27), in which God commands Abraham to circumcise himself. This 4,000-year-old circumcision is seen as the birth of the Jewish people. 

The effort to end this tradition, or to discredit it as immoral, is an effort to bring an end to the Jewish people.