Outraged German Jews slam court for prohibiting circumcision
Community president says ruling marks ‘unprecedented and dramatic interference,’ calls on Bundestag to ensure religious freedom
The district court of Cologne ruled this week that religious circumcision of a child is harmful and that a parent’s jurisdiction over his child does not extend to the practice of circumcision.
Recent years have seen the legality of circumcision called into question, with lobbying wars ensuing between the practice’s proponents and detractors. Jews and Muslims, who consider circumcision an integral part of religion, have fought the increasing onslaught of anti-circumcision activists, who call the religious practice genital mutilation and immoral.
The Cologne ruling, which outlaws circumcision practiced for religious reasons, is a notable beachhead for the anti-circumcision camp. The ruling was sparked by a Muslim doctor’s botched circumcision of a four-year-old boy, who was brought to the emergency room days later, leading the authorities to press charges on the legality of the procedure. The doctor who performed the circumcision was subsequently acquitted because he had acted with the parents’ consent.
After a lower court rejected the suit, Cologne’s district court took up the case, eventually ruling that “The body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision” which “contravenes the interests of the child to decide later on his religious beliefs.” According to the ruling, the rights of a parents to provide for children, and the rights of religious freedom, do not sufficiently justify circumcision, which the court characterized as “minor bodily harm.”
University of Passau’s Holm Putzke, who has opposed circumcision for years, told the Financial Times of Deutschland that the ruling is “enormously important above all for doctors, because it’s the first time that they have legal certainty.” Putzke was referring to the fact that until now, nebulous legislation and numerous legal loopholes have allowed doctors to circumcise children and later claim ignorance of the procedure’s questionable legality.
For their part, Jewish leaders have been outraged, harshly criticizing the landmark ruling and calling it a violation of religious freedom.
Circumcision’s potentially thorny ethics have not dissuaded a large percentage of parents worldwide from circumcising their children immediately after birth. Estimates of the worldwide percentage of males that are circumcised vary, with a World Health Organization survey pegging the number as high as 30%. Though the majority of those are religiously motivated Muslims, a significant minority circumcises for the procedure’s potential health benefits. Strong evidence cited in the World Journal of Urology and other publications has suggested that circumcision in certain cases reduces the risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, though a general consensus about this has been at best mixed.
Bert Said:
Ain’t no cure for stupid.
This is just one price that Jews will now be made to pay for choosing to live in Germany as equal citizens.
It’s DISGUSTING not to allow circumcision. It also goes against G-D’s command.
In America, most baby boys are circumcised.
my comment disappeared. 😛
Looks like this was a 2 fer. Attack against Muslim and Jews in Germany.
So far Western countries including America have gone after Kosher slaughtering, and circumcision. Secular stupid Jews are being attacked directly in every western society camouflaged with high principles and motivations but Judaism is under a frontal attack everywhere and they don’t recognize it because it really doesn’t affect them.
This will continue and I look to see medieval laws reconstituted for censoring the Talmud because it says some very unflattering things about Gentiles.
Circumcision is the first commandment given by G-d to Abraham, the first Jew, and is central to Judaism. Abraham, the father of the Jewish People, had for many years served G-d righteously. Yet it was only after he circumcised himself by G-d’s command at the age of ninety-nine years, that he was able to reach the ultimate level of Biblical perfection of “and you shall be perfect” (Genesis 17:1).
Circumcision is mentioned thirteen times in the Torah, compared to the covenant of the very acceptance of the Torah, which is only mentioned three times. The primary obligation for a Jewish boy’s circumcision falls upon the father. In a case where the father is not present or fails to arrange for the circumcision, the obligation falls upon the Jewish community, and essentially every Jew, to arrange for his circumcision. Once the child reaches Bar Mitzvah he becomes personally obligated to see to it that he is circumcised.
It is written in the Torah: “This is My covenant that you shall observe between Me and you and your children after you, to circumcise your every male. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall become the sign of a covenant between Me and you” (Gen 17:10-11). This is the only commandment of the Torah called “the sign of a covenant” between G-d and the Jewish people. Our Sages say that it is considered the greatest of all the commandments.
Having a baby circumcised by a pediatrician surgeon at the hospital does not fulfill the Biblical requirements of a Jewish ritual circumcision. The obligation still remains to be circumcised ritually. In addition, many physicians utilize various methods and procedures, such as the Gomco clamp that causes unnecessary pain to the child, and is forbidden according to Jewish law.