# Infant genetal mutilation is a blood sacrifice to the demon Yahwe. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 10, 2018, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321 "2018-11-10T20:59:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/341 "2018-11-20T17:54:06Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > No, it’s not common at all, in fact. Foreskin surgical reconstruction isn’t a completely trivial surgery, and more importantly it doesn’t restore the functions lost by circumcision nor solve the sexual problems people might have as a result of circumcision. The dammages done cannot be repaired. So, it’s only useful for people who have a psychological problem with lacking a foreskin and/or want it back for cosmetic reasons. Otherwise, it’s useless and not recommanded. There is reason to have hope for the future though. Scientists have successfully used stem cell regeneration to [grow vaginas](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25399-engineered-vaginas-grown-in-women-for-the-first-time/) and transplant them into girls born without vaginal canals. The women were able to have sex. The Wake Forrest Institute has [regenerated rabbit penises](https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/laboratory-grown-penises-ready-be-tested-humans/), and grafted them onto rabbits. The males were able to achieve erections and ejaculate. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/342 "2018-11-20T18:40:40Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Given that Jews have been persecuted across the globe for millennia with various aspects of Jewish practice banned by temporal authorities and the practice of Judaism still remains strong This (and a lot of the rest of the discussion in this thread) seems to me to be ignoring the elephant in the room: namely, that “the practice of Judaism” in a whole lot of Jewish communities worldwide currently does **not** “remain strong” in the sense of following traditional customs and observing traditional prohibitions. Certainly, halachic practice in most Orthodox communities remains consistent, but the Orthodox in the US, for example, make up only about 10% of all those who identify as Jewish. Many more US Jews are intermarried with non-Jews, and/or describe themselves as having no religious belief or non-Jewish beliefs instead of/in addition to Jewish ones (e.g., the so-called “Jubu” or Jewish-Buddhist syncretic movement), and/or reject halachic rules about permitted foods etc., and/or are assimilated to non-Jewish culture in a lot of other ways. If you’re simply excluding these people from your definition of “Jews”, then okay, your assertion about the continued “practice of Judaism” holds true. But then you have to acknowledge that a substantial majority of people descended from twentieth-century American Jews don’t meet your definition of “Jews”. So I think the assertion, or prediction, that IMC is always going to be crucially important to Jewish identity is kind of begging the question of what Jewish identity **is** , and who gets to claim it and define it. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/343 "2018-11-20T18:40:51Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > The circumcision debate shows, in a microcosm, a very depressing fact of human nature: facts don’t change people’s minds, at least when it comes to “core” beliefs that are a part of someone’s cultural or religious upbringing and instilled into people as children. There’s an absolutely [brilliant cartoon](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe) that elucidates on this. > … > The only person in this thread who appears to have changed their position is Coffeecat, who has now expanded his support of genital cutting to include girls. :eek: > … That’s a great cartoon. But more banally, most of us have seen these facts before, and you aren’t actually telling anyone anything new. Well, it’s new to me to learn that there are men who want to shame and emotionally scar little boys who have been circumcised, in the hope that it might reduce the number of kids being circumcised in the next generation. (Upsetting the friends and relatives and getting free press isn’t worked super-well for the Westboro Baptist Church, if their goal is actually to reduce homosexuality, though. So I hope you aren’t tempted to do that.) But you haven’t presented any new information about circumcision or the damage it causes. Perhaps the reason the only person to change their mind did so in the other direction is because the only new (to me, anyway) facts presented in this thread were presented by senoy, re infant tattoos: > [@senoy](#): > > Copts in Egypt do. They tattoo a small black cross on the right wrist of babies (occasionally on the webbing or back of the hand, but the wrist is most common.) They do it because of kidnappings and forced conversions, particularly among girls. It is unfortunately a not uncommon practice to kidnap young Copt girls and force them to convert and marry Muslim men. Egyptian law makes it illegal for them to convert back if they escape their captors and a cross can be used to identify those trapped in these marriages. In earlier times (and it still seems to happen today to a lesser extent), pre-verbal children were kidnapped and raised within Muslim households as Muslims. Getting a tattoo of a cross shortly after birth prevented such things from happening. The tattoos are also used as security identification within churches as one method to prevent shootings and bombings. It’s typical to get them within a few months of birth. It’s not a religious requirement per se, but it is essentially universally practiced. And Kimstu, re less dramatic forms of FGM in Indonesia: > [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, if you read **rat avatar** ’s linked article, you saw that among the Rendille people of Kenya the practice of fairly drastic FGC is completely typical (though it’s practiced on late adolescent/postadolescent young women getting married, not preadolescent girls) and a source of pride to its subjects, and that its incidence hasn’t decreased between 1996 and 2015, despite international health workers trying to discourage it. > > [FGC in Indonesia](http://theconversation.com/female-genital-cutting-common-in-indonesia-offered-as-part-of-child-delivery-by-birth-clinics-54379) is performed on about half of female infants, AFAICT, and has had steady popular support (and increasing “medicalization” as a routine part of obstetric procedures) despite government efforts to ban it. But note that most forms of FGC practiced in Indonesia are much more minor/symbolic than, say, the clitoridectomy practices among the Rendille, generally involving temporary scraping or pricking that produces no permanent changes in the genitalia. > > Here’s a [WHO Bulletin](http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/4/07-042093/en/) on the prevalence of FGC in Egypt, though it has a lot of information about FGC in other African societies as well. (and several follow-up posts.) ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/344 "2018-11-20T18:45:52Z")
I’ve been thinking of what to do about the objections from the religious folk. Perhaps, from a Utilitarian point of view, it would result in better outcomes to grant a narrow religious exemption from criminal liability. I wouldn’t want any children to die from a botched, back alley circumcision. Here’s what I would do: I would allow children unhappy with their circumcision to sue their parents and/or the person who did the cutting on the day they turn 18. I’d remove any statute of limitations on civil liability, so a child could change his mind at any point his parents are still alive and take them to court. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/345 "2018-11-20T18:50:04Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > This (and a lot of the rest of the discussion in this thread) seems to me to be ignoring the elephant in the room: namely, that “the practice of Judaism” in a whole lot of Jewish communities worldwide currently does **not** “remain strong” in the sense of following traditional customs and observing traditional prohibitions… I’ve been thinking of this, too. I’m one of those Jews who isn’t Orthodox, and doesn’t follow most of Halachah. And yet, I hired some orthodox dude to circumcise my infant son. And I was the godmother who held my friend’s son during his circumcision. I don’t have time to write a meaningful post now, but perhaps later tonight I’ll give it a shot. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/346 "2018-11-20T19:04:59Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Here’s what I would do: I would allow children unhappy with their circumcision to sue their parents and/or the person who did the cutting on the day they turn 18. I’d remove any statute of limitations on civil liability, so a child could change his mind at any point his parents are still alive and take them to court. IANAL, but I don’t understand how this would work if there’s a legal exemption permitting circumcision on religious grounds. If the circumcision was done in good faith out of sincere religious belief, and the physical procedure was competently and correctly performed, I don’t see what grounds there’d be for a lawsuit. AFAICT, children who successfully sue their parents are suing them over things the parents clearly weren’t supposed to do in the first place: abuse, neglect, lack of financial support, and so on. But if religiously-mandated infant circumcision is legal and normal, what’s the plaintiff going to complain of, at least to the extent of persuading a jury to agree with him? The closest analogy I can think of is something like a peanut allergy, where it would be abusive for parents to knowingly feed an allergic child peanuts even though such behavior would be legal and normal for children without such an allergy. Maybe a circumcised son could argue that he was unusually susceptible to the trauma of circumcision, although the practice would be considered legal and normal in most cases (where this religious exception applies), and therefore he is owed compensation for the harm he suffered thereby. But how could anybody make the case that the parents should have known at the time that their infant son was or would be unusually susceptible to circumcision trauma? Family law demands (and rightly so, IMHO) a high standard of conduct from parents, but it doesn’t require them to be soothsayers. ISTM that the parents’ responding that they carried out a legal and customary religious procedure based on their sincere religious convictions without knowing, or having any way of knowing, that their son would consider himself significantly harmed by it in later life would be a sufficient defense against all such claims. (Repeating, though, that IANAL and am not qualified to determine what’s a valid legal argument and what isn’t.) ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/347 "2018-11-20T19:36:49Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I’ve been thinking of this, too. I’m one of those Jews who isn’t Orthodox, and doesn’t follow most of Halachah. And yet, I hired some orthodox dude to circumcise my infant son. And I was the godmother who held my friend’s son during his circumcision. > > I don’t have time to write a meaningful post now, but perhaps later tonight I’ll give it a shot. I’ve been following this thread and keeping quite for a while now but I want to chime in here. It’s because circumcision isn’t just a religious observance for the Jewish people. It’s foundational to the culture. It’s more important than keeping kosher. It’s more important than reading Torah. In many ways male circumcision is the essential element of Judaism. Asking it to stop is asking people to stop being Jewish. Not religiously, but culturally. It’s asking them to abandon who they are and who they have been for 4 millenia. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/348 "2018-11-20T20:05:19Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > It’s because circumcision isn’t just a religious observance for the Jewish people. It’s foundational to the culture. Note, though, that there’s no Constitutional guarantee of “freedom of culture”. If we’re going to make a civil-liberties argument in favor of permitting IMC, then AFAICT it has to be based on the role of the practice in the free exercise of religion, not just cultural identity. > [@NAF1138](#): > > It’s more important than keeping kosher. It’s more important than reading Torah. In many ways male circumcision is the essential element of Judaism. Asking it to stop is asking people to stop being Jewish. Not religiously, but culturally. It’s asking them to abandon who they are and who they have been for 4 millenia. Well, there are many Jewish practices that are nowadays considered less central to Jewish identity than they were historically. There are many children of Jewish fathers who self-identify as Jewish despite not having a Jewish mother, for example, which is also a big no-no halachically. (At least, that’s been true since the early Common Era, when rabbinic definition of Jewish identity emphasized matrilineal over patrilineal descent: another example of a supposedly immutable custom that in fact appears to have changed somewhat over history.) At least one branch of Judaism, Reform Judaism, accepts Jewish father/gentile mother descent as a legitimate form of Jewish identity. As I said, the underlying question is how Jewish identity is defined and who gets to define it. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/349 "2018-11-20T20:24:40Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > It’s because circumcision isn’t just a religious observance for the Jewish people. It’s foundational to the culture. It’s more important than keeping kosher. It’s more important than reading Torah. In many ways male circumcision is the essential element of Judaism. Asking it to stop is asking people to stop being Jewish. Not religiously, but culturally. It’s asking them to abandon who they are and who they have been for 4 millenia. Underline added. As a causal ethnic Jew, I’m shocked at this. We never discussed this in the few years of Jewish religious school I was forced to attend as a child. I’m sure many of you know a whole lot more about the Jewish people then I do, but–with all respect–that seems like a more than the average amount of crazy to base a religion (or culture) on. If I had sons, I wouldn’t have circumcised them, but I would have told them (like I told my daughters) they were “part Jewish.” ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/350 "2018-11-20T20:25:38Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Note, though, that there’s no Constitutional guarantee of “freedom of culture”. If we’re going to make a civil-liberties argument in favor of permitting IMC, then AFAICT it has to be based on the role of the practice in the free exercise of religion, not just cultural identity. > Well, there are many Jewish practices that are nowadays considered less central to Jewish identity than they were historically. There are many children of Jewish fathers who self-identify as Jewish despite not having a Jewish mother, for example, which is also a big no-no halachically. (At least, that’s been true since the early Common Era, when rabbinic definition of Jewish identity emphasized matrilineal over patrilineal descent: another example of a supposedly immutable custom that in fact appears to have changed somewhat over history.) At least one branch of Judaism, Reform Judaism, accepts Jewish father/gentile mother descent as a legitimate form of Jewish identity. > > As I said, the underlying question is how Jewish identity is defined and who gets to define it. Not to nitpick, but you are using the abandonment of a relatively recent practice (matralinial decent) to contrast with circumcision which is one of the most ancient rituals in the religion. Also, matralinial decent is hugely controversial in a lot of ways and, prior to the founding of the state of Israel, was mostly meaningless. I’m not here to argue if my position is correct. I’m just trying to explain why thinking you are going to get Jewish buy in on this ever is wrong headed. And Judaism isn’t a religion that is analogous to Christianity. You can’t disentangle the religion from the culture. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/351 "2018-11-20T20:32:40Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Underline added. As a causal ethnic Jew, I’m shocked at this. We never discussed this in the few years of Jewish religious school I was forced to attend as a child. I’m sure many of you know a whole lot more about the Jewish people then I do, but–with all respect–that seems like a more than the average amount of crazy to base a religion (or culture) on. > > If I had sons, I wouldn’t have circumcised them, but I would have told them (like I told my daughters) they were “part Jewish.” I’m mostly an Atheist, I just happen to be Jewish. It’s who I am, not what I believe. I don’t know how to explain it. I also don’t believe you can be part Jewish anymore than you can be part New Yorker or part Californian, or part Democrat or part Red Sox fan. You are or you aren’t. But that’s a topic for another time. As I said in the previous post, my point was mostly to point out the difficulty of actually persuading practicing Jews that giving up circumcision was ok. It IS the covenant. People are deeply attached to their cultural heritages. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/352 "2018-11-20T20:38:40Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > I’m mostly an Atheist, I just happen to be Jewish. It’s who I am, not what I believe. I don’t know how to explain it. I also don’t believe you can be part Jewish anymore than you can be part New Yorker or part Californian, or part Democrat or part Red Sox fan. You are or you aren’t. But that’s a topic for another time. > > As I said in the previous post, my point was mostly to point out the difficulty of actually persuading practicing Jews that giving up circumcision was ok. It IS the covenant. People are deeply attached to their cultural heritages. I think you can be part Jewish, just as you can be part Native American. If we’re primarily talking culture, why can’t my daughters dance in Pow Wows _and_ celebrate Hanukkah? Why can’t my imaginary sons do whatever ethnic atheist Jewish people do without being circumcised? Melting pot, etc. I’m not disagreeing with you about convincing practicing Jews about any of this. But, as a non-practicing Jew, I doubt there would be much push back from people like me. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/353 "2018-11-20T20:46:14Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > Not to nitpick, but you are using the abandonment of a relatively recent practice (matralinial decent) to contrast with circumcision which is one of the most ancient rituals in the religion. Well, as we’ve been discussing in this thread, it is widely held that the modern form of Jewish circumcision (entire removal of the foreskin instead of just trimming it) is actually not much older than the rule of matrilineal descent. > [@NAF1138](#): > > Also, matralinial decent is hugely controversial in a lot of ways and, prior to the founding of the state of Israel, was mostly meaningless. I’m not sure what you mean by “meaningless” in this context. AFAICT, you seem to be arguing a bit circularly: i.e., any marker of Jewish identity that a significant number of Jews at some point were willing to relinquish can’t have been fundamental to Jewish identity because otherwise they wouldn’t have relinquished it. An alternative explanation, of course, is that Jewish ideas of what was fundamental to Jewish identity changed over time. > [@NAF1138](#): > > And Judaism isn’t a religion that is analogous to Christianity. You can’t disentangle the religion from the culture. Like I said, IANAL. But I am not persuaded, and haven’t heard any lawyer try to argue, that a freedom-of-religion argument on constitutional grounds wouldn’t need to involve, y’know, the actual exercise of religion. How would that even work? _“Your Honor, I request a legal exemption so I can circumcise my non-consenting infant son.”_ “On what grounds?” _“My culture says I have to because my people are commanded by God to circumcise their sons.”_ “So it is your sincere religious conviction that God requires you to circumcise your son?” _“Oh hell no, I’m an atheist, that divine-commandment stuff is all just Bronze Age tribal bullshit.”_ “Oh.” :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/354 "2018-11-20T21:07:24Z")
Kimstu you are placing arguments into my post that I didn’t make. I made no claim to arguing for or against circumcision wrt freedom of religion. I’m only addressing the notion that Jews will willingly give it up, which they won’t. Stuff that is foundational to identity runs deep. I’m happy to talk about all the rest of it including why no one needed to prove their Judaism before the founding of Israel (because who the hell would pretend to be a jew is why) but it all seems to be a digression. Procrustus, I agree, there probably won’t be pushback from people like you. But there will be more pushback than I think you would expect. The half Jewish thing bugs for different reasons. But no one says you can’t exist in more than one culture at a time. I am a Jew, I am from Los Angeles, I am a Dodgers Baseball fan. All these exist simultaneously. None are half. I don’t have a partial identity. One last point on the importance of all this. In order to convert, if you are a man, and you are already circumsiced, you have to get cut again anyway. It’s that important. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/355 "2018-11-20T21:12:03Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > As I said in the previous post, my point was mostly to point out the difficulty of actually persuading practicing Jews that giving up circumcision was ok. It IS the covenant. People are deeply attached to their cultural heritages. Sure, but I think you may be exaggerating the historical unanimity of Jewish opinion on this issue. After all, during the Hellenistic period there was fairly widespread Jewish resistance to circumcision, although of course there was also an opposed school of thought that condemned such heterodoxy, and ultimately prevailed. There have also been controversies on the issue within Judaism more recently. As the [_Jewish Encyclopedia_ notes](http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4391-circumcision): > [@](#): > > During the Babylonian exile the Sabbath and circumcision became the characteristic symbols of Judaism. This seems to be the underlying idea of Isa. lvi. 4: “The eunuchs that keep my Sabbath” still “hold fast by my covenant,” though not having “the sign of the covenant” (Gen. xvii. 11, Hebr.) upon their flesh. Contact with Grecian life, especially at the games of the arena, made this distinction obnoxious to the Hellenists, or antinationalists; and the consequence was their attempt to appear like the Greeks by epispasm (“making themselves foreskins”; I Macc. i. 15; Josephus, “Ant.” xii. 5, § 1; Assumptio Mosis, viii.; I Cor. vii. 18; , Tosef., Shab. xv. 9; Yeb. 72a, b; Yer. Peah i. 16b; Yeb. viii. 9a). All the more did the law-observing Jews defy the edict of Antiochus Epiphanes prohibiting circumcision (I Macc. i. 48, 60; ii. 46); and the Jewish women showed their loyalty to the Law, even at the risk of their lives, by themselves circumcising their sons. > > In order to prevent the obliteration of the “seal of the covenant” on the flesh, as circumcision was henceforth called, the Rabbis, probably after the war of Bar Kokba (see Yeb. l.c.; Gen. R. xlvi.), instituted the “peri’ah” (the laying bare of the glans), without which circumcision was declared to be of no value (Shab. xxx. 6). […] > > The issue between the Zealot and Liberal parties regarding the circumcision of proselytes remained an open one in tannaitic times; R. Joshua asserting that the bath, or baptismal rite, rendered a person a full proselyte without circumcision, as Israel, when receiving the Law, required no initiation other than the purificative bath; while R. Eliezer makes circumcision a condition for the admission ofa proselyte, and declares the baptismal rite to be of no consequence (Yeb. 46a). […] > > Unlike Christian baptism, circumcision, however important it may be, is not a sacrament which gives the Jew his religious character as a Jew. An uncircumcised Jew is a full Jew by birth (Ḥul. 4b; 'Ab. Zarah 27a; Shulḥan 'Aruk, Yoreh De’ah, 264, 1). […] > > After having for centuries been practised as a distinctively Jewish rite, circumcision appeared to many enlightened Jews of modern times to be no longer in keeping with the dictates of a religious truth intended for humanity at large; and its abolition was advocated, and made the shibboleth of the “Friends of Reform” (“Reformfreunde”) in Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1843. […] A bitter controversy raged in the Jewish congregations and press. Samuel Holdheim took sides with the Radical Reformers; David Einhorn, with a number of other rabbis, opposed the merely negative Standpoint of the Frankfurt Reform-Verein, but emphatically indorsed the view that he who disregards the law of circumcision, whatever the motive may be, is nevertheless a Jew, circumcision having no sacramental character. […] > > In 1847 Einhorn, as chief rabbi of Mecklenburg, became involved in a controversy with Franz Delitzsch of Rostock, who denounced him for acting contrary to Jewish law in naming and consecrating an uncircumcised child in the synagogue. Einhorn, in an “opinion,” published a second time in his “Sinai,” 1857, pp. 736 et seq., declared, with references to ancient and modern rabbinical authorities, that a child of Jewish parents was a Jew even if uncircumcised, and retained all the privileges, as well as all the obligations, of a Jew. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/356 "2018-11-20T21:21:05Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > I made no claim to arguing for or against circumcision wrt freedom of religion. No, and I don’t think I said that you did. But elsewhere in this thread we’ve discussed the question of IMC as a freedom-of-religion issue, which is why I brought up the constitutionality argument. And when you pointed out that Judaism doesn’t really separate religion from culture, I wondered what implications that would have for the constitutionality question. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/357 "2018-11-20T21:55:48Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > IANAL, but I don’t understand how this would work if there’s a legal exemption permitting circumcision on religious grounds. If the circumcision was done in good faith out of sincere religious belief, and the physical procedure was competently and correctly performed, I don’t see what grounds there’d be for a lawsuit. > > AFAICT, children who successfully sue their parents are suing them over things the parents clearly weren’t supposed to do in the first place: abuse, neglect, lack of financial support, and so on. But if religiously-mandated infant circumcision is legal and normal, what’s the plaintiff going to complain of, at least to the extent of persuading a jury to agree with him? Okay… maybe a civil tort doesn’t make sense. But how about this requirement: Circumcision Reversal Insurance. With the possibility of true foreskin regeneration on the horizon, some children are going to want their foreskins back. It certainly doesn’t seem fair to me that the child should have to pay out of his own pocket to restore a body part his parents had cut off. You multiply the cost of the surgery by the probability that the child will want it reversed later. If it’s $10,000 and a 10 percent chance, that means an insurance policy would cost a little bit more than $1,000. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/358 "2018-11-20T22:10:12Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > In fact, there’s even “the backfire effect” where people cling even more strongly to their beliefs when presented with opposing information. There’s an area of the brain called the Amygdala, the fear center, that responds when presented with threatening information. This is the same area that activates to physical threats. When the amygdala is activated, the logical reasoning parts of the brain go quiet. You have an amygdala too. Freud and Ayn Rand tried to stand outside the human race and explain and bemoan lesser beings’ irrationalities. They’re not good role models. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Perhaps the reason the only person to change their mind did so in the other direction is because the only new (to me, anyway) facts presented in this thread were presented by senoy, re infant tattoos: I changed my mind because [I did a little research](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/female-genital-mutilation-cutting-anthropologist/389640/) and learned that FGC isn’t something evil men do to oppress women; women who’ve been through it themselves do it to their daughters and granddaughters, and the men largely stay out of it. I think clitoridectomy, excision, and infibulation sound stark raving outrageous, but what’s far worse is our marching into Sub-Saharan Africa like the British in _Things Fall Apart_ and crushing people’s barbaric customs because that’s the white man’s burden. Besides, we’ve already tried it. We helped civilize Africa with colonialism; we helped civilize the American Indians by destroying their languages and cultures; we helped civilize the Australian Aborigines by taking away their children—I think it’s time to stop coercive helping and leave these poor people alone. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/359 "2018-11-20T22:21:47Z")
Fair enough. When my daughter was in pre-school, one of her classmates was an African girl whose family sometimes took her back to Africa. And one day I wondered if she might be from one of the cultures that practice FGM. (Her family came from the general part of Africa where it’s common) And I wondered whether they might do that to her. Then I thought about the girl, who also was somewhat autistic, and obviously had loving parents, and I realized that whether or not they decided to cut her genitals was going to make a lot less difference to her life than an awful lot of other stuff, such as how they dealt with her autism. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321/360 "2018-11-20T22:23:10Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Okay… maybe a civil tort doesn’t make sense. But how about this requirement: Circumcision Reversal Insurance. > > With the possibility of true foreskin regeneration on the horizon, some children are going to want their foreskins back. It certainly doesn’t seem fair to me that the child should have to pay out of his own pocket to restore a body part his parents had cut off. You multiply the cost of the surgery by the probability that the child will want it reversed later. If it’s $10,000 and a 10 percent chance, that means an insurance policy would cost a little bit more than $1,000. Hmmm. But if we’re going to require parents to insure against the possibility that a decision they make for their minor child will later by determined by said child to have been harmful, why restrict that requirement to infant circumcision? Suppose, to take **puzzlegal** ’s example of language acquisition, an adult child decides they were unfairly deprived by not being taught Spanish or Chinese in their youth. Why shouldn’t the parents have to have insurance to cover the costs of remedial language training in that contingency? (I’m trying to decide if I can make a case for having endured a disadvantaged childhood on the grounds that I never got taken to Disney World. Not once.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/infant-genetal-mutilation-is-a-blood-sacrifice-to-the-demon-yahwe/824321.md?page=19)