Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Circumcision Ritual Generates Controversy
1010 WINS AM ^

Posted on 01/28/2006 7:21:40 PM PST by chet_in_ny

For thousands of years, rabbis performed a simple procedure to cleanse the wound left by a ritual circumcision. Like Boy Scouts treating a snake bite, they quickly sucked blood from the cut and spit it aside, ostensibly disposing of any harmful impurities.

The procedure may seem pure 18th Century, but it is the subject of a clash between religion and science in modern-day New York.

Prompted by a child's death, the state health department is developing its first set of safety guidelines on the ritual of oral suction, which was abandoned by most Jews long ago but survived in a handful of Hasidic communities.

Doctors have long been concerned that the act, called "metzitzah b'peh" in Hebrew, could spread disease, but their argument became urgent last year when New York City health officials said the procedure had given a baby a fatal infection.

The illness was herpes simplex type 1, the common virus transmitted by saliva that causes cold sores. Usually harmless to adults, it can be deadly to newborns.

(Excerpt) Read more at 1010wins.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: New York
KEYWORDS: bris; newyork; ptooey; snipsnip
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141-145 next last
To: Aliska
That should say: "I'm unaware of any religion that explicitly requires radical circumcision, as is customary"

I have mild dyslexia at times..

I could be wrong on that BTW. I'm mainly speaking on what I know of Judaism and Islam, and also not speaking to given interpretations of either, just the basic verses in their scriptures.

41 posted on 01/28/2006 8:25:35 PM PST by AntiGuv (™)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

To: chet_in_ny

This is barbarism veiled as religious custom that exposes innocents, who cannot protect themselves, to the lunacy of moronic zealots who think because they say it is their religion that no one has a right to object.

As I have said in the past these freaks are just a few steps ahead of the islamocrazies. These are of the same ilk as the idiots who stone cars in Israel on the Sabbath and cause riots if their neighbors are not religious enough. If their idiot rabbi said clitorectomy was required in the name of their religion, they would want you to keep out of that business too.

Morons. Scary morons. Thank the lord that they are not in a position to push their idiotic beliefs on those not “chosen”.


42 posted on 01/28/2006 8:28:04 PM PST by US admirer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: AntiGuv

I believe it came about among Arabs and Jews because sand would often get caught underneath the foreskin.


43 posted on 01/28/2006 8:31:03 PM PST by Tevin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Alouette
The Bible requires the procedure to be performed on the 8th day.

If God created man in his own image, did he make a mistake in leaving the foreskin on?

44 posted on 01/28/2006 8:32:36 PM PST by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Izzy Dunne

Yep. We intact fellas are Godlike. :)

(Well, that's what she said anyway. Studies have shown sex with intact men is more pleasurable for women.)


45 posted on 01/28/2006 8:36:17 PM PST by Tevin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: Izzy Dunne
If God created man in his own image, did he make a mistake in leaving the foreskin on?

He didn't with me. I'm happy with the way He designed me, and I'm glad that nobody went wild with a knife when I first arrived in this world.
46 posted on 01/28/2006 8:39:08 PM PST by mkjessup (Thank YOU Jimmy F'in Carter, you chicklet-grinning SOB, for stabbing the Shah of Iran in the back.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: AntiGuv
Truly, I realize all the arguments one way or the other.

I saw a Hungarian film (think it was Hungarian) where it was part of the story; they waited until the child was at or near puberty. Ouch. That was their custom.

I understand your points, but if uncircumcized men aren't scrupulously clean, there is an unpleasant odor.

Christ didn't reverse it. One of the apostles did for gentiles. I think probably the Jewish Christians still practiced it, but then the Jewish Christians started to disappear, why I'm not sure, assimilation, killed, don't know.

I hadn't read about the degree of snipping. That would be of consequence, but then why do it at all? To set them apart with a physical mark is all I can see to it. It isn't easy to discuss this, and has caused minor problems in the family. My daughter had a boy by a man of Cherokee? descent who for a time was raising the other one, and he was upset that the one wasn't circumcized.

I must honestly tell you I don't know what I would do now. When I had my son circumcized, it didn't have anything to do with religion, I signed the paper, my uncircumcized husband (ex now) didn't say anything one way or the other. If it is going to be done, it's better to be done to a baby, but then they should at least use anasthesia.

Looking back on things, you wonder about a lot of things. All or most Muslims are circumcized; no doubt they borrowed that from the Jews they were in contact with at the time; they borrowed other ideas from Christians. Who knows?

I'm horrified by female circumcision which is even worse. It grossed me out so bad when I saw it on tv documentary, I almost fainted and had to turn it off. I'd probably be grossed out by a male circumcision, too.

It's curious if there will be a backlash against the Jews who will refuse to abandon the practice if the medical establishment and public opinion goes further against it.

Just an odd factoid I read somewhere, if a Jewish mother lost two boys due to hemophiliac bleeding (which they didn't know about at the time), the next boy child was granted a reprieve.

47 posted on 01/28/2006 8:40:23 PM PST by Aliska
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

To: Tevin
(Well, that's what she said anyway. Studies have shown sex with intact men is more pleasurable for women.)

I don't know about that, but I have read that men who are circumcized as adults ussually report a reduction in sensitivity afterward. I guess that's not too surprising considering the tissue that's being removed.

48 posted on 01/28/2006 8:44:38 PM PST by elmer fudd
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: AntiGuv
how the custom itself came about is a mystery

When your enemy looks and speaks just like you, it becomes an indentifing mark.

49 posted on 01/28/2006 8:49:46 PM PST by razorback-bert
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Aliska

The reason it was switched among Jews from just snipping the tip to radical circumcision is because Hadrian banned circumcision after the Bar Kokhba rebellion (or maybe after the Kitos War, I forget exactly) and the ban was not lifted until the reign of Marcus Aurelius (if I recall my history correctly).

So, many Jewish men were able to pass themselves off as Hellenic (say in the baths or the gymnasia), because if you didn't get a good look you couldn't tell exactly. The shift to radical circumcision was to ensure that Jewish men could not do that; that there was no way to make it appear as if they were uncut.

As the Byzantine Christians took power and persecuted the Jews even more intensely than had the Romans, the custom became all but universal for the same reasons. So one could not hide it. And that has more or less remained the custom to this day, although there have been periodic movements to go back to the less invasive procedure.

The point of it of course was to seal the covenant of Abraham, and it was not thought that you had to rip the whole prepuce off in order to do that. Even with the shift to radical circumcision it was not a matter of the covenant so much as a cultural move to distinguish the Jewish community from their persecutors.

I don't know the precise history with regard to Islam, though it's worth noting that it's not in the Koran but rather in one of the Hadith, which are alleged sayings of Mohammed (probably made up) not in the Koran.


50 posted on 01/28/2006 8:52:15 PM PST by AntiGuv (™)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Ma3lst0rm

Watch the Catholic bashing, punk.

Of 46,000 American priests, over a 30-year period, less than 1/10 of 1 percent were accused of inappropriate sexual acts with underage people of either sex. Note "accused" (yes, in the firestorm of "bad priests" we have been forced to endure in the last decade, the stories about false accusers who not only recanted their made-up accusations against priests but were convicted for their lies have been lost).

The MSM has convinced many Americans (you among them obviously) that virtually every priest is a molester--past, present or incipient. They have done this to undermine the Catholic Church, of course. Too bad you aren't smart enough to see through it. Say a few rosaries ... and STFU.


51 posted on 01/28/2006 8:52:39 PM PST by John Robertson ( Safe Travel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: elmer fudd

it's a given (I think) that intact men are equipped to enjoy sex more, but as for the woman... a circumcised penis is really no better than a dildo. An intact penis is a whole different animal.


52 posted on 01/28/2006 8:52:42 PM PST by Tevin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: Alouette

Ahhh too bad I missed it! lol


53 posted on 01/28/2006 8:53:17 PM PST by Ma3lst0rm
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: AntiGuv

Interesting. So, are you saying the Romans and Byzantines forced complete circumcision on the Jews?


54 posted on 01/28/2006 8:55:33 PM PST by Tevin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: Jotmo
You need to lay off the "mutilation" and "barbaric" rhetoric you wish to be taken seriously.

The truth hurts. If this was a procedure being done to girls the howls of protest would be deafening.

55 posted on 01/28/2006 8:56:09 PM PST by CzarNicky (The problem with bad ideas is that they seemed like good ideas at the time.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Aliska

PS. As for backlash against Jews, I really rather doubt it. In Europe there's no backlash for that reason, and in Britain where circumcision had become as prevalent as in the United States before the war it's plunged to a trivial 2-3% of births, just Jews and Muslims. But there's no backlash against them it seems to me; people just accept it for what it is.

Even I who am so intensely hostile to it would let that be if it came to it. Yeah, it'd be nice in my view if everyone came to think of it as I do, but I know it won't happen for religious reasons, at least not in my lifetime. What I'd like to see is a process play itself out as in Britain, where once the tide turned the practice plunged to nonexistence except for those groups that have it as a religious tenet.

I'd rather they reinterpret their tenets, personally, but that's for them to decide. For the Jews in particular it would merely require a return to biblical practices, to at least make it a far less radical practice. I would not persecute the groups or anything like that, because that would be replacing one 'wrong' (in my view) with a much greater one.

My intense hostility is reserved for the elective, non-religious practice.


56 posted on 01/28/2006 8:58:05 PM PST by AntiGuv (™)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Tevin
Interesting. So, are you saying the Romans and Byzantines forced complete circumcision on the Jews?

No, not at all, unless you mean in a very roundabout way. The Romans and the Byzantines didn't want the Jews to circumcise themselves, period. It was the Jewish rabbis that advocated complete circumcision so that men would no longer be able to pass as uncircumcised. Back around the time of Christ, many Hellenized Jews actually even used weights to stretch the foreskin a bit, to all but completely erase the appearance of circumcision (which wasn't that hard for them, since there wasn't much cut away). That's what the rabbis and other Jewish community leaders wanted to put an end to. It was a way of preserving the community in the face of persecution.

But it was definitely not imposed by the Romans, except in the sense that it was a response to Roman persecution.

57 posted on 01/28/2006 9:01:26 PM PST by AntiGuv (™)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: mkjessup
He didn't with me. I'm happy with the way He designed me

I was referring to the fact(?) that it's "commanded" to remove a component that was part of the original equipment. Factory defect, or something.

58 posted on 01/28/2006 9:06:07 PM PST by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: Aliska
if a Jewish mother lost two boys due to hemophiliac bleeding (which they didn't know about at the time), the next boy child was granted a reprieve.

Kill two; get one free?

59 posted on 01/28/2006 9:07:30 PM PST by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: chet_in_ny
IMO, the State has no right to regulate/ban a religious ceremony.

Why do you want to change something that God intended to be there in the first place?
Since when Man knows better than God?

60 posted on 01/28/2006 9:08:36 PM PST by danmar ("Reason obeys itself,and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it....... Thomas Paine)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141-145 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson