{"id":901,"date":"2014-02-06T23:21:09","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T23:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/?p=901"},"modified":"2014-02-06T23:36:32","modified_gmt":"2014-02-06T23:36:32","slug":"jewish-intactivist-writers-published-in-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/index.php\/news\/jewish-intactivist-writers-published-in-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish Intactivist Writers Published In Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Update on the Jewish Intactivist Movement in Israel<\/h5>\n
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\"Kahal,<\/a><\/p>\n

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Kahal<\/a>, a community group for Israeli parents with intact sons is active and counts thousands of Israeli Jews among it’s members.<\/div>\n
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Intactivism\u2014the movement to end circumcision\u2014continues to win social acceptance worldwide, including in the Jewish state of Israel. Jews in the holy land are increasingly open to questioning circumcision, much more so than in the United States. In recent years, Jewish Intactivists have published articles and essays in some of Israel\u2019s largest papers including\u00a0Haaretz<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(Israel\u2019s largest and most influential daily paper),\u00a0927mag<\/span><\/a>, and the\u00a0Jerusalem Post<\/span><\/a>. A variety of active Intactivist groups such as\u00a0Gonnen (Protect the Child)<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0The Israeli Organization Against Genital Mutilation<\/span><\/a>\/Intact Son, and\u00a0Kahal (a community group for parents of intact sons)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0have sprung up. The leaders of Kahal say that thousands of Israeli Jews are choosing to keep their sons intact.<\/p>\n

We are Jews who are proud of our heritage and religion, and who see a need to make adjustments to protect the well-being of babies. Judaism is a religion of\u00a0constant evolution and ethical advancement<\/span><\/a>. Early in Judaism animal sacrifice was abandoned, and Rabbis chose to abolish capital punishment. Many Jews and Israelis recognize that it is time that circumcision shift into a symbolic ritual such as the well-popularized\u00a0Brit Shalom<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0Over 100 Rabbis<\/span><\/a>\u00a0are willing to do a Bris ceremony without circumcision, and this includes some Rabbis in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a Jewish filmmaker and I have been invited by the Council of Europe to its Parliamentary Assembly next week. By screening my television documentary\u00a0It\u2019s a Boy!<\/span><\/a>\u00a0For European parliamentarians I aim to help shore up their commitment to protection of children\u2019s right to physical integrity \u2013 a key step toward ending ritual circumcision of boys\u2026.From a very young age attending Jewish schools my personal preoccupation was the Jewish thirst for justice and our empathy for suffering. Tsa\u2019ar ba\u2019alei chayim, the Jewish injunction to heed the distress of living beings, became the wellspring of the filmmaking I\u2019m most proud of, including films about Israeli society, its past, present and future.\u2026Had I known such facts earlier, my son would have remained intact, as is the case with increasing numbers of Jewish boys today, including thousands in Israel\u2026 Parents like me know from our remorse that it was wrong to make such an irreversible, painful and dangerous decision for our children. We owed our children protection, and we owe it to our communities not to be silenced when we have erred as parents. \u2026boys from all backgrounds need the protection of the rule of law \u2013 secular law \u2013 wherever they may live. The necessity for this now in Israel is obvious. To deprive children of Jewish and Muslim descent in any country of full legal protection because of their lineage amounts to a most perverse kind of prejudice against those children. As for any attempt by real anti-Semites to latch onto this issue, that would be denounced publicly. But then real anti-Semites are not usually the people keen to protect Jewish children from harm, and real anti-Semites would probably like nothing better than continuance of a practice that stokes anti-Jewish feelings and for generation after generation inflicts suffering on Jewish boys. Children\u2019s right to physical integrity should be what Israeli parliamentarians defend \u2013 rather than a brutal anachronism.\u201d
\nVictor Shoenfeld,\u00a0Circumcision \u2013 defending the indefensible<\/span><\/a>, Jerusalem Post, 01\/22\/2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a small but growing movement of Jewish parents who reject ritual circumcision, and I think it\u2019s going to spread fast because they\u2019re saying out loud what so many Jewish parents are thinking: \u2018Why?\u2019 And this, I believe, is the best answer to the problem: Stand up for your kid and say no. If you fear and abhor the ritual, don\u2019t let anyone perform it on him. He\u2019ll still be Jewish if you raise him Jewish \u2013 whatever anyone says.\u201d
\nLarry Derfner,\u00a0Stand up for your son: Say \u2018no\u2019 to ritual circumcision<\/span><\/a>, 972mag (Israel), June 29, 2012.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHard though it may be to hear, irreversibly removing a healthy body part \u2013 in this case, part of a boy\u2019s genitals \u2013 without consent, violates a person\u2019s right to bodily integrity, a cornerstone of post-Holocaust human rights law. It also undermines that child\u2019s right to an open future….
\nSupporters of circumcision also say it\u2019s an ancient, meaningful practice. But neither longevity nor meaning is usually accepted as sufficient moral justification to override individual rights. As one Orthodox Jewish father, Elie Jesner, puts it, \u201cMankind has been doing horrendous things for thousands of years: slavery, capital punishment, condemning homosexuals, oppressing women. That is not a club of actions I want to be part of.\u201d
\nFrom a Jewish perspective, there are other issues. First, circumcision does not confer Jewish status. As Shaye Cohen, professor of Hebrew literature and philosophy at Harvard University, explains, \u201cMale and female offspring of a Jewish mother are Jewish by birth under Jewish law; the male offspring are Jewish by birth even if they are left uncircumcised.\u201d Second, biblical circumcision was not as extensive as today\u2019s variant, which is actually an innovation of rabbis in the Hellenic period trying to stop Jewish men from restoring their foreskins. Evidently, definitional Jewish practices can and have evolved.
\nGiven all of this, it\u2019s not surprising that some Jews are questioning the practice. A 2006 online survey reported in Haaretz found that nearly a third of parents of boys would prefer to forgo circumcision, but have it done primarily for social reasons. Israel is now home to the intact support group\u00a0Kahal<\/span><\/a>, while in the United States,\u00a0Beyond the Bris<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Jews Against Circumcision<\/span><\/a>\u00a0have sprung up.
\nJews who question circumcision from the point of view of human rights and medical ethics should be respected, not demonized. But all critics of circumcision must be vigilant about the company they keep, distancing themselves from anyone not exclusively motivated by child protection. There is no place for anti-Semitic arguments or imagery…
\nMeanwhile, the Council of Europe should stand firm. If it backs down and denies some children their rights because their parents adhere to the Jewish tradition, it would single out only those children for lack of protection. Now that really would be anti-Semitic.
\nDr. Rebecca Steinfeld,\u00a0It cuts both ways: A Jew argues for child rights over religious circumcision<\/span><\/a>, Haaretz (Israel), Nov. 26, 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsraeli circumcision critic Eran Sadeh (featured in the above news broadcast) has been working hard to educate Jewish people in Israel about the downsides to foreskin removal. He is the founder of the Israeli group\u00a0Gonnen Al Hayeled (Protect the Child)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and he is also a\u00a0Beyond the Bris<\/span><\/a>\u00a0contributing writer. There can be no doubt that Sadeh\u2019s advocacy is playing a large role in getting Israeli parents to think critically about this once universally accepted tradition.\u201d
\nCircumcision In Israel Not Taken For Granted Anymore<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0BeyondtheBris.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201dAfter my exposure to the information regarding circumcision, I refuse to mutilate my baby. I don\u2019t have the right and I do not agree! He was born whole and he will stay whole! His integrity is his full right! The Religious Court has no right to do that! No one in the whole world is authorized to force me to mutilate my son, to cut his penis!… In particular, religious oppression, unnecessary cutting of the penis of a helpless baby? A non-reversible surgical operation! A foreskin does not renew itself!
\nThe baby can not express his own will. The right to decide is his alone. It is his body! The right, is not mine, nor anyone else\u2019s in the entire world, but his own only!\u201d
\nElinor, Israeli Mom,\u00a0Jewish Mom Makes Intactivist Case in Israel<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my beloved son was born I didn\u2019t circumcise him. It was an easy and natural step, which I saw as an expression of my existence as a free man.
\nI\u2019m opposed to circumcision, and also have reservations about the use of the term \u2018brit milah\u2019 (\u2018covenant of circumcision\u2019). It involves cutting the infant\u2019s sexual organ, and I am opposed to the cutting of the sexual organs of boys and girls. Until now, I have naturally focused my efforts at persuasion on the population of secular parents. After all, it\u2019s quite strange that people without any religious faith anxiously keep track of every heartbeat of their infant in the womb, run with him to the monitor, sonogram and every possible pregnancy test, guard him carefully from the moment of his birth \u2013 and then hasten to cut his sexual organ.
\nThe \u2018Jewish circumcision,\u2019 however, is performed by a mohel who is not necessarily a doctor, and always without anesthesia. This is an invasive and brutal act \u2013 abuse of a helpless infant, which I am certain will be outlawed in the future… According to Jewish law, a Jew is someone born to a Jewish mother and, according to a more progressive approach, anyone who sees himself as belonging to the Jewish people. There were periods and communities in Jewish history in which circumcision was not practiced \u2013 from the days of ancient Egypt up to the Communist bloc. Moses was opposed to circumcision and didn\u2019t circumcise his son, and the Children of Israel crossed the Jordan into Canaan uncircumcised.
\nCircumcision does not determine that a person is Jewish, and non-circumcision does not determine that a person is not Jewish. So to come and claim that the preservation of Jewish identity rises and falls with the cutting of the sexual organs of infants? That this is the most basic symbol that guarantees the survival of Jewish society? That this is the strongest tie connecting the Jewish people to itself and its God? More than faith? More than the Torah and the Ten Commandments? More than the State of Israel and the Land of Israel?
\nIn light of such groundless claims, both religious and nonreligious Jews should start asking themselves questions.\u201d
\nUri Misgav,\u00a0Let\u2019s talk about circumcision. The idea that Judaism is inextricably linked to circumcision must be challenged and corrected<\/span><\/a>. Haaretz (Israel), Jan. 2, 2014.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update on the Jewish Intactivist Movement in Israel Kahal, a community group for Israeli parents with intact sons is active and counts thousands of Israeli Jews among it’s members. Intactivism\u2014the movement to end circumcision\u2014continues to win social acceptance worldwide, including… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","category-jewish-intactivism","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":911,"href":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions\/911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/circinfosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}