Saudis to Send 2 Women to London Games

Saudi Arabia joins the 20th century: Saudis to Send 2 Women to London Games.

Jewish opposition to bans on circumcision, then and now

I'm glad to see this: European rabbis urge Germany's Jews to defy court ruling on circumcision.

Europe's main Orthodox rabbinical body is urging Jews in Germany to uphold the commandment to circumcise newborn sons, despite a court ruling in Germany that said circumcising young boys could be considered a criminal act.

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said his organization is ready to back Jews in challenging the May ruling by a Cologne district court, which Jewish groups see as symptomatic of a trend across Europe against some Jewish rituals. The group held an emergency meeting this week in Berlin.

Goldschmidt said some lawmakers intending to curb Muslim practices unwittingly outlaw Jewish traditions as well.

"But I don't think that 70 years after the Holocaust a German court would put a parent or a mohel in jail for performing a Jewish religious commandment," Goldschmidt, the chief rabbi of Moscow, told JTA.

There's a long history of Jewish opposition to state prohibitions of circumcision, dating back to the second century BCE. The books of the Maccabees record that one of the mitzvot forbidden by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Greek ruler of Syria-Palestine at the time, was circumcision. Even before that, there were Jews who decided to undo their circumcision in order to assimilate into Greek culture. 1 Maccabees denounces this, as does the book of Jubilees.

1 Maccabees 1:11-15 (based on KJV):

(11) In those days went there out of Israel wicked men, who persuaded many, saying, "Let us go and make a covenant with the heathen that are round about us: for since we departed from them we have had much sorrow." (12) So this device pleased them well. (13) Then certain of the people were so forward herein, that they went to the king, who gave them licence to do after the ordinances of the heathen: (14) Whereupon they built a place of exercise at Jerusalem according to the customs of the heathen: (15) And made themselves uncircumcised, and forsook the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the heathen, and were sold to do mischief.

Here is Antiochus's decree (1 Macc 1:41-49):

(41) Moreover king Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, (42) And every one should leave his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king. (43) Many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed to idols, and profaned the sabbath. (44) For the king had sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah that they should follow the strange laws of the land, (45) And forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the sabbaths and festival days: (46) And pollute the sanctuary and holy people: (47) Set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine's flesh, and unclean beasts: (48) That they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation: (49) To the end they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances.

So according to 1 Maccabees, Antiochus' clear intention was to root out any Jewish practice - observance of the Sabbath, sacrifices in the temple, prohibition of circumcision. He imposed Greek worship in place of the Temple worship. Anyone who transgressed Antiochus's decree was to be killed (1 Macc 1:50).

What were the consequences of this order?

(54) Now the fifteenth day of the month Kislev, in the hundred forty fifth year (of the rule of the Seleucid kings), they set up the abomination of desolation upon the altar, and built idol altars throughout the cities of Judah on every side; (55) And burnt incense at the doors of their houses, and in the streets. (56) And when they had rent in pieces the books of the law which they found, they burnt them with fire. (57) And whoever was found with any the book of the testament, or if any committed to the law, the king's commandment was, that they should put him to death. (58) Thus did they by their authority to the Israelites every month, to as many as were found in the cities. (59) Now the twenty-fifth day of the month they did sacrifice upon the idol altar, which was upon the altar of God. 60 At which time according to the commandment they put to death certain women, that had caused their children to be circumcised. (61) And they hanged the infants about their necks, and rifled their houses, and slew them that had circumcised them.

2200 years ago Jewish women were prepared to die (not merely face imprisonment or a fine) in order to circumcise their baby boys. 2 Maccabees goes on to personalize the detail about women who were killed for circumcising their sons.

2 Macc 6:10 (Revised Standard Version):

For example, two women were brought in for having circumcised their children. These women they publicly paraded about the city, with their babies hung at their breasts, then hurled them down headlong from the wall.

It's interesting that in both books, mothers had their boys circumcised - not fathers. In rabbinic law, the commandment of circumcision is incumbent upon the father of a newborn boy, but apparently at the time of composition of these two books of the Maccabees, mothers performed the commandment, or had others do it for them.

The European rabbis calling for defiance of the German court ruling are thus in good historical company.

Rabbi David Wolpe's verses on circumcision

A poem by Rabbi David Wolpe on the German court's decision on circumcision, published in the Washington Post:

In Germany there is a move
To outlaw circumcision.
I take to verse to summarize
This outrage with concision. 

The WHO recommends
That no male miss a bris
The snip that saves, WHO raves
Does not diminish bliss. 

Far from disfigurement, it is
A sacred, ancient rite.
A covenant crossing untold ages
Father Abraham’s requite. 

And yet, today, in Germany
--the ironies abound--
This Jewish practice meets a sanction
Where once indeed was found 

Many who were circumcised
And versed in Jewish lore.
Perhaps the Germans have forgotten
For they are there no more. 

Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, David Wolpe is the author of seven books including, Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times and his latest, Why Faith Matters.

Happy July 4th in Israel!

I'm listening tonight to Reshet Bet, and "American Pie" starts playing! I guess this is part of their July 4th coverage. Suddenly I feel nostalgic for when the song was first released, in 1971, the year I turned 15.

I celebrated July 4th today, although without fireworks. I went to the American consulate in Jerusalem for their annual party. A good friend of mine received an invitation because she's the director of the Jewish-Arab kindergarten at the Jerusalem YMCA. It was a lot of fun and quite a scene. Good music, including America the Beautiful, a nice speech by the consul supporting a two-state solution, great food, and very interesting people, including as a special guest, Palestinian Prime Minister Salem Fayyad, Palestinian businesspeople and P.A. officials, American military who are part of the US security assistance to the P.A., members of the Marine guard of the consulate, local Christian clergy wearing splendid hats, activists for peace, and lots of other people. I also had a chance to meet the Deputy Principal Officer of the consulate, who is the daughter of friends in Ithaca!

Scientific reasons in favor of circumcision

Yair Rosenberg in Tablet presents the scientific evidence in favor of circumcision.

“Male circumcision is a highly significant, lifetime intervention. It is the gift that keeps on giving. It makes sense to put extraordinary resources into it.” 

Who would you guess recently offered this paean to foreskin fleecing? A rabbi? An imam? Nope. Try U.S. AIDS coordinator Eric Goosby at a health convention last month for top officials from 80 countries.

This smacks down the logic of a German regional court that has banned religious circumcision, calling the practice a “serious and irreversible interference in the integrity of the human body.” As the AFP reported at the time, Goosby was reflecting a scientific consensus that has been cemented over the last seven years:

Studies show that circumcision can dramatically reduce HIV infections. One study in South Africa last year found new infections fell by 76 percent after a circumcision programme was launched in a township.

In 2006, trials in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa found foreskin removal more than halved men’s risk of HIV infection. Longer-term analysis has found the benefit to be even greater than thought, with a risk reduction of around 60 percent.

The medical success story here is even more remarkable than the AFP lets on. Those original trials, as the New York Times reported upon their publication, were so effective that theywere stopped early by the National Institutes of Health, which was paying for them, because it was apparent that circumcision reduced a man’s risk of contracting AIDS from heterosexual sex by about half. It would have been unethical to continue without offering circumcision to all 8,000 men in the trials, federal health officials said.

Iran to Israel: threatens to "wipe them off the face of the earth"

Iran threatens Israel

Iran announced missile tests on Sunday and threatened to wipe Israel "off the face of the earth" if the Jewish state attacked it, brandishing some of its starkest threats on the day Europe began enforcing an oil embargo and harsh new sanctions....

Israel says it could attack Iran if diplomacy fails to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear aims. The United States also says military force is on the table as a last resort, but U.S. officials have repeatedly encouraged the Israelis to be patient while new sanctions take effect....

Announcing three days of missile tests in the coming week, Revolutionary Guards General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said the exercises should be seen as a message "that the Islamic Republic of Iran is resolute in standing up to ... bullying, and will respond to any possible evil decisively and strongly."

Any attack on Iran by Israel would be answered resolutely: "If they take any action, they will hand us an excuse to wipe them off the face of the earth," said Hajizadeh, head of the Guards' airborne division, according to state news agency IRNA.

Israel is threatening to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities while Iran threatens in response to destroy Israel.   I'm not in favor (at all) of Israel attacking Iran, but notice the difference in their threats - one threatens military facilities, the other threatens all the inhabitants of Israel (which includes, of course, a substantial Arab Israeli population as well as the residents of the West Bank and Gaza who would also suffer if Israel is "wiped off the face of the earth").

Daniel McGowan writes forward to book by Holocaust denier and antisemite, Germar Rudolf

From the JHate website of Aryeh Tuchman, I learned that Daniel McGowan has written the forward to Germar Rudolf's recent book, Resistance is Obligatory. Rudolf is a German Holocaust denier who has been imprisoned in Germany for his Holocaust denial, which is illegal in Germany. He is currently living in Pennsylvania, unfortunately for those of us who oppose anti-semitism and Holocaust denial. McGowan has been hanging around with Holocaust deniers for quite a long time - for example, he visited Ernst Zundel in prison in Germany when he was also imprisoned for Holocaust denial.

A small excerpt from McGowan's forward, which clearly also displays his antisemitism and Holocaust denial:

An increasing number of scholars and lay people clearly see that something is not right with Elie Wiesel and the current Holocaust narrative. The writings of Germar Rudolf and others simply confirm what they already suspect. They may care little for chemical traces in the brickwork at Auschwitz or topological evidence of mass graves, but they have seen other historical events substantially revised and they are suspicious of the outrage and scorn heaped upon those who question the uniqueness and scope of this particular event, especially when it is used to persecute Palestinians and promote endless war in the Middle East. 

That Jews suffered greatly during the Third Reich is not in question, but the notion of a premeditated, planned and industrial extermination of Europe’s Jews with its iconic gas chambers and immutable six million are all used to make the Holocaust not only special but also sacred. We are faced with a new, secular religion with astonishing power to command worship. And, like Christianity with its Immaculate Conception, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, the Holocaust has key and sacred elements – the exterminationist imperative, the gas chambers, and the sacred six million. It is these that comprise the holy Holocaust which Jews, Zionists, and others worship and which Germar Rudolf and other revisionists question.