Genital Integrity Awareness
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
NEWS ITEM: Opponents of circumcision have just marked Genital Integrity Awareness Week by staging a march from the White House to the Capitol. Among those who adhere to this point of view is a group called Jews Against Circumcision. They can point to the fact that Jonas Salk was among the Nobel laureates who petitioned the World Court to end circumcision.
A theme oft treated with derision
Is the rite of circumcision.
But is the rite an outright wrong?
Who’ll champion the imperiled schlong?
Dispute surrounds this use of knife,
The topic’s with confusion rife.
The unkind cut curbs STD?
(A verity, or phallus-y?)
The D.C. march the wrong way went!
It should have sought the monument
That honors our George Washington,
The prez acknowledged Number One!
That site would make the spirits soar,
And constitute a metaphor!
(Outstanding is the monument —
This is the thought that here is meant.)
By ending at the Capitol,
The march did nothing much at all,
For there resides but rhetoric
And empty, fulsome politic.
Next year, the marchers (we suspect)
Will surely be more circumspect.
They’ll make their point with greater clout
By following another route!
To victors go, we know, the spoils.
Will they be marchers — or the moyls?
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
