Chabad Leader Blasts Rabbis Group Over Circumcision Rite

Image by getty images
A Chabad-affiliated rabbi criticized a rival group for its public disapproval of a circumcision-related ritual currently under investigation in Germany.
Some Jewish leaders “decided to align themselves with those who are working against Jewish interests,” Rabbi Menachem Margolin, director of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe, wrote in an editorial Thursday in the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.
The editorial by Margolin, who is personally affiliated with the Chabad movement, followed a statement by the Conference of European Rabbis that said the practice of metzizah b’peh – oral suction of blood from the circumcision wound – carried risk of disease.
The statement was made in connection with complaints filed by an anti-circumcision activist against Yehudah Teichtal, the Chabad rabbi in Berlin, for allegedly allowing metzizah b’peh at the brit milah of his son last month.
Margolin wrote that Jews critical of metzizah b’peh may have been acting out of hope “to restore peace to the Jewish community. This is a miscalculation to the extreme,” he said, adding: “It won’t be long at all before governments will once again accuse Europe’s Jews of inhumane and uncultured practices.”
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the Moscow-based president of the Conference of European Rabbis, told JTA he had wanted to be “supportive of [Teichtal] without endangering the whole issue of brit milah,” and to make clear that “Orthodoxy is on the side of medicine in this issue.”
Teichtal said his son’s brit met the highest medical standards. Germany’s circumcision law, passed in December, requires that medical standards be upheld.
The head of the Central Council of Jews In Germany, Dieter Graumann, issued a statement supporting the Conference of European Rabbis’ criticism of metzizah b’peh.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 4
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion The ADL reversed its support for Trump’s student deportations. You should too
-
Fast Forward Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ proposal to block some weapons sales to Israel
-
Fast Forward Sotheby’s to auction earliest known kiddush cup
-
Opinion Trump’s new tariffs on Israel are a BDS dream come true
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.