New York City Kept Silent On Dangers Of Circumcision Rite For Years

Image by Getty Images
New York City knew of the dangers of a controversial circumcision rite for six years before warning Jewish parents, the Daily News reported.
The health department was first notified in 1999 of an infant being sickened by the practice known as metzizah b’peh, in which the mohel orally sucks blood from the infant’s penis.
Six cases in all of neonatal herpes believed to be related to the practice were reported by doctors to the city, even though there was no requirement at the time for doctors to report cases.
It took until a Hasidic baby died in 2005 for the city to issue an alert and warn Jewish parents about the dangers of the practice.
Health Department spokesman Chris Miller said he was unsure when the alerts started.
“You’re talking about two decades and two administrations ago,” Miller told the News.
After the baby’s death, the Michael Bloomberg mayoral administration issued regulations ordering parents to sign consent forms for the practice.
Mayor Bill De Blasio took a more lenient stance. He now says mohels found to have infected infants will be barred from the practice.
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
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion This is my last column as editor of the Forward
-
Books Unwieldy, unnerving, and a masterpiece — the last great Yiddish novel has arrived
-
Fast Forward Texas bakery reportedly becomes first bagel shop to be named James Beard Award finalist
-
Fast Forward ‘That’s Simchas Torah’: The Jewish Val Kilmer moment you might have missed
-
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.