Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Norwegian Newspaper Cartoon Compares Circumcision To Child Sex Abuse

A cartoon in one of Norway’s largest newspapers compared circumcision to pedophilia amid a debate in that country over whether to ban the religious practice.

The cartoon, published Tuesday in Dagbladet, depicts a disheveled man talking to Jewish and Muslim protesters holding signs reading “Yes to circumcision” and “Freedom of religion.” The man responds, “I understand exactly how it is with you! I also get messages from invisible men in the sky to play around with small kids’ penises!”

The push to ban circumcision is led by the anti-immigrant Progress Party, a junior member of the governing coalition. The party voted at its annual convention on Saturday to support a law banning the practice, which it claimed was a violation of human rights and caused physical and mental harm to children.

Party leader Siv Jensen claimed that she was against banning circumcision and denied that the move targeted religious minorities, noting that her party supported Israel.

“This is very sad,” Jewish community leader Ervin Kohn told the newspaper Aftenposten. “They must know they won’t get a majority for this in Parliament. It seems like they want to send a signal that we are unwelcome in the country.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink.

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!

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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.