Police raid homes of mohels in Antwerp, in investigation into possible illegal circumcisions
A Belgian rabbi filed a police complaint over the performance of metzitzah b’peh, a custom perform in some haredi Orthodox communities
An Orthodox Jewish man bicycles in a neighborhood of Antwerp, Belgium, January 21, 2021. (Dirk Waem/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images)
(JTA) — Police in Belgium searched three private homes on Wednesday as part of an investigation into illegal ritual circumcisions, according to local news reports.
Two of the homes were in Antwerp’s Jewish Quarter and the third was in the city’s Green Quarter, according to the Belgian news site VRT, which reported that the investigation was initiated in part by a complaint from a member of Antwerp’s Jewish community.
Last fall, Moshe Friedman, an Antwerp rabbi, filed a police complaint against six mohels who practice metzitzah b’peh, a custom in which the circumciser cleans the circumcision wound with oral suction. The custom, which can risk infecting infants with dangerous diseases, is practiced only in haredi Orthodox communities such as the substantial one in Antwerp. Several years ago, a number of babies in New York City were infected with herpes via metzitzah b’peh.
No arrests were made in the raids, according to VRT. In Belgium, the law requires all circumcisions to be performed by licensed medical professionals.
The incident has ignited concerns about antisemitism in Belgium, home to about 30,000 Jews.
Andre Gantman, a Jewish leader who formerly sat on Antwerp’s city council, told the leading Antwerp newspaper that he had been getting calls all day from local Jews concerned about the raids.
“There is a sense of unease within the Jewish community, and I am putting it mildly,” Gantman said. He added, “We are clearly being targeted. … If they want to get rid of us, let them say so. There are other places where we can go.”
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, who heads the Conference of European Rabbis, said the raids reflected an assault on religious freedom. “That the principles of democracy, child rights, law, or modern medicine are sadly being weaponised to assault this ancient Jewish practice is no surprise,” he said in a statement.
He added, “The heavy-handed approach of Antwerp’s police force instead of an informed engagement with community leaders and experts, is an expression of this damaging weaponisation in a physical way. Freedom of religion must apply to Jews too.”
Belgium has a track record of limiting religious exemptions in laws. Last year, Europe’s top court upheld a ban in most of the country against kosher slaughter, which its critics contend is inhumane to animals.
The mohel raids follow the arrest last year in Ireland of a British rabbi suspected of performing circumcisions illegally. There, the law requiring a medical license to perform circumcisions includes an exemption for circumcisions performed for religious reasons — but the rabbi was alleged to have circumcised babies who were not Jewish.
