‘Clueless’ Advice: Alicia Silverstone Won’t Circumcise Son
Someone should have told Alicia Silverstone that once your claim to fame is a movie called “Clueless,” it’s probably a good idea to avoid spouting real-life clueless rhetoric.
In her her new book, “The Kind Mama: A Simple Guide to Supercharged Fertility, a Radiant Pregnancy, a Sweeter Birth, and a Healthier, More Beautiful Beginning,” the 37-year-old wrote that she will not have her son circumcised because: “If little boys were supposed to have their penises ‘fixed,’ did that mean we were saying that God made the body imperfect?”
Ah, the glory of logic.
Apparently, her parents weren’t too pleased by the decision.
“I was raised Jewish, so the second my parents found out that they had a male grandchild, they wanted to know when we’d be having a bris (the Jewish circumcision ceremony traditionally performed eight days after a baby is born),” she writes. “When I said we weren’t having one, my dad got a bit worked up.”
According to Haaretz, Silverstone has long been open about her Jewish upbringing. In a profile written for interfaithfamily.com in 2000, Silverstone said that she grew up in California attending a Reform Temple.
“I was reared in a traditional Jewish household,” Silverstone . “We lit candles Friday night and had seders. My brother David and I went to Hebrew school and had our bar mitzvahs. I have wonderful memories of my bat mitzvah.”
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO