Responding to recent attacks in Europe on ritual circumcision, Jewish groups convened a special task force in Brussels to mount a “proactive defense” of the practice. “The days of waiting around to firefight individual attacks on brit milah are over,” said Philip Carmel, European policy adviser for the European Jewish Congress, in reference to the…
More than 5,000 people, including prominent French politicians, scholars and clergymen, have signed a petition against attempts to ban ritual circumcision of boys in Europe. Titled “no to a ban on circumcision,” the petition was published on Oct. 16 by CRIF, the umbrella organization representing France’s Jewish communities, following the Oct. 1 passing of a…
A resolution that calls male ritual circumcision a “violation of the physical integrity of children” was passed overwhelmingly by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The council, a pan-European intergovernmental organization, debated and passed the resolution on Tuesday based on a report by the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development led…
Amid calls to ban the ritual circumcision of boys in Scandinavia, the Council of Europe is slated to vote on whether to define the practice as a “clear human rights violation.” The definition is included in a report on circumcision and female genital mutilation that was submitted recently to a vote by the Parliamentary Assembly…
A bill introduced in the Swedish parliament would ban the non-medical circumcision of underage boys. Two lawmakers from the rightist Sweden Democrats party, noting that female genital mutilation is illegal in Sweden, submitted the bill to the Riksdag on Tuesday. Bjorn Soder and Per Ramhorn wrote in the measure that “boys should have the same…
A left-wing Danish political party is seeking to outlaw ritual circumcision in Denmark. The Social Liberal Party, a small coalition partner of Denmark’s ruling Social Democrats party, adopted the anti-circumcision stance this week following an internal vote by delegates during a party congress in Nyborg, 75 miles west of Copenhagen, according to the news site…
We know his gender. We know his name. Now it’s time to move on to the next critical news item from London. I speak, of course, of the newborn HRH Prince George of Cambridge, and whether or not the little royal foreskin will be snipped. Notwithstanding that the debate about the possibility that the new…
A European rabbinical group has created a union of mohalim, or ritual circumcisers, in an effort to standardize ritual circumcision and combat attempts to ban it. Based on the model of Britain’s Initiation Society, the Union of Mohalim in Europe seeks to “unite approved mohalim across Europe under a single banner, ensuring that all communities…
הערט ווי אַזוי ייִדן האָבן געפּראַוועט פּורים אין מיזרח־אייראָפּע
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