I’m in the shower at 6 a.m. with a sick feeling in my gut. Today, my 8-day-old son is going to be circumcised. This is my third round, and many people told me this time would be easier — and being an Orthodox Jew who embraces ritual in his life, you’d think it would be….
The bris: It’s a ceremony that inspires emotions ranging from rejoicing to repugnance — and dissonant combinations of everything in between. We would like you, our readers, to share your experiences as parents of a Jewish newborn facing this ancient, primal rite, or as an adult who chose to enter the covenant. Were you conflicted…
The practice of metzitzah b’peh, a controversial part of some Jewish circumcisions, is reigniting concern about religious circumcision in Germany, where the government only recently fended off an effort to outlaw the ritual altogether. The chief representative of Chabad in Berlin, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, has been accused of making MBP, as metzitzah b’peh is often…
In the legendary days of the Yiddish Forward, Ab. Cahan, the founding editor, could leave his office at 175 East Broadway and roam the streets, synagogues, restaurants, schools yards and tenements of the Lower East Side to listen to his readers. And he did, often. It helped him keep a finger on the pulse of…
All the top Democratic candidates vying to become the next mayor of New York City are calling for greater dialogue between Orthodox groups and city officials concerning the controversial Jewish circumcision practice known as metzitzah b’peh. But among these leading Democrats, only City Comptroller John Liu says he would outright abolish the city’s regulation of…
Israel’s chief rabbinate has weighed in on the practice of a controversial circumcision rite in Germany, saying that metzitzah b’peh is preferred. The practice, in which blood is sucked orally from the circumcision wound, is under scrutiny in Germany, due to a complaint filed against a Berlin rabbi for allegedly committing bodily harm during a…
New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate John Liu opposes new city regulations that require parents to sign consent forms before their baby may undergo a controversial oral suctioning technique employed as part of a ritual circumcision, Liu told the Forward today. The regulations, championed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, were imposed this January in response…
A Chabad-affiliated rabbi criticized a rival group for its public disapproval of a circumcision-related ritual currently under investigation in Germany. Some Jewish leaders “decided to align themselves with those who are working against Jewish interests,” Rabbi Menachem Margolin, director of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe, wrote in an editorial Thursday in the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper….
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