I love Rebecca’s new post about the commitment it takes for a Jewish woman to give birth to a boy and, usually on his eighth day of life, turn him over to the (hopefully skilled) hands of a mohel. It brought back that moment when, 15 years ago, I stood in our shul, weak winter…
How do you measure commitment? That’s the question I was left pondering after reading Elana Sztokman’s post on the double standard for Orthodox women. Some women’s tardiness for services has become a justification for shutting out the entire gender from a whole host of responsibilities, as late arrival to shul apparently signifies a lack of…
I was living in Berlin when I found out that I was pregnant. My doctor there, a very exuberant Chilean woman, was doing an ultrasound around 14-weeks when she suddenly paused near the baby’s abdomen. “Oh! I see a tiny, tiny, oh so small little penis!” she exclaimed. This, of course, did not thrill my…
The best-selling, Pulitzer-winning, famously Jewish author, Michael Chabon, is ready to tell us how he really feels about a particular halakhic ritual. Page Six reports that in Chabon’s forthcoming memoir, “Manhood for Amateurs,” the author passionately indicts the practice of circumcision, writing: Mutilation [is] the only honest name for this raw act that my wife…
Dear Bintel Brief: My son married a non-Jewish woman. They have baby boy, and decided not to have a circumcision. My husband and I have told my son and his wife how important this is to us, but they still will not do it. Recently, we have read more about the health benefits of circumcision….
“Whose penis? Whose body? Whose rights?” read one sign. “You Want to Cut Off WHAT?” read another. These were a couple of the slogans of the approximately 50 demonstrators at 16th annual rally in favor of making male circumcision illegal. Held to commemorate Genital Integrity Awareness Week and the 12th anniversary of Congress’s ban of…
James Bond wants to help more men get circumcised, and he’s gone to a part of the world where they’re into that sort of thing. Former 007 actor Roger Moore is in Israel this week, where he expects to raise $5,000 for efforts to circumcise more men as part of AIDS-prevention efforts in Swaziland. The…
Max Mintz shares some fun anecdotes about his work as a traveling mohel with Houston’s Jewish Herald-Voice: One of his strangest experiences occurred earlier this year, when he was invited to a brit milah in Tulsa, Okla. “When I arrived in Tulsa, my bags did not arrive with me, which was not good, since I…
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