A controversial circumcision regulation hangs in the balance in New York City after a federal appeals court ruled that the regulation targets the freedom of religion of some Orthodox Jews and must therefore be reviewed under a standard known as “strict scrutiny.” Robert Simins, a lawyer for the Orthodox groups who opposed the regulation, hailed…
New York City has banned two mohels from performing a controversial circumcision rite after they were suspected of infecting babies with herpes. But the city’s health department will not reveal their names. Five infants have contracted herpes since September 2012, when the health department passed a regulation requiring mohels to get written consent from parents…
It has been more than a year since New York City introduced a regulation requiring mohels to obtain written consent before performing a controversial rite that risks infecting infants with neonatal herpes. The regulation put Mayor Michael Bloomberg at loggerheads with the ultra-Orthodox community. And it promises to be a headache for his successor, Bill…
(JTA) — Natan Zaidenweber thought the mohel was kidding. His wife, Linda Raab, thought it was some kind of religious formality and didn’t give it a second thought. But the mohel, Cantor Philip Sherman, was serious. Though most fathers demur when he invites them to perform the bris on their sons by clipping their foreskin, preferring…
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…
Proponents of metzitzah b’peh, the controversial circumcision ritual, were denied a request for an emergency stay in the enforcement of a recent New York City law that regulates the procedure. The decision was handed down by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The motion, filed by the Central Rabbinical Congress of…
BERLIN—Germany’s Ministry of Justice has presented a draft law to permit circumcisions by doctors and mohels in response to uncertainty about the procedure fueled by a Cologne court’s ban on the procedure. The Cologne court’s June ruling, which angered many among the country’s 4 million Muslims and 100,000 Jews, held that circumcision deprives a child…
The New York City board of health has voted unanimously to require parents to sign a consent form before allowing a mohel to perform metztizah b’peh, direct oral-genital suction during circumcision. The vote was 9-0 to require parental consent for direct oral suction, a practice employed only by ultra-Orthodox mohels that can lead to transmission…
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