Antisemitism with Plausible Deniability

Bris Milah - Image for illustration purposes only (The Torah)

In yet another manifestation of institutional antisemitism — long a hallmark of Europe’s treatment of its Jewish citizens, the Mitzvah of bris milah (ritual circumcision) has come under attack. The way it is being attacked, however, is suffused with plausible deniability, since technically they are not attacking circumcision itself, only the Mohel – the observant Jew trained to perform it according to Jewish law.

Their argument sounds almost altruistic, claiming that any surgical procedure should be performed only by a licensed medical professional. In the case of a baby, that usually means a pediatrician. They consider the mohel to be a danger to the child, since most mohalim (plural of Mohel) are not trained in medical schools and therefore are not licensed to perform surgery.

To the layman, this might sound reasonable. In fact, if I had no knowledge of Jewish law and the practice performed on all male children established since the days of our patriarch Abraham, I too might opt for a trained physician rather than some rabbi with a scalpel. Who had not undergone the rigorous training doctors endure in order to graduate medical school and obtain a license..

One may then ask, how then could a newly passed law in Belgium be considered antisemitic in any way? On the contrary, anyone caught performing a circumcision without the requisite medical training and government licensing could be viewed as endangering the child upon whom the procedure is being performed. In that spirit, the following was reported in the Times of Israel:

“The Antwerp Public Prosecutor’s Office has proceeded to press criminal charges against three Jewish mohels for performing circumcisions... The claim is that circumcisions can be performed by physicians rather than certified mohels, on the grounds that the latter lack surgical training.”

If there were any merit to the claim that a circumcision performed by a certified mohel endangers a child more than one done by a trained medical professional, there would surely be some historical record of the many deaths resulting from a practice maintained for centuries

But there is no such record because the vast majority of circumcisions performed by certified Mohalim are highly successful and completed without incident. Rarely are there any complications, and in those rare circumstances where there might be, they can often be attributed to outside factors.

A Mohel is not just some random person with a scalpel…

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