The real credit goes to Rabbi Moshe A. Friedman

By Jürgen Klute

On 6 September, Mose Apelblat reported in this newspaper under the headline ‘European Commission welcomes medical certification for Jewish circumcisers’, about a delightful and much-welcomed initiative by The European Jewish Association (EJA) and the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE). The initiative, which had already been announced a week earlier, is about the first comprehensive medical and professional certification programme of its kind for qualified Jewish circumcision practitioners in Europe.

This initiative is to be welcomed because it represents not only a sensible but also a necessary complement to the legislation on circumcision. Belgium, like several other European countries, has had circumcision regulated by law for some time.

Legislation was necessary because, in the case of circumcision, two fundamental rights come into conflict: on the one hand, the right to freedom of religion. This includes the right to belong to a religion, including the practice of the corresponding religious rites, as well as the right not to belong to any religion. For the Jewish faith, the circumcision of male babies is a central element of their religious practice. According to the Torah, circumcision is the sign of the covenant between God and humankind.

Since, from a medical perspective, circumcision is an irreversible intervention in the body, the fundamental and human right to physical integrity is also affected. This right protects people from medical interventions against their will. However, an eight-day-old newborn cannot give consent to circumcision. And medical professionals may only carry out medical procedures with the consent of the person concerned or, if this is not possible, when the procedure is medically necessary to save a person’s life.

The legislative compromise on circumcision in Belgium and other European countries permits circumcision because a ban on the practice would make Jewish life in Europe impossible. In return, however, circumcisions must be carried out by medically trained personnel in accordance with medical standards and as painlessly as medically possible.

The certification programme is therefore a sensible and necessary counterpart to the legal authorisation of circumcision, providing a substantive response – even from the Jewish community – to the recurring and often anti-Semitic challenges to the right to circumcision, and ensuring that Jewish life in Europe is possible without any ifs or buts.

It should be added here that credit for this development is due to the combative and, as such, controversial Rabbi Moshe A. Friedman, who lives in Antwerp. In 2023, he initiated a legal investigation into the circumcision methods of three mohels in Antwerp. He was subsequently accused by various parties of calling the right to circumcision into question in general. When asked, Friedman – who belongs to the Satmar Hasidic community – emphasised that, as a Jew, he was of course not questioning the right to circumcision. He had reported the three mohels because they had committed a serious breach of the Belgian law on circumcision. This is because they practise a method of circumcision that is highly controversial even within the Jewish community, known as metzitzah b’peh. In this procedure, the bleeding caused by the removal of the foreskin is stopped by the mohel taking the circumcised infant’s penis into his mouth and sucking until the bleeding stops (oral suction). This method repeatedly leads to the transmission of infections, which in isolated cases can even result in the death of infants. It is therefore a contentious practice within the Jewish community worldwide. Friedman added that it is in the Jewish community’s own interest to respect and comply with existing legal requirements governing the performance of religious circumcisions and to protect children so that they do not suffer harm as a result of the procedure.

When a fatal incident of this type of circumcision occurred in New York in 2011 (see NBC News, 6 May 2011, ‘Toddler dies after circumcision surgery’), it was decided, following a lengthy debate, that in the event of infections resulting from circumcision, DNA analysis would be used to determine whether the mohel was responsible for the infection. If the investigation reveals that the mohel is responsible, he will be barred from performing any further circumcisions (see The Hastings Centre for Bioethics, 5 March 20215 ‘New York City’s Compromise on Dangerous Circumcision Practice Leaves Infants at Risk’).

In Israel, this case had led paediatricians to call for a ban on this form of circumcision in 2012, as reported at the time by the Belgian newspaper De Morgen (see here: ‘Kinderartsen willen einde aan bloedzuigen na besnijdenis’).

As reported by The Jerusalem Post on 1 April, a mohel was arrested in Israel this spring after a circumcision he performed led to the death of an infant (“Mohel arrested for death of baby linked to circumcision”).

Even the President of the RCE, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, had already in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung in 2013 unambiguously distanced himself from this controversial form of circumcision known as metzitzah b’peh, thereby providing a reasoned basis for Friedman’s criticism of this practice.

It is to be welcomed that the EJA and RCE have now drawn practical conclusions for the European region from this discussion, which has been ongoing for years, because this takes the wind out of the sails of the fundamental criticism of circumcision as a religious practice. It should not go unmentioned that Rabbi Moshe A. Friedman – even if he is a red rag to some – has made a significant contribution to this through his commitment.