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yulia · 05-31-2008, 09:09 AM

Jewish and circumcision.

Up until Greece, circumcision (called milah) was nicking the tip of the foreskin with a knife. The foreskin was still intact, however. About two thousand years ago, for fear of assimilation with the Greeks, the rabbinate declared that brit milah was not enough. Brit periah was now the standard, the laying bare of the glans. This is NOT what Abraham did. This is NOT biblically mandated. AND the fact remains, any child born to a Jewish woman is Jewish, despite the status of his foreskin. If, for some reason, you cannot perform the procedure, a drop of blood from the penis will suffice.
Evidently there are plenty of Jewish people these days that refuse to perform MGM (male genital mutilation) on their baby boys even for religious reasons:

Jewish Circumcision Resource Center (a great website with the information linked to studies/references) http://jewishcircumcision.org/spectator.htm
http://www.jewishcircumcision.org/

This organization works in Israel http://www.kahal.org/

Jews against circumcision website (quote: Even Rabbi Maimonides acknowledged that circumcision is a way to curb masturbation) http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.com/

Brit shalom (Hebrew covenant of peace) is a naming ceremony for Jewish boys that is intended to replace the traditional brit milah ceremony as an initiative by some, more liberal, Jews who do not approve of circumcision of boys. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_shalom