Rabbis Call Emergency Meeting to Address German Circumcision Ruling
- Posted on July 9, 2012 at 9:40am by
Billy Hallowell
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BERLIN (The Blaze/AP) — The Conference of European Rabbis says it’s calling an emergency meeting in Berlin to discuss a regional court ruling that circumcising young boys for religious reasons amounts to bodily harm even if parents agree to it.
“The religious freedom of the parents and their right to educate their child would not be unacceptably compromised, if they were obliged to wait until the child could himself decide to be circumcised,” the court said. “The body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision. This change contravenes the interests of the child to decide later on his religious beliefs.”
Dieter Graumann, president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, called the ruling "insensitive" with the potential to attack religious freedom. (Photo: AP/Thomas Lohnes/dapd)
Conference president Pinchas Goldschmidt said in a statement Monday the Cologne court ruling last month “utterly failed to consider how fundamental” ritual circumcision is to the Jewish faith and identity.
The Tuesday through Thursday meeting seeks to produce a strategy for addressing the issue.
Following the initial court ruling, president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Dieter Graumann, called the ruling “unprecedented and insensitive,” urging the country’s parliament to clarify the legal situation “to protect religious freedom against attacks.”
Graumann said the circumcision of newborn Jews has been practiced for thousands of years and “every country in the world respects this religious right.”
There’s no law prohibiting the procedure but the ruling sets a precedent that could be taken into account by other courts.
The Cologne case involved a doctor who carried out a circumcision on a 4-year-old that led to medical complications.
Germany’s government has offered assurances that religious traditions remain protected.
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proaudio55
Posted on July 15, 2012 at 6:22pmThis is not a religious issue: this is a human rights issue. As a parent, you don’t have the right to disfigure / mutilate your child. You also don’t have the right to murder your child. That person you created has the right to an intact whole body.
Report Post »I was mutilated at birth and I’ve never forgiven my parents for their stupidity, arrogance, and ignorance. How does an 2-8 day old baby consent to this procedure??
Jennifer_D
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 10:48amWhy is my comment on this post not going through?!?!
Report Post »deadend
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 8:00amlet me see if I have this strait — it is ok to pull a baby part way out of the womb crack it‘s head like a walnut suck it’s brains out and then toss it in the garbage but it’s an abomination to carry out a religious 3000 year old religious tradition because it may harm the baby….. no figuar that the western civilization is on the decline
Report Post »pdw
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 1:28amSurgery which helps prevent some forms of infections later in live? But it is my believe that these same control freaks would have nothing against comedic surgery.
Report Post »Moseyspeed
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 4:42pmI always heard the Rabbis make a hundred bucks plus tips…
Report Post »ronin_6
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 6:10pmoooo ouch!
Report Post »ChristinaP55
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 10:14pmGroan… :-)
Report Post »ModerationIsBest
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 11:23pmYup, God’s design is so perfect that the first common sense thing to say when you see a newborn boy is, “well these genitals look really wrong, let’s start hacking away at them.”
Report Post »Desert Dog
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 2:08pmGuess it will be necessary to go to see a back-alley Rabbi with a sharpened coat hanger.
Report Post »nappy
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 2:03pmEvery part of a child’s body should be protected from religious ritual. In fact, it should be illegal to indoctrinate children into any religious cult until they are of age and can make the decisions for themselves. NO part of ANY child’s body should be mutilated to satisfy wacked out religious doctrine. Period.
Report Post »I Stand With Israel
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 2:51pmHow do you feel about abortion. Is murdering a child OK to you? The Jewish people do this as a part of their worship of God, it is their child to raise, not anyone else’s.
Report Post »pkoning
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 3:31pmIncluding the brain, I assume you mean? I guess that means you can’t educate children. Especially not in public schools. Is that what you meant? If you can’t educate children, how will their brains ever reach the point of being able to make a decision on their own?
Report Post »AntinomianismMeansAntiamericanism
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 5:32pmReligious cult… Hmmmmm….. You mean secularism, environmentalism, socialism, marxism, communism, etc.
Report Post »stains
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 8:27pmYeah, like, hey Mom, what the @#$!! did you do with my umbilical cord???
Report Post »4xeverything
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 8:42am@NAPPY
I had friend in college who said the same thing. Funny though, when he was born he had an additional pinky finger on each hand. When he was 3 mos old his parents had the extra fingers surgically removed. They weren’t infected or in any way an impedement to him yet they were chopped off anyway. This drastically changed his appearence. Your view of what is and what is not OK only has to do with your hatred of the religious. You are not as “deep” as you believe…you are lost and pathetic.
Report Post »Bracsim
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 11:03amNAPPY you are 100% right< MUTILATED is the perfect word in this case, God made us all perfect, there is no need to change or mutilate any part of a boys body, thanks God I was never mutilated like that, im exactly as God made me.
Report Post »PaxInVeritate
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 1:59pmSounds like the “Superhero” Foreskin Man from S.F. has flown to Germany to retrain the German Master Race.
Report Post »rickc34
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 10:50amWhat about abortion, a child has the right to be born, what is worse a little foreskin or the child’s life ?
Report Post »drbage
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 11:14amWhen you take 3 laws from the feds and LaLaLand together, you can easily see how far morality has fallen.
Report Post »1. Under federal law you cannot vote unless you are 18(wonder if you have to show photo ID?)
2. Under CA law you cannot use a tanning salon if you are under 18 without parental consent.
3. Under CA law you can have an abortion regardless of age and without parental consent.
JRook
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 11:41amSome facts just in case you thought it was a liberal democratic conspiracy. Senator Charles J. Fuschillo Jr., a Long Island Republican who sponsored the bill in the Senate, Senator Robert Singer, R-Monmouth, Ocean, lauds the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee’s passage today of his bipartisan tanning bill, State Representative Courtney Combs is a Republican from Hamilton who introduced the bill. He says tanning beds can cause skin cancer and other problems…..
Report Post »Nasado
Posted on July 9, 2012 at 12:02pm@JRook
Report Post »Indeed, it is not just the Dems that are seeking to take our freedoms and ruin this country that most of us love, it is the Repubs as well. Just look at the Patriot Act that passed, and the spending binge that occured under Repubs. They are both corrupt and need to be closly watched. Drbage did make a good point how minors can’t use tanning beds without parents but they can get an abortion. Why is it that many libs see abortion as inconceqential? They veiw so many things as worse that really are not improtant. But I digress, no one should say they are Repub. or Dem.. They should follow the Constitution. The only reason I am looking more towards Republicans is that at this point and time they are closest to the principles of the Constitution between the 2 parties. But mark my words, if they don’t get their act together, you will see a 3ed party rise in the next few years who will seek to hold conservative values.