CHALLENGING CIRCUMCISION: A JEWISH PERSPECTIVE

Dr Jenny Goodman

Presented at the Fourth International Symposium on Sexual Mutilations,
University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, August 9-11, 1996.

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Dear Friends,

I am writing to you from London, England, since it is very unlikely I will be able to be with you in person. It is now June, and I am joyfully expecting my first baby at the end of this month. I do not know the sex of the baby, and I believe I may be one of the first Jewish women of my generation who does not need to whisper the silent prayer, "Please God, let it be a girl." I am calm and comfortable in the knowledge that no-one will ever take a knife to this baby's flesh in the name of religion, and that my child will be every bit as Jewish as I am, or as Jewish as s/he chooses to be, with no mutilating mark upon the body. I am confident that my people have such an abundance of life-enhancing, life-affirming and mind-opening traditions, that our identity and sense of cultural self-heed will happily survive our outgrowing of circumcision, a cruel relic which has always felt to me like an aberration at the heart of my religion.

What can I say, I wonder, to all of you gathered in Lausanne, who already agree with me that circumcision of healthy, non-consenting infants is an abuse of human rights? I am used to arguing here with those who take circumcision for granted, who believe it is healthy, harmless, hygienic and divinely commanded. With those who believe it is a "little snip: that does not hurt, leaves no trace in the memory, causes no scars in the soul of mother or child. With those Jews and Muslims who really believe that their cultural identity, their sense of belonging, will crumble if they stop cutting pieces off their babies' bodies.

Perhaps I shall share with you a little of what I have learnt through public and private debate with such people. I talk about the facts: the intense pain, the risks of haemorrhage, infection and severe mutilation. I explain that, contrary to popular, opinion there are no medical benefits, and considerable complications, and that the best form of hygiene is simply to wash.

I present the ethical arguments against injuring a defenseless person. I talk about the disempowerment of mothers, the breaking of the mother-infant body, the effects on sexual experience. And I describe gentle, celebratory ways we could instead welcome newborn babies into our culture and our world.

The response to all these points, from Jewish and Muslim people, is remarkably consistent. It consists of no logical argument at all, and very little actual response to what I have said. It consists, in a word, of fear. Religious fundamentalists say, "We are commanded by God, we have to do it, and that's the end of the story." They feel profoundly threatened. Secular and liberal people among these ethnic communities feel equally terrified, but cannot fall back on God. So they say, "But we've always done it, we've been doing it for thousands of years. You can't ask us to just stop now, it's an integral part of our identity." And so on.

I reply by emphasizing that all spiritual traditions evolve and change, indeed they only survive by changing. And that a thousand years does not justify hurting a child. At this point, people very often say to me: "You're right, I can't argue with you. What you say is unanswerable, but I know I'd still have my son circumcised þ I just couldn't not. It's not a rational thing. I just feel I have to."

I have found only one argument effective against this culturally condition