Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Yet Another Circumcision Scandal

So, as many of you may know, a Haredi group of "rogue circumcisers" have been performing dangerous and illegal circumcisions on Israeli teenagers. Jewlicious gives their account of this bizarre trend. The Kvetcher comments that the rogue circumcisors are just following a Jewish belief that people should channel their less-than-admirable characteristics into a socially useful outlet. The characteristics in this case being a tendency towards "violent homosexual S & M pedophilia."

After this story broke the Haredi group fled Israel. Both Seven Fat Cows and So Queer publish the Etgar Lefkovitz article on the subject, found here and here.

The original circumcision scandal was a year or so ago when a baby boy died of hepatitis contracted during his circumcision after the Mohel* sucked the blood from the child's wound. Smeliana commented on this original scandal in her blog. For the record, this practice of blood-sucking is not common practice, and most mohels use a sponge. In the case of the former, I understand Not Chosen's distaste for the practice of circumcision.

*A mohel is a rabbi specially trained to perform circumcisions.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Love the image choice. Ouch.