Brit Milah - The Anti-circumcision Movement and brit Shalom

The Anti-circumcision Movement and brit Shalom

Some contemporary Jews choose not to circumcise their sons. They are assisted by a small number of Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis, and have developed a welcoming ceremony that they call the brit shalom ("Covenant Peace") for such children, also accepted by Humanistic Judaism.

This ceremony of brit shalom is not officially approved of by the Reform or Reconstructionist rabbinical organizations, who make the recommendation that male infants should be circumcised, though the issue of converts remains controversial and circumcision of converts is not mandatory in either movement.

However, the connection of the Reform movement to an anti-circumcision, pro-symbolic stance is a historical one. From the early days of the movement in Germany, some classical Reformers hoped to replace ritual circumcision "with a symbolic act, as has been done for other bloody practices, such as the sacrifices." As a result, many European Jewish fathers during the nineteenth century chose not to circumcise their sons, including Theodore Herzl. In the US, an official Reform resolution in 1893 abolished circumcision for converts, and this ambivalence towards the practice has carried over to classical-minded Reform Jews today. In Elyse Wechterman's essay A Plea for Inclusion, she argues that, even in the absence of circumcision, committed Jews should never be turned away, especially by a movement "where no other ritual observance is mandated". She goes on to advocate for an alternate covenant ceremony, brit atifah, for both boys and girls as a welcoming ritual into Judaism. With a continuing negativity towards circumcision still present within a minority of modern-day Reform, Judaic scholar Jon Levenson has warned that if they "continue to judge brit milah to be not only medically unnecessary but also brutalizing and mutilating...the abhorrence of it expressed by some early Reform leaders will return with a vengeance", proclaiming that circumcision will be "the latest front in the battle over the Jewish future in America."

In Israel, a small number of families who have chosen not to have their sons circumcised formed a support group in the year 2000. Over two and a half years, 200 couples have enlisted. Meanwhile, Ya'acov Malkin, the academic director of the College of Judaism as Culture in Israel, who circumcised his own son 50 years before "because of habit, because it was a custom, it is a custom of the Jews", says of circumcision: "I don't regard it as a religious act at all... if it's medically not necessary, it's not necessary." Humanistic Judaism argues that "circumcision is not required for Jewish identity."