Change Without Denigration:
Addressing Anti-Semitism

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Speaking out against circumcision of healthy children is the duty of every individual who values human rights, especially the rights of those who are most vulnerable to abuse. We at NOHARMM feel strongly, however, that eradicating childhood genital mutilation customs must happen without demonizing the individuals or the cultures that practice it. Failure to do so will only result in resistance. We strongly recommend that all children's rights advocates take the time to read this page and consider its message.

Following is an excerpt from pages 53-65 of Billy Boyd's 1990 book Circumcision: What it Does. His book was republished in 1998 as Circumcision Exposed: Rethinking a Medical and Cultural Tradition (The Crossing Press/Freedom, CA). Throughout his first book, Boyd refers to those in the genital integrity movement as "preservationists."  While some of his observations reflect the state of the movement in the late 1980s and are no longer valid today, his call for change without denigration is just as important today as it was then. Order this book from NOHARMM's Online Bookstore

Goy Boy/Writing of Rites

If it's difficult for Jews to question ritual circumcision, it's also difficult, in a different way, for a gentile. Especially a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant like me who grew up in the Bible Belt, in an Ozark mountain poverty pocket of north Arkansas. When I walked down the aisle of our old brick church on a Sunday morning one summer long ago, I was followed by others "moved by the spirit." The day and time was set by the preacher, and in a country creek, in my best Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes, I was baptized by immersion, soused under the water three times----"In the name of the Father! ... and of the Son! ... and of the Holy Ghost!"-as my fellow church members, my beloved community, joyfully sang the old-time hymns on the rocky river bank. The memory is precious to me.

And so I grew up, small-town boy earning record attendance pins for Sunday school and church. Nary a Jew in sight. The verb "to jew (someone) down," meaning "to bargain down," we used unself-consciously, never considering that it might be offensive to someone; the more virulent forms of anti-Semitism ("Christ-killers!") I wasn't exposed to until later in life. To my young mind, Jews were biblical characters, along with Pharisees and Sadducees, who existed back in Jesus' time.

Our bodies are our bodies.

When I began this book, I knew I wanted to deal with ritual circumcision. I had been disturbed by the way the preservationist movement had not been able to do so, disturbed by statements like, "We're against circumcision except as a religious rite." This seemed to me profoundly dishonest. For if circumcision is what we say it is, and what I feel it in my very flesh to be, then it is so for everyone who experiences it - no matter what else it might be or however much it's suppressed, and underneath whatever validation there is for it in one's cultural group. Our bodies are our bodies. I was equally disturbed by the anti-Semitic anti-circumcision writings I had received in the mail after helping to found a group seeking to bring creative nonviolent action into the preservationist movement. It reminded me of the white-supremacist literature of my southern childhood. There must be, I sensed, some sane and powerful alternative to the quick rationalization of ritual circumcision on the one hand and anti-Semitic tirades on the other.

I came to realize that, through my involvement in the nonviolent direct action wings of other social movements, I'd had first-hand experience of a tradition that most active preservationists apparently hadn't, a tradition of bringing up and dealing directly with problems of sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, or anything else within a movement that limits or oppresses its members or others outside it. Problems get talked about, and written about in nonviolence training manuals. It seemed to me that, if applied to the preservationist movement, such an approach could open up a space between bigotry and the complicity of silence, allowing for intelligent and heartful discussion of ritual circumcision. This sense - and my determination to follow it - has been strengthened by several things during the writing of this book.

They are, by and large, men who have already undertaken to reevaluate
a number of beliefs and attitudes.

In facilitating circumcision workshops, I've found Jewish men to be open to critical and intelligent reappraisal of ritual circumcision once they feel it's not just another cover for attacking Jews or Judaism. Of course, men who would come to a circumcision workshop are not by any means a cross section of society, Jewish or gentile. They are, by and large, men who have already undertaken to reevaluate a number of beliefs and attitudes. They are also among the ones able to see most clearly both the reality of circumcision and its social and political context. One man in particular comes to mind, from the workshop at the 1989 California Men's Gathering. Initially reserved, as if checking out the scene and the facilitators, he wound up telling a very interesting story. While living and traveling in Africa recently, he had witnessed a female circumcision ceremony and been disturbed by what he felt to be the obvious suffering of the young woman in contrast with the way the tribe was celebrating the event. Upon his return to the States, he was invited to his first bris (except for his own), and was struck by the parallel: relatives who had been shocked at hearing the female circumcision story were celebrating the cutting off of part of the baby's penis.

The responses to my involvement in this issue by Jewish friends, colleagues, and acquaintances - mostly positive, some defensive, and quite a few a mixture of both - indicate to me that many Jews are undergoing an intensity of struggle over circumcision that's difficult for non-Jews to understand. (All except the most defensive have been curious, especially about the hidden history of preservationism within the Reform movement.) Many, especially expectant parents, feel they cannot speak freely of their feelings about circumcision in their own families and communities and feel relieved if they give birth to a girl. They feel torn between their cultural heritage (or family pressures) and their own parental instincts. Some suppress their feelings and have their sons circumcised; others yield to family pressures and then, when they see the reality of circumcision, regret it; while still others reject or drift away from the tradition which they feel puts them in such a bind, just as many used to feel forced to abandon Judaism in order to marry "outside the faith." One rabbi, who on request will perform a bris without a circumcision, told me that, just as Judaism has accommodated the reality of mixed marriages, with special programs to allow children to get the best of both parents' traditions, he expected that non-circumcision would come to be viewed as a definite option by most Jews within a few decades.(50)

...(H)ow can we derive the benefits of cross-cultural criticism
while minimizing the distortions and chances for abuse?

On a personal level, I've chosen to write on ritual Jewish circumcision because it fascinates me and I wish to follow my interest and fascination. I hope that my doing so will help the preservationist movement break through the barrier of silence and contradiction in order to carry the struggle forward. Neo-Nazi groups, with anti-circumcision as part of their propaganda, pose a clear and present danger to the integrity of the movement through their potential to exploit preservationist sentiments for fascist ends. Especially non-Jews need to begin forming a viable preservationist alternative that deals directly and heartfully with the interrelated issues of ritual circumcision, patriarchy, and anti-Semitism.

Inter-tribal criticism is a tricky issue. (We all have various tribal identities, with one of the larger tribes being "American.") As a white southerner, I'm glad that outsiders presumed to challenge our practice of racial segregation, a practice most of us were unable or unwilling to criticize ourselves. Without "outsiders" as allies it is doubtful whether the descendants of former slaves would have been able to overturn legalized segregation alone. On the other hand, we don't want to judge another culture by the standards of our own and become like missionaries clothing the naked heathens. So how can we derive the benefits of cross-cultural criticism while minimizing the distortions and chances for abuse? I suggest that when anyone presumes to constructively criticize the practices of another tribe (not just use the issue to stir up hatred), it is helpful to follow what I call the :

PRINCIPLES OF INTER-TRIBAL CRITICISM

1. Learn about historical and existing rivalries between your tribe and the one being criticized.

2. Learn about past and present disparities in the two tribes' relative political power as well as in their informal social clout.

3. Clearly define what it is about the practice that you don't like. (This prevents your objection to a particular practice from becoming a condemnation of the tribe as a whole.)

4. Voice your objections to members of the other tribe, and listen carefully to the responses. Ask questions without arguing.

5. Identify the various social and psychological needs that the objectionable practice serves for members of the other tribe. Consider other ways in which these needs might be met. (Needs may well be different for different members of the tribe, and the needs of some may conflict with those of others: male vs. female, leaders and the powerful vs. commoners, rich vs. poor, adults vs. children, and so on.)

6. Find out what fears might underlie both the practice in question and any resistance to reevaluating it. Think about ways in which you and your tribe could alleviate those fears.

7. Develop positive personal, political, and/or working relationships with members of the tribe, and find ways to celebrate those aspects of their culture that you like.

8. List the unsavory aspects of your own tribe's history and current practices, both in general and, especially, in relation to the other tribe. Be willing to readily and fully acknowledge these things. (In terms of credibility, it is helpful also to have a personal history of speaking out and acting against the unsavory aspects of your own tribe before pontificating about another tribe's shortcomings.)

9. Be open to the possibility that you may just possibly be wrong, or that you may not have fully understood the context in which the practice occurs.

Ritual circumcision is clearly cultural, and criticism of it is a cross-cultural criticism, no matter how much we try to avoid the issue by saying we're opposed to circumcision "except as a religious rite." While circumcision has become a cultural phenomenon for gentiles, too - despite the medical reasons given, which Jews also usually give - it's much more deeply enculturated for Jews. It embodies the very essence of how we human beings can evolve, adopt, or have imposed a violent, limiting, or oppressive custom and over time come to view it as normal, perpetuated and even idealized in the way that the Chinese used to idealize bound feet. I suspect that, to the extent that we can understand Jewish circumcision, we can gain insight into how the rest of us enculturate the practice - as well as how we've wound up with a number of other social, ecological, political, and military practices in need of change. Following these Principles of  Inter-Tribal Criticism, we can build bridges, dissolve fear, allow each of our various tribes to transcend a parochial view, and learn a good deal from each other.

Avoidance and Connections

The preservationist movement's resistance to dealing with ritual circumcision has probably been wise, considering that it has not really dealt with anti-Semitism and how anti-Semitic campaigns and groups have exploited preservationist sentiments. At the First International Symposium on Circumcision, there were no presentations or discussions that dealt specifically with anti-Semitism. There was, though, a talk by well-known mohel Joel Shoulson in which he said of Jewish circumcision, "What we're talking about here is fundamentalism."(51). [NOHARMM comment: Subsequent symposia have addressed the issue of anti-Semitism.] As mentioned above, both gentiles and Jews in the movement have assumed that to avoid being smeared with the tar of anti-Semitism - and simply because circumcision is too embedded in Jewish culture and theology to yield to direct criticism - one must remain silent on ritual circumcision. And so we hear those hedged statements condemning circumcision "except as a religious rite," leading some Jewish men to feel not only victimized by their tradition but abandoned by the preservationist movement.

So much is being done today to educate the public about medical circumcision. However, I see that most of those writing about medical circumcision refuse to discuss religious circumcision. Well, I am 28 years old and have a very unsatisfactory sex life because I lost over half of my glans during a ritual circumcision. Aren't Jewish babies entitled to a foreskin as well? What is really anti-Semitic is the refusal to acknowledge that the same rights that non-Jewish babies have should be accorded to Jewish babies as well.(52)

Anti-Semitism reinforces ritual circumcision and therefore circumcision generally.

The false dichotomy of silence vs. anti-Semitism can be transcended only by those who are opposed to routine circumcision, especially gentiles, getting and putting out the message clearly: anti-Semitism reinforces ritual circumcision and therefore circumcision generally. There are neo-Nazi groups that latch onto circumcision as an excuse to trash Jews. One extreme piece of propaganda from such a group combines a few perfectly valid arguments against circumcision with the claim that it causes homosexuality and that :

It is unworthy of the advanced White Race to accept such a barbaric practice, just as it is to accept nigger music, nigger and/or Jewish practices, mores, and religions."(53)

In the face of such attitudes - whether expressed simple-mindedly or with more reserve - it seems to me important to deal in an up-front manner with anti-Semitism in ourselves, in the preservationist movement, and in the larger society. To do otherwise is to impede the advent of an intact world - in every sense of the term. One active preservationist I've met, a generous, soft-spoken Bible Belt minister, founded his own organization (Remain Intact) and has helped a number of people come to terms with their and their children's disabilities caused by circumcision. Politically naive and anxious to get out the preservationist word, he is quite happy that his anti-circumcision (and often anti-Jewish) writings are incorporated into the literature of such neo-Nazi groups as the New Order on his mailing list.

Though... it must be Jews who lead the fight against Jewish circumcision,
the quality of gentiles' solidarity in that struggle - and whether it helps or hinders the fight -
will depend on the extent to which we are willing to confront anti-Semitism
in ourselves and others.

Preservationists seem to understand well that simply to say "I'm not anti-Semitic" is about as convincing as, "Some of my best friends are Negroes." Even if true, such statements sound suspiciously like a cover for prejudice. Like Richard Nixon proclaiming "I am not a crook," it draws suspicion: "If you're not," the listener may ask, "why are you going to the trouble to deny it?" On the other hand, what seems not very well understood is the difference between denying anti-Semitism and dealing directly and honestly with it inside and outside the movement. To face and admit our own biases and deal openly with the reasons behind them while clearly denouncing bigotry and backing up our words with action when the Klan marches, Nazis dominate the news, or we receive anti-Semitic anti-circumcision literature - this leaves no room for the expression of hidden racist agendas. It opens an alternative to silence versus anti-Semitic tirades, which for too long have been the two unsatisfactory responses to Jewish ritual circumcision. It allows us to see that ritual circumcision is not so much Jewish as it is patriarchal and fundamentalist (and reinforced by anti-Semitism). Though the history of anti-Semitism dictates that it must be Jews who lead the fight against Jewish circumcision, the quality of gentiles' solidarity in that struggle - and whether it helps or hinders the fight - will depend on the extent to which we are willing to confront anti-Semitism in ourselves and others.

"Confront" is a heavy-sounding word, but in taking a stand against bigotry, we need not become self-righteous, nor distort those with prejudiced attitudes in the same way they distort others. We/they are not bad people for having prejudicial attitudes learned from others. I have yet to meet anyone who is not prejudiced in some form or another (though it's hard for each of us to see our own biases). In fact, what we call prejudice is often just misinformation, or even correct information taken out of context and blown out of proportion - as a person pained over their own circumcision (or appreciative of their foreskin) might view Jews as "barbaric" because they circumcise, ignoring the many positive aspects of the culture. This incomplete or distorted view of another group then gets amplified by frustrations in other areas of our lives - my boss gives me a bad time so I go to the bar, get drunk, and grumble about not only my boss but Mexicans, Jews, women, "niggers," "queers," or "bums" on the street. We all inherit this stuff (in gross or subtle form) from others, from our family, friends, and society, and it's fueled by our own limitations and hurts. We're not to blame for it; it's not our fault. It doesn't mean we're bad. We are, however, responsible for how we deal with it, what we do with it - there's a big difference between fault and responsibility. We have a choice: we can continue in our unthinking patterns, or we can discuss our attitudes and behavior openly, exploring the implications and alternatives.

We can explore alternative ways to achieve whatever positive functions
are now served by otherwise destructive behaviors.

Whether we're talking about circumcision or bigotry, it's essential to find out how we got to where we are and to understand the historical factors behind any cultural behavior. To the extent that we do so, we can stop being slaves of the past and of the powers that be. We can explore alternative ways to achieve whatever positive functions are now served by otherwise destructive behaviors. (A fundamental principle of social and cultural change is that for any institution or practice we wish to change, we must identify whatever positive functions it serves in order to find alternative ways to serve those needs.) We do have options. It's up to each of us to choose how we manifest our spirituality, in which ways we express and evolve our cultural identity. The responsibility of choice is inescapable. Even if we unquestioningly follow tradition and authority, we are choosing to do so. In this age of nuclear overkill and ecological crisis, a serious reevaluation of our ways of thinking and acting would seem to be in order. Whatever serves to create a viable, gentle, and humane future can be embraced and nurtured. That which does not contribute in this way we can leave rapidly and respectfully behind.

After leaving my cultural womb and involving myself in the government's War on Poverty and later the anti-Vietnam War movement, I gradually came to notice that there was a disproportionate number of Jews among my fellow activists, as has been the case in other social change groups I've been involved in since that time. In his introduction to A Mensch Among Men: Explorations in Jewish Masculinity, Harry Brod recounts some of the reasons commonly given for this disproportionality: "elements of Jewish culture such as its commitments to justice and equality, its messianism, and its emphasis on intellectualism and ideas, and other more sociological factors, such as the particular marginality of Jews, the economic and social roots of anti-Semitism, and a historical sympathy for the underdog." So on the issue of circumcision it is not surprising that some of the most dedicated preservationists are Jewish men like Edward Wallerstein, author of Circumcision: An American Health Fallacy, a major medical work on the subject; Dean Edell, M.D., a nationally syndicated radio and TV medical advisor; publisher Ralph Ginzburg, veteran of free speech battles and Director of O.U.C.H., Inc. (Outlaw Unnecessary Circumcision in Hospitals) in New York; and activists like the following:

As a Jewish boy, I was circumcised at a religious ceremony. I first found out from some older woman who once gushed, "Look how big you've grown. I remember you at your bris (the ceremony)!" That's when I found out not only about circumcision, but that they actually had a party to celebrate, and that strangers were present to watch. I felt a tremendous sense of violation.

I get angry when I hear it classified as elective surgery. From the point of view of the victim, it is no more "elective" than the surgery that Dr. Mengele "elected" to perform on concentration camp inmates.(54)

While it may be tempting to dismiss this statement as trivializing the victims of the Holocaust - or as an example of internalized anti-Semitism - to dismiss it would be to trivialize this man's feelings. The reference to "elective" surgery goes directly to the core of the issues of infant rights and informed consent, and the whole statement is, if anything, a rebellion against trivialization of male genital mutilation.

The preservationists eventually lost the battle to an increasingly conservative Reform leadership and as a result, circumcision is practiced by most Reform Jews in the United States today. It's usually done in a hospital, though, with a naming ceremony performed separately later. (While all circumcisions are violent and cruel, those performed in hospitals are arguably more traumatic because of the impersonal surroundings and the longer time taken.) As a result, an intact baby boy can now be taken to a Reform synagogue where the naming ceremony will be conducted with the assumption that the circumcision has already taken place. There might even be a rabbi sympathetic to parental reservations about circumcision, though the best chances are probably with a havurah (informal meeting group) rabbi with no official congregation. He (or she) has less at stake and would be more likely to go along with such a controversial request. Official naming certificates are available from the Society for Humanistic Judaism (see Appendix A). I was quite surprised when, at one synagogue I visited, the office manager compared the clitoridectomies done on girls in other cultures with male circumcision. "I guess you can tell where I stand on this," she said. "It's genital mutilation."

Yesh G'Vul

Of course, such attitudes can be discounted by the more religiously orthodox as the corrupting influence of secular humanism. One Jewish man came up to me at an outreach table I was staffing at a university, dismissed humanistic strains in Judaism as fleeting aberrations in the vast panorama of history, and justified circumcision because it was a practice of great antiquity. I pointed out that many Moslems circumcised both boys and girls, and asked, "If tradition and scriptures said to circumcise your daughters, would you do it?" "No, of course not," he said. "There are limits."

...(W)hat the preservationist movement is doing is re-drawing the line,
...between helpless babies and legal adults able to make informed choices about their own bodies.

"Yesh G'vul," "there are limits," is the rallying cry - and the name - of the peace movement among Israeli soldiers shocked by their government's actions against the intifada, the Palestinian uprising. We all have limits beyond which we will not (or should not) go, even under orders of respected authority or in pursuit of what we consider laudable ends. In terms of circumcision, what the preservationist movement is doing is re-drawing the line, the limit, not in a sexist manner between boys and girls, but humanely between helpless babies and legal adults able to make informed choices about their own bodies. (One of the fallback proposals in the Reform movement as circumcision was being reinstituted was to make it an adult procedure done of free choice, perhaps with only a small portion of the foreskin removed; unfortunately, it failed. The only progress made that didn't get reversed was elimination of the circumcision requirement for adult converts to Judaism.)

...(W)hat many Jews hear is not our compassion or logic, but historical echoes of pogroms...

The issue of circumcision can seem beguilingly simple - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" - but for Jews its roots go as far back as patriarchy itself, and as deep as the collective trauma of genocide. When we speak of the pain and loss of circumcision, what many Jews hear is not our compassion or logic, but historical echoes of pogroms, of evictions from ancestral lands, of shattered glass and dreams, of the rap on the door before being taken away. The siege mentality - circling the wagon train under attack - that has been created by historical anti-Semitism has made cooperation difficult between Jews and gentiles with common preservationist aims; Jews working with gentiles in the movement are often viewed as "consorting with the enemy."

So the challenge raised by the preservationist movement is far more profound and difficult for Jews than the mere century-old medical arguments and the parental insecurities that gentiles have to deal with. For some reason this seems especially true for Jews in the United States. The Summer 1988 issue of the journal Humanistic Judaism carried an article titled "A Mother Questions Brit Milla":

Coming from a European background where routine circumcisions as practiced in most American hospitals are nonexistent, and where many Jews reject a brit milla as an archaic and barbaric ritual, I simply assumed that the [American] Jewish community had divergent approaches to this issue just as with every other aspect of Judaism. I was stunned to realize that questioning this ritual is the ultimate taboo among American Jews. Not only was I not supposed to question it, but I was not even supposed to have the feelings and concerns that I had .... Anyone who dares to question the brit milla ritual is angrily silenced, laughed at, lightly dismissed, or labeled "a traitor undermining Judaism"...(60)

When followers take the lead, leaders will eventually follow.

But change is in the air. Feminist Jewish women in Israel have now carried the Torah to the Wailing Wall and led prayers there, outraging Orthodox rabbis who seek to preserve unquestioningly the old patriarchal ways. ["A woman carrying a Torah," the New York Times quoted the Orthodox rabbi in charge of the area as saying, "is like a pig at the Wailing Wall.(61)] . The Alternative Bris Support Group is helping the small but growing number of parents who choose not to circumcise while still raising their children as cultural or even religious Jews. As the Us/Them, Jew/gentile divide softens (a process impeded by anti- Semitism), deep internal value differences between fundamentalist and humanistic Jews emerge. Suppressed to the extent that the community as a whole feels the need for a forced unity in the face of external threats, these differences are becoming more and more apparent on a variety of issues, most dramatically in relation to the policies of Israel in the Palestinian uprising. Already we're beginning to see a sort of preservationist version of liberation theology, as some rabbinical students and even rabbis question circumcision, following the lead of lay people.

If women could torch bras...and if draft cards could be burned
...then bris certificates could certainly be sliced up or drenched in blood...

When followers take the lead, leaders will eventually follow. It seems only a matter of time until Jewish men, a courageous few at first, pick up on and carry forward last century's preservationist movement within Reform Judaism by applying the politics of modern nonviolent protest. If women could torch bras to protest their restrictions and if draft cards could be burned to express our agony over the napalming of Vietnamese villages, then bris certificates could certainly be sliced up or drenched in blood to point out the contradiction of having ritual genital mutilation in what is otherwise a joyous occasion.

Jewish Associates of CRC makes known to the Jewish community that a growing number of Jews either have not circumcised their son or would choose not to circumcise a future son. It is an opportunity for Jews who take this position to declare themselves and to be counted. A confidential list of Jews who contact the Circumcision Resource Center for this purpose is maintained. Learn how you can join Jewish Associates of CRC. Israeli Association Against Genital Mutilation P.O. Box 56178, Tel Aviv 61561,  Israel    Tel 972-9-8949236    E-mail: avshalom@ozemail.com.au Af-Milah - Second Thoughts on Brit Milah The Israeli Newsletter Against Circumcision  (in Hebrew) P.O. Box 207,  Rosh-Pinah 12000,  Israel   Tel 972-51-979568    E-mail: af-mila@canaan.co.il Brit Shalom Providers Brit Shalom is a non-cutting naming ceremony for newborn Jewish boys.

References

50 Rabbi Burt Jacobson (Jewish Renewal Movement), Kehilia Synagogue, Oakland/Berkeley, CA. Interview with he author, June 1989. back to text

51 First International Symposium on Circumcision, 1-3 March 1989, Anaheim, CA. The author was in attendance. back to text

52 Briggs, Anne, Circumcision: What Every Parent Should Know, p.172. back to text

53 Flyer received in the mail by the author in 1989 from a circumcisionist, as evidence that the preservationist movement was racist. back to text

54 Written statement received by The Victims Speak, undated, Summer 1988. back to text

55 Daly, Mary, Gyn Ecology: The Metaphysics of Radical Feminism, Ch. 4, "Chinese Footbinding: On Footnoting the Three-Inch 'Lotus Hooks', " pp. 134-152, cited by Romberg, p. 56, Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma, 1985, Bergin & Garvey, S. Hadley, MA. back to text

56 Schechet, Jacob, rabbi and mohel, The Layman's Guide to the Covenant of Circumcision, p. 16, cited by Romberg, p. 56. back to text

57 From literature sent out by the Alternative Bris Support Group, 1989. back to text

58 Interview by author with Rabbi Burt Jacobson (Jewish Renewal Movement) Kehilia Synagogue, Oakland/Berkeley, CA. Interview with he author, June 1989. back to text

59 Romberg, p. 55. back to text

60 Karsenty, Nelly, "A Mother Questions Brit Milla," Humanistic Judaism, Summer 1988, p. 14. back to text

61 "Jewish Feminists Prompt Protests at Wailing Wall" (with photo), New York Times, 2 Dec. 1988, p. A10, quoting Rabbi Meir Yehuda Getz (Orthodox). back to text

Appendix A - Listing for Humanistic Judaism, quarterly, Summer 1988 (vol. XVI, no. III), articles on theme of "Becoming Parents dealing with circumcision from a non-dogmatic religious and cultural perspective. Single back issue $4.00 plus $1.00 postage, or $15/year from Society for Humanistic Judaism, 28611 West Twelve Mile Road, Farmington Hills, MI 48018, Tel.313-478-7610. back to text

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