Letter to the Iceland Alþingi on the Proposed Involuntary-Circumcision Ban

by David Balashinsky

Three weeks ago I received a very cordial message, in somewhat broken English, from Ms. Íris Björg Þorvaldsdóttir, of Intact Iceland.  I received the message at the Facebook page Jews Against Circumcision where I am one of the page administrators.  Ms. Þorvaldsdóttir inquired whether we had been following the proposed involuntary-circumcision ban that was currently before a committee of the Icelandic Alþingi (or parliament).  More to the point, she contacted us because this committee had by then already received several letters in opposition to the proposed legislation from Jewish individuals and organizations.  Mindful of the fact that the brit milah and all genital mutilation is ardently opposed by numerous Jews around the world, Þorvaldsdóttir was concerned that these letters in opposition to the proposed legislation might erroneously convey the impression - in the absence of any statements to the contrary by Jews who oppose genital cutting - first, that Jews the world over are unanimous in their support of the brit milah (and of the right of parents to inflict genital cutting on their children) and, second, that those Jewish individuals and organizations that had written in opposition to the legislation might be taken, therefore, to be speaking on behalf of Jews everywhere.  Knowing both of these propositions to be false and anticipating, rightly, that we would not want them to go unchallenged, Þorvaldsdóttir contacted Jews Against Circumcision in order, as she phrased it, that "you can see what you are up against."  That was the catalyst - and a welcome, timely and fortunate catalyst it was - for the letter that was sent to the Iceland Alþingi (where it can be found, along with numerous other comments, both pro and con, through this link) a revised version of which is reproduced below.

I mention Ms. Þorvaldsdóttir's name here, more than any other reason, because I want to give credit where it is due.  But for Þorvaldsdóttir's astute activism on behalf of this cause, the letter that follows would not have come to be written.  Although I was aware of the pending legislation before the committee of the Alþingi, I was not aware that public comments about it were being offered and accepted.  Consequently, I had no plans to lend my voice - either on my own behalf or on behalf of members of Jews Against Circumcision - in support of the proposed legislation.  I had signed a petition to the Alþingi in support of the legislation about a month prior and, of course, I had shared it among the several like-minded Facebook groups that I either administer or belong to, but that had been the extent of it.  I was not aware of the opportunity to write to the committee directly.  In making Jews Against Circumcision aware of this opportunity, Þorvaldsdóttir did the cause of genital autonomy, Jews who oppose brit milah, the Facebook group Jews Against Circumcision and me personally a tremendous service.  That is the second reason why I want to acknowledge Þorvaldsdóttir here.  I am extremely grateful to her and I am happy to have an opportunity to thank her publicly for her having reached out to our group.

A brief word or two about Ms. Þorvaldsdóttir herself is warranted here also.  Þorvaldsdóttir is a native of Iceland and the mother of three young children.  Her youngest child is a boy and it was not until his impending birth that the matter of involuntary non-therapeutic circumcision and the worldwide movement to eradicate it (like that of its sister movement, the worldwide effort to end FGM) really entered her consciousness.  She became involved in Intact Denmark (where she was living at the time) and subsequently went on to found Intact Iceland.  She is a champion of human rights and human dignity.  When male genital mutilation is finally outlawed (as I hope it will be), and finally eradicated (as I know it will be), it will be due to the indefatigable efforts of great humanitarians like her.

A couple of words about the letter itself are warranted here, also.   What is reproduced below is, in the main, what was sent to the Alþingi.  However, the present version has been revised in a few minor ways but also in one significant respect.  I have added a paragraph (which begins with "Sixth,") because, after sharing a draft of this letter on the Facebook page Jews Against Circumcision in my quest for co-signers, I received at least a couple of comments from men who described themselves as former Jews.  I would imagine that their feelings about their identity and the factors that led them to renounce Judaism and even their very Jewishness are complex but clearly their resentment - rage, even - at the harm that had been done to their bodies in the name of Judaism was a - probably, the - precipitating factor.  While their no longer identifying as Jews obviously precluded their co-signing the letter as Jews, their feelings about this got me thinking about this phenomenon and it occurred to me that the feelings of such men deserve to be represented here.  Not merely because these are valid sentiments and highly relevant to this discussion but because such sentiments perfectly contradict the claim by some defenders of MGM that outlawing involuntary circumcision would constitute an existential threat to Jews and Judaism.  The feelings of these men demonstrate unambiguously that the continuation of the forced genital cutting of Jewish infants has as much potential to alienate Jews from their religion (and from their ethnic group) as it has to bind them to it.  That alienation represents its own kind of existential threat to Judaism and to the Jewish People.  As I explain in the paragraph itself, as notions of bodily integrity become more universalized - as men who were subjected to forced genital cutting look around at the MeToo movement, at the FGM-eradication movement, at the abortion rights movement, and at many other human rights movements, all of which start from the premise of the inviolability of each person's physical boundaries - it is inevitable that more and more of them will ask, "What about me?  What about my body? What about my rights?" 

A final word:  I want to explain why I am publishing this letter here.  Its original purpose, after all, was to lend my voice - on my own behalf and on behalf of like-minded Jewish individuals who oppose genital mutilation - in support of the involuntary circumcision ban that, as of this writing, is being considered by the Alþingi in Iceland.  But, after writing it, I came to feel that the letter might serve a larger purpose that transcends that current parochial one.  I believe that it can stand on its own as a manifesto (if it isn't presumptuous so to describe it) by Jews who oppose genital cutting.  Even if the current effort in Iceland succeeds, the struggle to end genital mutilation everywhere else will go on.  And as long as it does, Jews themselves will be a part of it.


25 March 2018

Ágæta Alþingi / Dear Members of the Parliament:

We, the undersigned, are members of the group Jews Against Circumcision.  We are writing in support of your proposed ban on non-therapeutic involuntary circumcision of minors.  We are also writing in rebuttal to letters that you have received in opposition to the proposed legislation from several prominent Jewish organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities and the Belgian Federation of Jewish Organizations.  We want it to be known that, on the matter of involuntary circumcision, these organizations do not speak for all Jews and they do not speak for us.

First, a word about who we are and what we believe in.  We are men and women who come from different walks of life and different parts of the world but who are united in our identification as Jews and in our unwavering opposition to male genital mutilation ("circumcision").  Some of us are secular Jews, identifying as Jewish ethnically and culturally, and some of us are religious Jews for whom Judaism is central to our beliefs and values.  Some of us have been subjected to involuntary circumcision and others have not.  Some of us were subjected to involuntary circumcision within the context of the brit milah.  Other members of our group were subjected to it merely because we were born into a particular time and place and so were swept up in the tide of medicalized (but nonetheless customary) involuntary circumcision that has been a blot on the practice of neonatal medical care during the past one hundred seventy-five years or so.   For those of us who have been subjected to involuntary circumcision, we maintain not only that we were harmed by it but that, in being denied a choice regarding the very configuration of our own bodies, we were deprived of our fundamental human rights and dignity. 

We emphatically do not reject our Jewishness and, for those of us who are religious, we do not reject Judaism: what we reject is involuntary circumcision.  We reject it and we oppose it on the following grounds:

First, we reject the proposition that involuntary circumcision is essential to the practice of Judaism for the individual himself.  It isn't.  Jewish women are not subjected to involuntary circumcision and they are no less spiritual - nor do they regard themselves any less beloved by Him (or Her) whom they believe to be the Creator of the universe - than their Jewish fathers, brothers, husbands and sons who were.  More to the point, there are countless Jewish boys and men the world over - no less spiritual and no less devout than our Jewish brethren who have written to oppose the involuntary-circumcision ban - who were not, as neonates, subjected to this ancient and barbaric ritual.  Judaism is the sublime manifestation of one's spirituality and religious beliefs.  It is not reducible to the size and shape of a man's penis; to claim otherwise is to debase Judaism.

Second, we reject the proposition that involuntary circumcision is essential to the survival of Judaism as a cohesive religion.  It isn't.  Religious Jews around the world, in ever-increasing numbers, are replacing the brit milah with the brit shalom, a non-violent, non-harmful religious ceremony that serves exactly the same spiritual and communal purposes as the brit milah but without the harm, without the blood, without the pain, without the trauma, and without the human rights violation.

Third, we reject the proposition that involuntary circumcision is essential to the continued existence of the Jews as a people.  It isn't.  The Jewish people existed long before the advent of involuntary neonatal circumcision as a religious mandate, we existed longer still before involuntary circumcision was expanded into the radical prepucectomy (peri'ah) that is practiced today, and we will continue to exist long after involuntary circumcision has gone the way of various other strict religious mandates that are no longer followed by the majority of Jews, such as certain dietary restrictions, the proscription against intermarriage, and post-menstrual ritual bathing.  And we will continue to exist long after it has gone the way of other long-discarded and long-rejected customs and acts that were once practiced by our forebears contemporaneously with involuntary circumcision  including polygyny, death by stoning, and slavery.

Fourth, we reject the proposition that involuntary circumcision is a necessary part of being Jewish.  It isn't.  A Jewish girl is no less Jewish than her brother.  And a Jewish boy born to a Jewish mother is no less Jewish by virtue of not having had part of his penis cut off.  Jewishness is a product of one's genes, one's heritage, one's family life and upbringing, one's values, one's traditions and culture.  And, as noted above, in the case of Judaism, it is a product of one's religious beliefs.

Fifth, we reject involuntary circumcision because we regard all genital cutting of children without their consent as a violation of the fundamental human right to grow up with all of one's body parts intact. That means that every human being has an inherent right to grow up with the genitals that she or he was born with.  This belief is inextricable from the ethical and moral beliefs that we, as Jews, hold dear.  Our fervent opposition to involuntary circumcision, then, is not in spite of our Jewish beliefs and values but because of them.

Sixth, in contrast to the concerns raised by the ADL and others, we regard the continued practice of involuntary circumcision as constituting as much of a threat (and potentially a greater one) to the survival of Judaism as a religion and to the Jewish people as a people as banning it would be.  Our concerns in this regard have been prompted by comments that we have received from self-described "former Jews" who, owing entirely to their resentment about what was done to their genitals as infants without their consent, have rejected not just the brit milah but their Judaism and even their Jewishness.  The brit milah, far from girding these unfortunate men to their religion and to their people, resulted ultimately in driving them away.  We fear that this trend will not only continue but increase.  Involuntary circumcision has, for a long time, been on a collision course with modernity, especially with respect to the progress the world has made insofar as fundamental human rights are concerned.  We are now witnessing that collision and its unfortunate results unfolding in real time.  As the world has modernized, the brit milah has become increasingly impossible to reconcile with contemporary notions of autonomy and the inviolability of each person's physical boundaries.  It is inevitable, we fear, that more and more Jews will be driven to renounce their Jewishness and Judaism altogether if they are made to feel that their acceptance of genital cutting is a non-negotiable condition of remaining within the fold.

Seventh, we reject the broad assertion that the movement to ban involuntary circumcision - and the specific assertion that the proposed legislation banning it that is before this committee of the Alþingi - is nothing more than a thinly veiled attack on Jews or Judaism.  It isn't.  We Jewish opponents of involuntary circumcision regard this movement as a progressive human-rights struggle and we regard this legislation as a long-overdue inclusion of boys - including Jewish ones - within the protective ambit of the already-existing legal framework under which female genital mutilation has been banned in Iceland and throughout much of the world.  We regard the proposed legislation not as an attack on Jews but as the inevitable logical conclusion of contemporary and increasingly universal standards regarding human rights and children's rights as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (ratified by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948) and in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989 and ratified in 1990), and specifically as articulated in Article 37, part a of the latter which states that "No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Eighth, we reject the assertion that the right to subject an infant or child to involuntary circumcision is a fundamental right that comes under the rubric of "religious freedom."  While we recognize that the freedom to believe (or not to believe, for that matter) is fundamental and, therefore, absolute and illimitable, we reject the extension of that principle to the assertion that the freedom to act is likewise fundamental and, therefore, absolute and illimitable.  We believe that one person's right to practice her or his religion ends where another person's body begins.  We believe that one person's fundamental right of religious liberty is delimited by every other person's even more fundamental right not to be physically harmed.  We believe that the only person who has a right to cause to have his or her genitals (or any other body part) mutilated, deformed, scarred, or surgically altered in any way is the individual himself or herself.  No one else has a right to decide what parts of a boy's penis he gets to keep and what parts get cut off.  We do not consider that a radical or even a controversial position, much less an anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic (or anti-Muslim) one.  On the contrary, we consider it to be simply and rather obviously in accordance with contemporary norms regarding fundamental human rights and human dignity.   We believe that no one has the right to cut off part of an unconsenting child's penis as a religious rite, for reasons of culture, for reasons of cosmesis, for reasons of convenience, for reasons of conformity, for reasons of tradition or on the basis of dubious and specious justifications related to  health or hygiene when perfectly efficacious non-invasive, non-harmful, non-painful and non-permanent alternatives are readily available (such as soap and water and, in adulthood, the use of a condom).

Having stated all of the foregoing, we also wish it to be known that neither do we oppose circumcision under all circumstances.  While we may not approve, we subscribe to the right of a man to choose circumcision for himself for whatever reason he may have once he is an adult and of an age at which he can make informed choices about his own body.  Once he is capable of exercising informed consent,  we endorse, on the principle of autonomy and self-determination, his right to have his body altered in accordance with his own beliefs and values - whether these beliefs have their origin in religion or anything else.  It is his body and that is why it should be his choice.

We also acknowledge the social context in which opposition by the ADL and other Jewish organizations to this proposed legislation has arisen.  We are fully aware of the history of anti-Semitism and the persecution of our ancestors throughout so much of European history.  And we acknowledge that that persecution has manifested itself in circumcision prohibitions in generations past.  When these earlier prohibitions were enacted, after all, they were part of explicitly anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish government programs.  It is understandable, especially with the memory of the Holocaust still fresh in our minds, that some Jews would hear ominous echoes of Europe's dark anti-Semitic past in the current effort to prohibit involuntary circumcision.  Such fears may acquire even greater validation and urgency given the alarming recrudescence of nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism that has occurred on both sides of the Atlantic during the past few years (and especially during the last year and a half).

But, as Jews who oppose involuntary circumcision, we vigorously reject the assertion that the modern genital autonomy movement (which seeks to ban all genital cutting: of girls and intersex children as well as of boys) is nothing more than a resurgent manifestation of anti-Semitism.  Indeed, we are offended by that assertion.  While circumcision prohibitions from centuries past that were anti-Jewish in design and the contemporary movement to ban all involuntary genital cutting both culminate in and therefore intersect at the point of banning involuntary circumcision, these bans are fundamentally different because they arise from worldviews that are, in fact, worlds apart.  Previous prohibitions originated in ethnic and religious hatred while the modern genital autonomy movement originates in respect for the body-rights of the individual and in a philosophical objection to violence and to the needless causing of pain and suffering to infants.  Previous prohibitions sought to ban this ancient, involuntary blood-letting ritual not because of what it is but because of who practiced it.  The modern genital autonomy movement seeks to ban all involuntary genital cutting not because of who practices it but because of what it is. 

We also reject the assertion that the effect, if not the stated purpose, of the proposed involuntary-circumcision prohibition would be to make Jews (or Muslims) personae non gratae in Iceland.  As Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL put it, "Such a ban would mean that no Jewish family could be raised in Iceland, and it is inconceivable that a Jewish community could remain in any country that prohibited brit milah."  That assertion completely discounts the thousands upon thousands of Jews who abhor the brit milah and would be only too happy to raise their families - and to raise them as proudly Jewish - in a country where brit milah is prohibited by law.  How many new Jewish parents have been pressured - against their natural maternal and paternal instincts, against their inmost beliefs, and against their better judgment - into subjecting their sons to circumcision?  Time and again we learn of the extent to which it is the social pressure on behalf of involuntary circumcision that is brought to bear on new parents by their parents, relatives or others in their community that is chiefly and ultimately responsible for the perpetuation of this odious practice.  The paradox is that, contrary to Mr. Greenblatt's supposition that the involuntary-circumcision ban must necessarily result in an exodus of Jews from Iceland, such a prohibition could just as likely have the opposite effect: an influx of Jews who would gladly raise their families in a country where they are free of the social pressure to subject their children to genital cutting.

There is nothing in the text of the proposed bill that could lead anyone to fairly conclude that it is motivated by anti-Jewish (or even anti-Islamic) sentiment.  The bill has sponsors from the Progressive Party, the People's Party, the Left-Green Movement and the Pirate Party.  And while the Progressive Party and the People's Party have recently been linked with populism and the espousal of anti-immigration sentiments, the bill is also co-sponsored by MPs from parties that are associated mainly with environmentalism, feminism and pacifism (the Left-Green Movement), and direct democracy (the Pirate Party).

We are thus left to weigh the merits and potential significance of the proposed legislation against the historical backdrop of anti-Semitism and against the contemporary backdrop of xenophobia and anti-immigrant nationalism that have swept across much of the northern hemisphere.  We are left, further, to consider whether the proposed legislation has roots sunk deep within nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic soil, as some have claimed of this and of similar proposed legislation elsewhere or, as we would like to believe, whether it is, on the contrary, the flowering of the same humanist and progressive impulses that inform the genital autonomy movement of which Jews Against Circumcision is a part.

Having done so, we wholeheartedly and enthusiastically endorse this legislation.  The proposed circumcision prohibition would ban all non-therapeutic involuntary genital cutting of boys, no matter what reasons are entertained by the child's parents for wanting to subject their child to circumcision, no matter what that child's parents' religion or ethnicity happens to be and, for that matter, even irrespective of any ulterior or merely unfairly impugned motives on the part of the bill's sponsors.  This opportunity is too important not to seize.  The right of every child to be free of genital cutting is an idea whose time has come.  The proposed circumcision ban, as we see it, represents the inevitable and irresistible march of human progress toward greater respect for the rights of the child and the rights of the individual.  Consistent with our Jewish ethos and with the concept of tikkun olam, we endorse that progress and are proud, as Jews, to be a part of it.

Revised 13 April 2018