מקען אפשר האבן א אפליקאציע פאר מעמבערשיפ און די אגודה?
וואס זענען די קוואליפיקאציעס?
און בלאמבערג וועט אריין וואקען און דערמיט
האט מען אויף געגעבן??
| (02/03/2006) |
| Culture Clash Over Brit Ritual |
| Correspondence shows health department officials, fervently Orthodox community bringing widely varied perspectives to a controversial rite. |
Undergirding the current standoff between the fervently Orthodox community and the New York City Department of Health over a controversial circumcision practice appears to be a gulf of cultural difference and a fundamental misunderstanding of the disease at issue. |
MOSHE
וואס די זאגסט איז שקר מוחלט
דער [אום אחריות'דיגע] קאמפראמיס פון התאחדות איז געוועהן אז זיי וועלן פארשען דעם ענין פון הרב פישער. און זיי זענען מסכים צו מאכען א קאמיטי פון רבנים און דאקטוירים וואס זאל שטודירן דעם ענין [א טיפשעס נורא]
דעם צעטל פארשלאג איז א זאך וואס קיינער האט נישט און וועט נישט מקבל זיין ווייל צום סוף וועט דאס ווערן א איסור מוחלט פון דער סיטי
דער אגודה שטעלונג פון אונפאנג אהן עד היום איז אז דער רעגירונג זאל נישט האבען קיין שום דעה און ברית מילה!
דער 'צוגאנג' וויי אזוי מ'האנדלט מיט די רעגירונג איז דער סלע המחלוקה פון אגודה און התאחדות דער אגודה האט געהאלטן און האלט ווייטער זיך שטארק ביי די דעה. אז אזא ענין קען מען נאר האנדלען מיט שטילע שתלנות ווייל אין פאבליק וועט דעם מערכה פאלירן.
דער התאחדות האלט אז מ'מוז זיך שלאגען אויף אלע פראנטן און נישט נאכגעבען אפילו צו באזייטיגען הרב פישער און זיך צו שלאגען איבער הרב פישער איז אן ענין פון פרינציפ.
דער אגודה האט געהאלטן אז דאס שלאגען זיך פאר הרב פישער וועט גורם זיין אז מ'זאל אסר'ן אלע מוהלים פון צו מאכען מציצה בפה.
איך האלט אז דער צייט וועט ווייזען אז דער אגודה צוגאנג איז געווען דער ריכטיגער און דער פאבליק פייט וואס די קנאים האבען אונגעפירט האט גורם געווען א געוואלדיגער שאדען.
ווארהייט: Rare Circumcision Rite Causes Stir in N.Y. By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 11 minutes ago For thousands of years, rabbis performed a simple procedure to cleanse the wound during a ritual circumcision: Like outdoorsmen treating a snake bite, they sucked blood from the cut and spit it out. That age-old procedure is now the subject of a clash between religion and science in modern-day New York. Prompted by a child's death from an infection, the state Health Department is drawing up its first set of safety guidelines governing the practice, which was abandoned by most Jews long ago but has survived among the ultra-Orthodox in a few Hasidic communities. Doctors have long been concerned that the procedure — called "metzitzah b'peh" in Hebrew — could spread disease. But their argument became urgent last year when New York City health officials said the practice had given a baby a fatal infection. The illness was caused by herpes simplex type 1, the common virus in saliva that causes cold sores. Usually harmless to adults, it can be deadly to newborns. The death was believed to be the first in the United States to be associated with metzitzah b'peh, but the city said it had linked four other herpes infections since 1988 to two mohels, as those who perform ritual circumcisions are called. Two more cases were reported in 2005, including one in which a child suffered brain damage. Efforts to curtail the practice have met with resistance from some Hasidic leaders, who say the act is commanded by Jewish law. They threatened protests after the city's health commissioner recommended that infants not undergo the procedure. The state guidelines will stop short of a ban but will include voluntary precautions that could reduce the chances of infection during a bris, as a ritual circumcision is called, said state Health Department spokesman Robert Kenny. Rabbis will probably be asked to inform their congregations about the risks, and parents will be advised to seek prompt care from a pediatrician if their baby develops a fever or rash. Steps will also be taken to "ensure that mohels have full knowledge of their health status" before performing the ritual, Kenny said. He declined to discuss details, saying the guidelines were still being developed. But several religious leaders have suggested that mohels be asked to rinse their mouths with alcohol, undergo regular testing for disease and refrain from doing circumcisions if they have a cold sore. The guidelines are likely to displease some doctors. Dr. Jonathan M. Zenilman, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, said that while infections have been rare, the potential for harm is substantial enough to justify a ban. "This is something that is pretty much counter to all of the infection-control measures that we have," Zenilman said. Asking mohels (the word is usually pronounced MOY-il) to police themselves could be ineffective, he warned. As many as 70 percent of all adults have herpes simplex 1, and it is difficult to detect periods when the virus is contagious. It is unclear how the Hasidic community will react to the guidelines. Rabbi David Niederman of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, a Brooklyn neighborhood with a large number of ultra-Orthodox Jews, has argued for no government action, saying there is too little medical evidence to justify a public warning about a ritual performed safely thousands of times a year. "Parents have been alarmed unnecessarily," he said, adding that he has received calls from worried mothers. "We are not fanatics," Niederman said. "If there is evidence that this practice is not safe, we will not do it. We will be the first ones to act. That is embodied in the same Torah that tells us to make a bris for a child." Rabbi J. David Bleich, a professor of both Jewish and secular law at Yeshiva University, said the debate over metzitzah b'peh began in Europe during the mid-19th century, when suspicion arose that it was spreading tuberculosis. Ever since, there has been disagreement over whether the practice was required under Jewish law or simply recommended for medical reasons. A majority of Reform and modern Orthodox mohels decided it was recommended, and now clean a circumcision wound with sterile gauze, a sponge or a glass tube. But a century and a half of debate has not resolved the argument, and Bleich suggested that actions by health authorities would not settle the issue either. "Whatever changes are going to come are not going to come because of government pressure," he said. "If you want to change the way rabbis are doing things, the way to do it isn't to threaten them."
יעצט איז געקומען די צייט פאר די פרעסטיזשפולע AP זיך צו נעמען צו די מציצה בפה קאנטראווערסיע
Is Ritual Circumcision Religious Expression
Americans pride themselves on their commitment to freedom of religion, but how much religious freedom is too much religious freedom? At the moment, the thorniest dispute over the issue concerns a male-circumcision ritual practiced by some Hasidic Jews in New York. The ritual is called oral suction, or metzitzah b'peh. After removing the foreskin, the mohel, who conducts the circumcision, cleans the wound by sucking blood from it. According to city health officials, the ritual may have caused three infants circumcised by the same mohel in 2003 and 2004 to contract neonatal herpes (one of the infants subsequently died). New York's city health commissioner recently issued a warning about the dangers of oral suction, leading some Orthodox Jewish leaders to complain that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had reneged on promises to let religious authorities handle the issue. Meanwhile, secularists like the writer Christopher Hitchens have attacked the mayor for banning smoking in restaurants while failing to protect helpless children from diseases transmitted by "religious fanatics."
There are, after all, individuals and advocacy groups in America who oppose male circumcision on principle and could use the courts to their advantage. In 1997, a North Dakota mother whose son had been circumcised over her objection with his father's consent argued in federal court that North Dakota's ban on female genital mutilation ? which some Muslims believe is compelled by the Koran ? was unconstitutional. Because the state protected girls but not boys from a harmful and medically unnecessary procedure, the mother argued, it failed to treat boys and girls equally. Either both forms of circumcision had to be banned or both had to be allowed. Although the suit was dismissed, it points toward an aggressively secularist system, as in France, where inflexible visions of equality are used to curtail traditional religious practices.
America, with its longstanding tradition of accommodating minority religious practices, has chosen an alternative model, more consistent with the demands of a multicultural democracy. The harms of female circumcision are more obvious than those posed by the oral suction procedure in male circumcision, which no state has yet regulated. (There are 2,000 to 4,000 of these circumcisions performed each year in New York City, and no more than seven recorded cases of herpes.) U.S. judges and politicians should defer to religious authorities in the cases where reasonable people can disagree about the health risks.
Ultimately, the American compromise depends on a delicate series of judgments about when, precisely, private religious expression imposes harms on unconsenting and innocent third parties. Courts have held that Jehovah's Witnesses may not deprive their children of blood transfusions. But should the city of Newark be able to prohibit all police officers ? including practicing Muslims ? from wearing beards in order to foster a uniform appearance on the job? In a 1999 ruling, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. sided with the Muslim officers. Since Newark allowed police officers not to shave for medical reasons (typically if they had a skin condition), Alito said that it was discriminatory not to make an exception for those whose religion required them to wear beards. Alito stressed, however, that states can refuse to accommodate religious minorities in the interest of promoting public health, as long as they treat religious and secular citizens equally.
This Solomonic ruling makes sense, as far as it goes, but it doesn't tell us how deferential Alito will be to religious practices in other cases. The most prominent American conservative scholar of religious liberty, Judge Michael McConnell, agrees that noncoercive religious expressions, like yarmulkes worn by Jewish soldiers, should be accommodated. But he emphasizes that public prayer in schools, which coerces nonbelievers to pray, should be banned. By contrast, Justice Antonin Scalia, who generally opposes religious accommodations, supports prayer in schools because he says that the state needn't be neutral between religion and secularism. Let's hope that Justice Alito, whatever his views on Orthodox circumcision rituals, doesn't go that far. The beards of Muslim police officers should indeed be protected, but not as a cautious first step toward the goal of creating an openly religious state.
ר' יצחק מאשקאוויטש, דער דיין פון נייטרא האט געשאסן א מעכטיגע באמבע, וואס איז געפאלן אויף די זאלונים ווי א דינער אינמינטן העלן טאג.
דער נייטרא'ער דיין האט געזאגט דעם שבת, אז די גאנצע מציצה בפה דורכפאל איז נאר אדאנק די עסקנים.
די עסקנים האבן געשפילט פאליטיק מיט דעם שרעקליכן גזר דין, און האבן עס פארשפילט און אדאנק זיי ליידט מען איצט.
נידערמאן מענצער און גאלדבערגער זענען ארומגעלאפן ווי פארסאמטע מייז. יעצט הייבן זיי אן סטראשענען ר' יצחק'ן אז ער מוז שוין צוריקציען. ווייל אויב נישט, וועלן זיי אים אויסטאן פאר די גאנצע וועלט, אז ער איז א מנוול און א שייגעץ.
ר' יצחק זאגט אבער פאר יעדן אז די עסקנים וואס האבן גענומען אינטערשריפטן פונעם ציבור פאר פאליטיק און האבן געמאכט א ראלי פאר פאליטיק וועלן באצאלן דעם פרייז.
איצט קומט א בלוטיגע מערכה קעגן ר' יצחק מאשקאוויטש