No respectable public advocacy campaign should tolerate anti-Semitism in its name. But the anti circumcision movement allowed one of its prime leaders–Matthew Hess–to engage in the most rank bigotry with his Mohel Monster character in the “Foreskin Man” comic book without apparent objection, The story was first broken by my wife, Debra J. Saunders, on her San Francisco Chronicle “Token Conservative” blog–and it took off from there.
We have had extensive discussions here, and I have been appalled at some of the rationalizations and justifications for a classic anti-Semitic and hateful image–that even said the “evil” rabbi would only be stopped when he was dead. Now, a non anti Semitic leader of the drive to place a ban on the Santa Monica ballot for 2012 has properly retreated so as to not be associated with such a despicable publication. From the NYT story:
The primary backer of an effort to get a ban on circumcision on the ballot in Santa Monica is abandoning her push, saying the proposed legislation had been misrepresented as an effort to impinge on religious freedom. A similar measure in San Francisco is scheduled for a fall vote.
The woman, Jena Troutman, a mother of two boys who began the process of trying to get a ban on the Santa Monica municipal ballot in 2012, said the news media had distorted the effort. “The religious opposition really rose up, and I never intended it to be about that at all,” Ms. Troutman said. “Ninety-five percent of babies who are circumcised have nothing to do with religion — that’s what I was focused on. Once I discovered this bill was not going to open up the conversation but was closing it down, I wanted no part of it.” Ms. Troutman said she wanted to focus on educating parents through the Web site she runs, wholebabyrevolution.com.
Good for her. That’s the way to do it, anyway.
Hess says he remains confident that SF will pass his law despite his poisonous advocacy. Don’t bet on it. One of The City’s most powerful politicians–Mark Leno, gay, very liberal, Jewish–has blasted the anti-Semitism in a quote from a San Francisco Chronicle editorial decrying the comic book. From the editorial (behind pay wall until June 9):
“It needs to be called what it is — which is blatantly anti-Semitic,” said state Sen. Mark Leno. “It’s meant to frighten; it’s meant to enrage”
True, Leno didn’t take a position on the initiative–but I know SF politics, and I think that sinks it.
Ugly anti-Jewish hate deserves to lose–regardless of its supposed justification. Frankly, anti circumcision activists of good faith should publicly call on Hess to scrub the entire Monster Mohel edition of FM, and apologize. If he doesn’t, they should publicly disassociate themselves and their cause from him and his work. Never Again.
June 8th, 2011 | 10:44 pm
I will say publicly, what I said privately when I first became aware of the images, a day or so before it was blogged about on First Things. Hess should step down, issue an apology and publicly apologize for the cartoons. He should give the domain and anything else associated to the cause to other activists, Jewish or non-Jewish who are respectful of Judaism and work to end sexual violence of both genders. There are many who fit that description.
I want to reiterate that the movement to abolish genital mutilation includes many intelligent and courageous Jews all over the USA and world.
A few of them, some of whom will probably weigh in over the coming days are:
[I told you no more links. Next time, I won't post any of your comment.]
June 9th, 2011 | 8:02 am
I’m glad that you are starting to recognize that just because a person opposes circumcision, that does not mean that that person is anti-Semitic. Many oppose circumcision because of the pain and harm it does to children. Jena Troutman is one such person, as am I.
The vast majority of circumcisions performed in the U.S. today are NOT for religious reasons, including in San Francisco. Most circumcisions done today are for cultural reasons. In fact, the most common reason given today by parents for non-therapeutic circumcision in the U.S. is so the baby will “look like” the circumcised father, clearly a non-medical and non-religious reason.
Thankfully, a CDC study found last year that the circumcision rate in the U.S. fell to 32.5% in 2009, so education is making a difference.
Jesus was critical of many practices in Judaism,
but that didn’t make him anti-Semitic, even though he was Jewish. The same could be said of Jewish people who are questioning the practice of circumcision in Judaism.
In John 8:1, 3-8, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Thankfully today, the law of Moses in Judaism no longer requires stoning women (or men) to death for adultery. Sadly, this hasn’t been true for some Muslim women today, who have been stoned to death by Taliban Muslims in Afghanistan for religious reasons. These Taliban Muslims believe they are doing the right thing and following their religion. We have every right to criticize what they are doing to women for religious reasons.
It is not wrong to question religious practices or the actions of religious figures that do harm to others. If it were, one could not be critical of the actions of errant Catholic priests who abused children, out of fear of being called anti-Catholic.
Nor could one be critical of Christian Scientists who deny life-saving treatment for their children based on their religious beliefs.
The time is long overdue to examine whether circumcision for non-medical reasons should come to an end.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 9:19 am
Please. I always recognized that, and indeed so said. It was the “intactivists’” problem, not mine. But too many proved they didn’t care or refused to see it for the big deal that it is. Their problem, and it’s a doozy.
A Jew Against Circumcision Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 1:07 am
@Wesley J. Smith,
What seems funny to me Wesley is that you are a bio-ethicist, and yet I don’t see you very concerned with the biological or ethical issues here.
Are you a neutral bio-ethicist?
June 9th, 2011 | 11:26 am
Wes,
I appreciate the way you have followed this issue. I think you were clear from the start that your focus was on this particular use of anti-semitic imagery in support of the campaign against male circumcision. I had wanted to comment on some of your earlier posts, but for reasons both of time and the sheer number of responses I backed off.
I had difficulty downloading the actual comic books, but I did look at the cards for each of the characters. It was quite apparent to me that these comics were the work of a particular individual presenting his own particular “take” on the issue of male circumcision. I think they reflect an adolescent mindset.
Of all the defenses of the offensive image of the rabbi (and those of his two “assistants”), the strangest one for me was that his equally exaggerated depiction of the doctor in the first comic somehow proves that his depiction of the rabbi was not anti-semitic since he was presenting anyone who performs circumcisions as essentially diabolical. The larger point these people seem to have missed is that this kind of good/evil depiction is itself a crude and juvenile propaganda technique.
If these comics had not been the work of the leader of the San Francisco referendum I doubt they would have received much attention, but because they were, they merited all of the scrutiny and criticism leveled at them, not at the cause as a whole, but at these particular works.
I think the perspectives that caused so much furor in the comments on your various posts – the insistence that the movement as a whole is not anti-semitic – despite the pains that both you and the ADL took to acknowledge this fact – and the way that some people rationalize the use of these images as either irrelevant or the lesser of evils, represent the kind of thinking that passionate advocates for a cause are prone to fall into. Not only do they fail, or refuse, to distinguish between criticisms of particular elements of their movement and attacks on the movement as a whole, they also fail to see how their reactions only further damage the cause. At some point it becomes more important to them to maintain the image of the cause as representing an absolute “good”, as well as to demonstrate their own fervent loyalty to the cause, than it is to actually persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree with them. Some of the defense of the use of these images is a simple form of ends justifying the means rationalizing, but it is also rooted in some deep emotional needs to which pretty much any of us could be prone to succumb depending on the issue at hand. That’s why our mothers taught us to take a deep breath and count to ten (well, mine did anyway).
June 9th, 2011 | 12:09 pm
Never again?
Never again?
Never again?
Wesley keeps repeating that slogan — which refers to the Holocaust — as if this whole stupid comic book controversy were its moral equivalent. It isn’t.
HW
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 12:18 pm
Your nom de blog commenter is a crock. NA is not just about a Holocaust. It is about never letting rank anti Semitism drive policy. Ignorant or troll? Or ignorant troll? You decide.
HistoryWriter Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 5:57 am
@Wesley J. Smith,
I suspected your misuse of the slogan was a cheap propaganda trick. Now, having read your ad hominem reply, I’m sure of it.
HW
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 9:51 am
You don’t even know what ad hominem is. Pathetic, sir.
HistoryWriter Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 10:12 am
@Wesley J. Smith,
Propagandist!
HW
June 9th, 2011 | 1:30 pm
How can somebody call himself “History Writer” be so dense about historical forces?
HistoryWriter Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 5:59 am
@holyterror,
Can’t see when you’re being propagandized, can you?
HW
pentamom Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 9:09 am
@holyterror, Because we don’t have to worry about the effects of dehumanizing groups of people until a short guy with a weird mustache shows up and starts drilling soldiers in jackboots. As long as the Nazis aren’t actually *here,* we don’t have to worry about them.
June 9th, 2011 | 5:10 pm
One of the effects of all of this attention has been that the comics have sold out from many places. :(
June 9th, 2011 | 10:42 pm
BS”D
I found Foreskin Man on the web MONTHS AGO and tried to get the story out earlier. A couple of us contacted the Anti-Defamation League, to no avail. I also contacted the Orthodox Union’s Institute for Public Affairs and did not receive a response. I have found six comic reviewers who glossed over the blatant antisemitism. The story broke after e-mailed the link to Abby Porth of the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council on May 31. She helped me break this story.
This is not the only instance of antisemitism by intactivists. Please check out the following links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhnLIxaZVGU (Lloyd Schofield–clip position 0:44–and others gathering petition signatures at the Folsom Street Fair with copies of Foreskin Man being hawked–the poster includes Monster Mohel with his “Religious Veil”–check clip position 0:22
http://www.circumcisionandhiv.com/2011/05/proteanview-circumcision-jewish-doctors-and-africans.html (This is an incendiary video on a blog “Male Circumcision and HIV” run by another leading San Francisco intactivist, criminal defense attorney David Wilton, who makes approving remarks of someone claiming that Israeli Jewish doctors are going around slicing African and Latino male private parts.)
http://www.circumcisionandhiv.com/2011/05/proteanview-circumcision-jewish-doctors-and-africans.html Warning: Modesty alert. Intactivists marching in the 2009 San Francisco Pride parade in male genital costumes. There sre other YouTube videos with this bufoonery.
All that is required for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
A Jew Against Circumcision Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 12:50 am
Try judging the ideas of the anti-abortion movement by every one of their supporters. Or every person critical of gay marriage by the Westborow Baptist Church, which regularly holds signs blaiming the Jews for killing Jesus at their protests. Condom use is important, and yet some of the criticism against Catholics a decade ago was inflammatory.
An idea has to be judged on it’s own ethical terms, and circumcision is a bodily violation of an infant against their will, and I am a Jew who opposes circumcision, and believes that it should be illegal saying that. No movement can police all it’s members, nor should it have to. Ideas need to be evaluated on their own terms. And in this case, American needs to join the rest of the world in abolishing this sexual mutilation.
A Jew Against Circumcision Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 1:03 am
@A Jew Against Circumcision, Let me add to that by saying that I’ve got Libertarian leanings and that I support gay marriage, and detest the Westborow Baptist Church for it’s antisemitism, among many other things. The opponents of this bill will use antisemitism as their defense, when the idea of sexually violating the bodies of babies needs to be evaluated ethically on it’s own terms.
I’d post all the links of Jews and Jewish and Israeli groups that oppose circumcision, but I’ve posted them elsewhere. Jews Against Circumcision, and the Israeli Association Against Genital Mutilation have endorsed the MGM bill to provide the same protections that girls have to boys.
Petrina Fadel Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 8:29 am
@Stephen Mendelsohn,
Wesley told A Jew Against Circumcision, “[I told you no more links. Next time, I won't post any of your comment.]”
Stephen Mendelsohn’s comment with several links was posted above. Why the double standard? Links weren’t allowed at first, but now they are? If so, can we read the rest of A Jew Against Circumcision’s comment, just to be fair?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 9:50 am
Petrina? JAC had put put links again and again and again. Oh, and again. Often the same ones. And then again. I put a stop to it finally. That was Stephen’s first. Check it out. And if you don’t like it, go away.
A Jew Against Circumcision Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 11:13 am
@Stephen Mendelsohn,
For those of you who haven’t learned about the Intactivist movement already, the two main Intactivist organizations in the USA are Intact America and NoCirc.
* Intact America has a number of Jewish directors including those who support the SF MGM bill, and a national MGM bill. Among them are Jewish scholar Leonard Glick, MD, PhD, Mark Reiss, MD (also VP of Doctors Opposing Circumcision), and Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon.
* NoCirc has run a series of International Symposia on genital integrity and human rights for over 10 years, and Jews have spoken at every one that I am aware of. NoCIRC has over 20 chapters just in the USA. Among the Jews who’ve spoken at NoCirc conferences are some of the most influential people in the Intactivist movement, include Paul Fleiss, M.D., M.P.H., Moshe Rothenberg, C.S.W., Betty Sperlich, R.N. (co-founder of Nurses for the Rights of the Child), Jenny Goodman, M.D., and too many more to list.
Some of the other main intactivist organizations are Doctors Opposing Circumcision (DOC), Attorneys for the Rights of the Child, Nurses for the Rights of the Child, and Jews Against Circumcision.
There are over 100 other Intactivist groups just in the USA, including over 20 blogs and hundreds of websites. Keep that in mind and don’t judge a movement by one YouTube video or one fringe person’s blog.
David Wilton Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
@Stephen Mendelsohn, I am the blogger for http://www.circumcisionandhiv.com/. Somehow, Stephen, I don’t think you have looked through my blog very thoroughly. A recent post praises a Jewish intactivist, Leonard Glick, for his thoughtful and reflective treatment of Jewish history and circumcision. Five posts total out of about 500 written by me have a Jewish theme at all. (Several others are videos, but are generally from Jewish intactivists.) Please read them before you point fingers haphazardly at what you perceive to be a threat. We are not a threat. Intactivists count plenty of Jews and a few Muslims among us. We struggle with the issue of being sensitive to the epithet of aniti-Semite everyday. Yet we are all people of conscience, proven by the efforts and chances we take to express our outrage at a practice that causes over a hundred deaths a year of innocent infants and much pain and suffering when things go wrong. As a member of a minority who has experienced plenty of persecution and psychological imposition (gay) partnered with another who has experienced similar levels of discrimination and hatred (Latino immigrant), I can appreciate being on the receiving end of ill will and mischaracterization. My argument for years now has been that Americans are to blame for pushing circumcision and clinging to the practice for selfish and shallow reasons without a thought to the suffering it causes. I have always rejected the Jewish conspiracy theories spun by a few. If you think this is a self-serving claim, see those five posts and pay attention to my replies to several of the comments. All predate this controversy. As to the link you post, I believe a black man has the moral authority necessary to comment on Inon Schenker’s efforts to push circumcision inappropriately in black and Latino communities. If there is another minority with a claim to the moral high ground, it is surely black Americans. You may not like his opinions and you may dispute his facts, you are free to respond and to show where he is wrong. Name calling is rarely as effective at getting to the truth.
June 10th, 2011 | 5:53 pm
Here is a relevant passage from Margaret Somerville’s book The Ethical Canary Science, Society and the Human Spirit on the subject.
She writes…
“After I first spoke out against infant male circumcision, I was presented with the International Symposia on Sexual Mutilations 1998 Human Rights Award. As I accepted the award at the symposium held at Oxford University, approximately one-third of the audience stood to boo me. Almost all the participants at the symposium were strongly against infant male circumcision, and some of them were appalled that I would argue, as I had in my award acceptance speech, we should consider an exemption on the grounds of profound religious belief and obligation. Someone remarked that I had managed to make everyone furious with me: the anti-circumcision movement; Jews and Muslims who felt that I was attacking their deep religious beliefs; feminists who were outraged because I had made comparisons between female genital mutilation and infant male circumcision and argued that both were ethically wrong; physicians who carried out circumcision and believed that I was accusing them of medical malpractice for having done so; parents who had had their baby boys circumcised and who interpreted my arguments against circumcision as accusing them of child abuse; and one young man who was an anti-circumcision activist from Tel Aviv who accused me of being anti-Semitic because my proposal for a possible exemption for religious belief meant that I was willing to protect all newborn baby boys in the world except Jewish ones.”
June 12th, 2011 | 2:41 am
BS”D
One should not dignify the Louis Farrakhan-style hate David Wilton approves of on his blog. I happen to know a lot more about intactivism than any of these people know about Judaism and Torah. I am already aware of most of the people mentioned above, as well as Dr. Dean Edell, whom I have listened to many times on the radio, dissident psychiatrist Dr. Thomas S. Szasz (who OPPOSES a ban on libertarian grounds), and Atlantic columnist Andrew Sullivan, who now opposes this particular ban because of the bigotry behind it. As Rabbi Eliyahu Fink of the Pacific Jewish Center in Santa Monica notes on his blog, one day we may be able to have a rational discussion with intactivists, but not now when it is being fueled by rhetoric and imagery straight out of Julius Streicher’s Der Sturmer.
The heavy involvement of gay men like David Wilton and Lloyd Schofield in this hateful campaign is not helping to promote tolerance among conservative religious people toward their gay and lesbian neighbors. I have gay and lesbian friends, have seen Trembling Before G-d, and have strongly opposed hurtful and prejudicial statements and actions toward those attracted to members of their own gender–including in my own religious community, as my friends can attest. We are all G-d’s children, regardless of sexual orientation. But tolerance and acceptance are a two-way street, and if the LGBT community (especially in SF) wants it from us, they need to fully extend it in return. Desecrating churches as Bash Back has done, and demonizing one of Judaism’s central rituals is NOT acceptable.
As for those who claim that Jews can opt for a non-cutting “brit shalom,” a) non-Jews have no business telling us how to practice Judaism, and b) those who support this mockery of Jewish tradition have absolutely no understanding of the tradition they mock. The concept of brit shalom (covenant of peace) comes from the Torah at the beginning of Parshat Pinchas (Numbers 25:10-12; see pp. 208-209 of the Artscroll siddur) and is the first thing read after the infant is greeted with “Baruch ha-ba” (Blessed is he who arrives). Pinchas is rewarded with brit shalom for his zeal in slaying Zimri and Cosbi for their publicly profane act–hardly the role model for the “brit shalom” promoted by intactivists. As noted in Midrash Tanchuma, Tazria 5, Rabbi Akiva tells the wicked Roman Turnus Rufus that Man’s actions can be on an even higher plan than those of G-d Himself because Man can help to perfect G-d’s creation. Circumcision is Man’s part in perfecting creation. Contrary to the intactivists’ “brit shalom” mockery, we are NOT born whole and complete, but rather must complete ourselves by our actions.
Brit milah is the only positive mitzvah (commandment) operative today that carries the punishment of karet–Divine excision from the Jewish People. It emphasizes why observant Jews (and many not-so-observant Jews) take this mitzvah so seriously. A Jew who seeks to criminalize circumcision is no more part of the Jewish community than one who seeks to missionize Jews into another religion (e.g. Jews for Jesus), or one who seeks the destruction of Israel.
Finally a word about bigotry and profanity in San Francisco. Anyone can do a Google search of “Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco Pajamas Media” (a parody of Sarah Palin’s Alaska) and find a series of pictures taken on the public streets of SF. It paints a disturbing image of public ervah (the Torah’s term for nakedness/shame), [all true, but let's not get into that] mocking every religion, rabid antisemitism, anti-Catholicism, and hatred of religion in general, Israel-hatred, anti-Americanism, abortion-worship, and lots of profanity. It is clear why intactivists chose San Francisco as their top target. It would be hard to imagine anything quite like this in my area of central Connecticut (and I live in a heavily Democratic, blue state). San Francisco has a much bigger problem here, and one can only hope the circumcision ban focuses attention on the city’s widespread disrespect for all of its religious inhabitants.
June 12th, 2011 | 2:10 pm
Human rights, irregardless of religion demand that a human has full autonomy over their own body. Religion, nor family or society, has the right to violate a healthy body part that belongs to the child himself.
Human rights have grown worldwide over the last hundred years, and as they expand this traditional form of violence will be abandoned. We’ll see if us as Jews will lead or be the last to make this fundamental change for human rights. My money is that Jews will be among the first.
June 14th, 2011 | 2:29 pm
[...] Among the media outlets and pundits that have sanctimoniously blown the story out of proportion, discrediting their objectivity and credibility and revealing their tenuous relationship to reality, are the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, metro ABC and CBS television outlets, Southern California Public Radio, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the ADL, the American Jewish Committee, Commentary magazine, the Jewish Journal, Heeb, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz (Israel), David Frum, the Wall Street Journal, the John Birch Society’s New American magazine, WorldNetDaily, Glenn Beck, South Dakota Politics, Huffington Post, The Globe and Mail (Canada), The Week (UK), the Daily Mail (London), and the Herald Sun (Australia). The neoconservative-Christian First Things, founded by philo-Semitic Roman Catholic priest Richard John Neuhaus, is demanding ostracism and censorship. [...]
June 21st, 2011 | 3:57 pm
Here is a response from Ron Goldman’s organization, one of the largest and oldest Jewish groups opposing circumcision. It is a statement signed by many of the influential Jewish leaders in the anti-circumcision movement.
A Message to Jewish Americans on Circumcision
http://www.jewishcircumcision.org/62011NewsRelease.htm
I hope that this gets as much attention as the above, but I doubt it.
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