Canadian Jewish Rabbi Stated on TV Show That All Parents Should Choose to Have Their Newborn Daughters and Sons Circumcised ( Ritual Genital Mutilation of Male / Female Children - Genital Cutting)
Organizations from around the world were stunned to hear Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl of the largest conservative Jewish congregation in North America state on TV that "all parents should have their children circumcised".
Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl is the senior rabbi at Beth-Tzedec Congregation in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with 2,700 member families, the largest conservative Jewish congregation in North America.
The CHCH TV show "Square Off", which aired at 5:30pm on July 4, 2012 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was in reaction to the decision of the German court to ban ritual genital cutting of males in that country.
CHCH TV Show - Male / Female Genital Mutilation - Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl Beth-Tzedec Synagogue and Grant Wilson, president, of the Canadian Children's Rights Council - July 4, 2012 10 minutes 20 MB
Advocating on the show for the rights of the child was Grant Wilson, president of the Canadian Children's Rights Council which opposes the genital mutilation, ritual genital cutting or circumcision of both male and female children. He pointed out that Jewish baby girls have an automatic covenant with God when they are born but Jewish baby boys do not until their genitals have been mutilated.
Mr. Wilson pointed out the double standard in the laws of Canada, a country in which it is a criminal offence to cut the genitals of baby girls but allows male ritual genital cutting.
What's "Normal" in Canada and the United States isn't the "Norm" elsewhere
The USA is the most male circumcised nation on earth and not for religious reasons. In countries like Japan and Australia males circumcision is virtually nonexistent with the exception being certain Muslims and Jews.
Mr. Wilson also raised the issue of other stakeholders being heard in the public debate about Male Genital Mutilation such as Arab-Canadians, Muslims and Egyptian-Canadians, some of whom practice both Male Genital Mutilation (MFM) and Female Genital Mutilation FGM) and have for thousands of years as both a religious ritual and tradition. They can perform ritual genital cutting on their baby boys but not their baby girls.
The World Health Organization study of 2008 states that 92.5% of married Egyptian women have been circumcised and over 50% of school age young girls.
Rabbi Frydman-Kohl also stated that 5% of all male genital mutilations done by rabbis involve the rabbi sucking the blood from the cut penis of the baby. Baby boy deaths have be reported in New York from this practice. A rabbi gave a baby herpes and the baby died. Do a search on the Internet for " Baby dies Herpes circumcision".
Grant Wilson, president of the Canadian Children's Rights Council stated " All children should be protected from ritual genital mutilation or cutting. We question by Jewish baby girls have an automatic covenant with God but baby boys don't until they have been through a traumatic, shocking genital mutilation. Canada protects baby girls from female genital mutilation of all 4 types categorized by the World Health Organization", some of which are less invasive than the genital mutilation done on boys."
On this TV show Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl explained that Jews would fight to the death to preserve the male genital cutting.
Baby Dies from Herpes After Controversial Ritual Genital Cutting
Two-week-old baby who died of herpes 'contracted disease through circumcision'
The Daily Mail, UK, By Daily Mail Reporter, 4 March 2012
The death of an baby boy who contracted herpes has been linked to a controversial circumcision ritual.
The two-week-old infant was struck with the disease after being circumcised as part of an Orthodox Jewish ceremony.
During the ritual, the presiding rabbi removes blood from the cut using his mouth.
The practice persists despite the health risks, with babies at risk of contracting diseases which are relatively harmless to adults but could be fatal for children.
The latest casualty of the tradition was the unidentified boy who died at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, New York in September, according to the Daily News.
His official cause of death was 'disseminated herpes simplex virus Type 1, complicating ritual circumcision with oral suction'. The identity of the mohel - a religious official who specialises in circumcisions - is unknown.
This is not the first time that an infant has died as a result of the ultra-Orthodox ritual of metzizah b' peh, which is the practice of using the mouth to remove blood. A baby boy died in New York in 2004 after undergoing the ceremony. Health experts have criticised the ritual on the ground that it involves 'inherent risks' to infants' health.
However, the practice seems to have originated as a way of avoiding infection by cleaning the open wound in ancient times.
COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS & SURGEONS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
Policy Manual
South Korean Doctors
Male circumcision based on myths and misinformation
Peak age of circumcision of males in Korea is 12 years old!
Baby Dies of Herpes in Ritual Circumcision By Orthodox Jews
ABC News, U.S.A., by Susan Donaldson James, March 12, 2012
New York City is investigating the death last September of a baby who contracted herpes after a "ritual circumcision with oral suction," in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish ceremony known in Hebrew as metzitzah b'peh.
The district attorney's office in Kings County Brooklyn is investigating the death of the 2-week-old baby at Maimonides Hospital, but would not disclose the name of the mohel or whether there would be a prosecution.
The 5,000-year-old religious practice is seen primarily in ultra-Orthodox and some orthodox communities and has caused an alarm among city health officials. In 2003 and 2004, three babies, including a set of twins, were infected with Type 1 herpes; the cases were linked to circumcision, and one boy died.
The mohel who performed the procedures, Yitzchok Fischer, was later banned from doing circumcisions, according to The New York Times. It is not known if he was involved in this recent death.
"It's certainly not something any of us recommend in the modern infection-control era," said Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University.
"This is a ritual of historic Abraham that's come down through the ages, and now it has met modern science," he said. "It was never a good idea, and there is a better way to do this." (The modern Jewish community uses a sterile aspiration device to clean the wound in a circumcision.)
In the 2004 death and the more recent one, a mohel infected the penile wounds with Type 1 herpes I (HSV-1), which affects the mouth and throat. It is different from Type 2 or genital herpes (HSV-2), which is a sexually transmitted disease and can cause deadly infections when a newborn passes through an infected birth canal.
Neonatal herpes is "almost always" a fatal infection, according to Schaffner. "It's a bad virus. [Infants] have no immunity and so it's a very serious illness. Now we have another death -- an unnecessary, incredibly tragic death."
Circumcision Botched by Jewish Father Results in Conviction for Aggravated Assault
The Canadian Press
Dec. 22, 2011
VANCOUVER - A B.C. man who performed a botched circumcision on his four-year-old son on the kitchen floor of his home has lost an appeal of his conviction and been found guilty of a more serious charge.
The B.C. Court of Appeal has stayed the man's conviction for criminal negligence causing bodily harm and convicted him of aggravated assault.
Court heard the boy was born premature at only 2.5 pounds and could not be circumcised at the time, nor did his parents request it.
"..Circumcision May CAUSE Urinary Tract Infection"
Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) are rare, and mainly occur in the first year of life. They are several times Read More .. common in girls than boys (but of course surgery is never considered for girls).
They are painful, and women's experience of them is a powerful inducement to have sons circumcised, if they imagine that this will protect them. In fact, a significant proportion of boys contract UTIs even though they are circumcised. A study in Israel found they mainly occurred in girls at four months, but in boys soon after they were circumcised.... Now an Australian study suggests circumcision may cause urinary problems. Read More ..
Pediatricians turn away from circumcision
The United States is the only country that routinely circumcises baby boys for non-religious reasons
CNN, U.S.A.
March 1, 1999
ATLANTA (CNN) -- American pediatricians are turning away from the practice of routine circumcision, concluding that doctors have no good medical reason to perform the procedure.
The United States is the only country in the world that routinely removes the foreskins of infant boys. Critics of circumcision got additional ammunition Monday from the American Academy of Pediatrics, a leading medical organization.
The academy concluded the benefits "are not compelling enough" for circumcision to be routinely administered.
A newborn winces in pain after a circumcision
Monday's statement, published in the March edition of the journal Pediatrics, was the academy's first in 10 years on the practice. But in recent years, medical societies in Canada, Britain and Australia have come out in opposition to routine circumcision.
Critics have long contended that removing the foreskin from the penis is traumatic, medically unnecessary and may reduce sexual pleasure later in life. As one critic, Dr. George Denniston, put it: "Who are we to question mother nature?"
Canadian researchers, whose study was published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, studied the heart rates and crying patterns of babies during different stages of circumcision.
In fact, in the study they found the babies suffered so much trauma that they stopped the study part way through.
The results were so compelling that they took the unusual step of stopping the study before it was scheduled to end rather than subjecting any Read More ..bies to circumcision.
One baby stopped breathing for 25 seconds from the trauma of having part of his foreskin severed. Read More ..