New York City health officials are investigating the death of a baby boy who died of herpes after a circumcision by Rabbi Yitzhok Fischer. Fischer carries the herpes virus and is believed to have infected two other infants while serving as a mohel. Under the Orthodox practice followed by Fischer, he actually uses his mouth to suck the blood from the infant’s penis when he cuts the foreskin.
Infants are particularly susceptible to the virus given their reduced immunity systems. Within ten days of the circumcision, one of twin boys died from the virus and another was infected.
The Book of Genesis stipulates circumcision as a defining mark for the descendants of Abraham: “Throughout all generations, every male shall be circumcised when he is eight days old…This shall be my covenant in your flesh, an eternal covenant. The uncircumcised male whose foreskin has not been circumcised, shall have his soul cut off from his people; he has broken my Covenant.” (Genesis 17:1-14)
Metzitzah b’peh (“suction by mouth”) is rarely used outside of the Haredi and Hasidic communities. Under this practice, the mohel spits the blood into a receptacle provided. While most mohelim rinse their mouths out with alcohol to sanitize them, alcohol may not kill the herpes virus.
This will make for some novel criminal and tort litigation. It is difficult to see how this shocking practice can be allowed as a public health matter. As a matter of torts, the families can clearly sue this rabbi for negligence with punitive damage potential. Indeed, I believe that there could would be a strong case for battery. The question will be reckless homicide and other criminal charges. Presumably, this rabbi knew he was a carrier and yet proceeded to use his mouth rather than the more common suction device.
For the full story, click here
It seems this quote can be applied anywhere:
“The range of possible human experience far exceeds the ordinary limits of our subjectivity.” [Sam Harris]
CEJ,
I did note what you had posted and appreciated it. Especially that you caught the fact that this happened about four years ago. In the midst of all the back and for I’m sorry I didn’t acknowledge my appreciation for your clarifying things.
truthbeknown,
You say that I don’t answer you when you quote the Talmud based on links at two websites. I know this has to be the basis of your beliefs because the Talmud consists of between 70 and 100 volumes of material and is best read in its original Hebrew, rather than English translations. It requires a lifetime of study and I doubt that you have given it more than a few hours at the two anti-Jewish websites you link. They are run by Michael A. Hoffman II and Karen A. Valentine, both of who don’t like Judaism or Jews. I’m sure to you though that their words are gospel because the same dislike for Jews is inherent in your writing.
“I am sure that jews make critical comments about blacks. Just try to tell these jews that they are anti-black, they’ll explode with denial. But they always you to agree with their charges against you. Jews can never refute what people say about them. All they have is name calling.”
Please spare me your concern for Black people because you ended one of your posts with:
“Jews run:
Porn
Homo industry
NAMBLA
ACLU
ACLJ
SPLC
just to name a few. All anti-White groups.”
If you yourself weren’t also a bigot where black people are concerned you would have never used “anti-White groups.”
You are probably in fact a white supremacist, but in the small chance you’re not, you are still an anti-Jewish bigot.
Now as far as “Jews can never refute what people say about them” goes, you’re right we can’t. Not because those things are true but specifically because most anti-Jews like you spout so many falsehoods and non-truths, while at the same time refusing to accept counter arguments, that it is a waste of time to argue with a bigot and only lends credence to their views by deeming them worthy of discussion.
As I said in another post and I’m putting it as kindly as possible: You don’t like Jews, We don’t like you.
Lottakatz,
I too am sorry for the terrible losses you have sustained within a short period and I well understand that the mourning
process is a difficult one for us to undergo, particularly when there is a parent involved. I have experienced both the losses you have so recently gone through and Iknow the process is painful and difficult. All you can do is let yourself go through it and hopefully at some point achieve some closure for wounds that can never heal.
Given that I’m loath to respond to the remainder of your post because you truly have more important issues to deal with. The only point I will make is that until stated openly I really had no idea of Domino’s gender and originally of yours. My near term vision is not that great, nor is the clarity of icons. The use of she/he & he/she was not meant to ridicule her, but merely because of the fact that I was writing quickly and no gender neutral pronouns come to mind. As to any of your other points, I answered them in my previous post to you and you can accept or reject them as you please. I am not a sexist either consciously, or subconsciously.
The average mourning period for us humans is around six months. This is mourning and allowing one’s life to move on, it does not take into account the painful/beautiful memories of those we’ve lost which are forever with us. The best I can wish for you is that you let yourself mourn fully and then fully resume your life. I hope you can believe my sincerity in
hoping that you will reach nepenthe.
Lottakatz,
I am so sorry about your friend’s and your father’s death. This must be a very painful and difficult time for you. I know I can’t say anything to comfort you over such losses, so please know I keep you in my thoughts.
Thank you so much for returning to this blog. You are one of the most decent, deep and clear speaking people here. I appreciate the way you write as much as I appreciate what you write. You have added immeasurably to this blog. I have learned so much from you and I know I will continue to do so as I keep reading your posts.
Again, I am so sorry.
Jill
*Sneezes in response to musty analogy.
DOMINO 1, July 17, 2009 at 8:36 am
Sorry to see you go, just remember that when you beat a horse that is already dead too often the leather is not even good for shoes.
Lottakaz:
I am very sorry for your losses and I appreciate your return to this blog as well.
FYI, I did not consider LottaKaz to be a female name. I thunk it was a play on eating at Katz Deli too much, which I could have been accused of. Now if you would have said Ima Hogg, immediately I would have known you were female as that is the name that a former Governor of Texas, yes insanity does not skip generations, in some families, gave to his only daughter.
Thanks for the insight that you have to offer.
I hope the Buddha man comes back sometime soon. Life is just not fair sometimes and if you read the Torah or Pentateuch, the first 5 chapters of the bible especially the 5th chapter a lot of grief is told as well as inspiration to do the right thing.
Best of luck and I too am honored to be able to contribute to this Blawg.
R
I have lost interest in this conversation. Every time Mike speaks to me it’s like a topsy turvy alternate universe where events no longer have any correlation to sequence and a multiplicity of parallel realities devolve into a smoking mass of polymorphous goo.
For those that took the time to read and reflect on this topic, it was well worth my energy. I am committed to the idea that children’s bodies are not property, and that their rights to autonomy, integrity, and self-determination must be respected as inviolable — without exception.
Thanks. I won’t be back.
Lottakatz,
I am sorry to hear of your most recent losses; you have my sincere condolences. I am glad you are beginning to feel well enough to post and hope the diversion gives you solace.
truthbeknown writes: find interesting that Mike Spindell never addreasses the issues in the posts which he condemns. I am sure that he knows the talmud does say those things that I have quoted.
me: Mike has been way more generous with you than he has to be and way more generous with you than I will be. the anti-talmud articles you post all come from standard issue white supremacist websites like Stormfront. That you quote this trash does not give your slurs any credibility. you have no idea at all what the Talmud is and how Jewish holy books serve the Jewish community or what they say about non Jews.
you: I am certain one thousand perc ent that Spindell talks bad about blacks and hispanics when he is with his brethren. Jews only pretend to help others.
me: you don’t know Mike. You have not really read his posts. and you have no idea what he talks about when he is with family and friends. We know more about what you talk about, though and it is all pretty standard anti-Jewish hate speech.
yo: This jew named schuerman, don’t recall the actual name, who supposedly cared about blacks in the South, and was supposed to have been killed by the KKK (many members are jews) along with another jew and a black man, said that his main motive was to destroy the Western European Culture of the US. Just do a little research, anybody on this blog can find it.
me: oh please. get your facts right or stay home. Michael Schwermer was a civil rights worker who went to Mississippi to register african americans as voters. he along with two others were lynched. by white men. the other two men were James Chaney, an african american man and Andrew Goodman, another jewish man. their only motive was voter registration.
the rest of your post isn’t worth responding to. it’s trash.
Indentured Servant: abortion is a completely different issue – in fact it is a spectrum of issues, because pregancy is not just a state of being but a progressive process. Unlike the Catholic Church, I have no objection whatever to “aborting” a newly fertilised egg. Like almost everybody, I have strong objections to “aborting” a healthy full-term baby. When during the nine months those human rights begin is something we can argue about till the cows come home but it would do no good to do so here. There is no doubt they are present after birth.
A foreskin on the other hand is the property of the man a newborn baby will, we hope, grow up to be. That is why I work for his right to decide for himself whether he wants to keep it.
TBK:
no I have not. I do not believe Jewish people to be evil or to have alterior motives, some may but then some whites do and some blacks do and so do Asians and Muslims and Christians.
I generally dont believe in conspiracies because if 2 people know it will not be a secret. And anyway world domination is hard work and usually dosent payoff, just ask Adolf and Vladimir and Josef.
Servant
Have you researched what I have said to prove that it is BS?
Truthbeknown:
where do you get all that BS from? If the Jews are so powerful how come you still exist?
Simple fact Jewish people for the most part work hard and study hard and become professionals so they make lots of money. Not all Jews are rich and not all Asians are good students.
I think if I were a Jew I would tend to dislike saurbrauten and schnitzel and for very good reason. I am not a Jew and often wonder how the Germans did what they did, the NAZIs were far from remarkable men. Mostly lower class thugs and goons driven by feelings of inadequacy. The fact that the German people followed them is a stain on Germany and Hitlers thousand year Reich is about what it will take for the world to forget their barbarity.
Hugh7:
“It may take that freedom away from the parent, but it gives it back to the person it should more obviously belong to.”
I can assume from the comment that you are against abortion too? If you are for abortion how can you have it both ways? If you are against cicumcision for this reason you then must also be against abortion for the same reason. A fetus is actually a living being while a foreskin is just some extraneous tissue. Shall we wait until the child is old enough to determine whether he or she wishes to die or to live?
I as a parent have a right to abort my child so why do I not have a right to circumcise my son?
I find interesting that Mike Spindell never addreasses the issues in the posts which he condemns. I am sure that he knows the talmud does say those things that I have quoted. There are numerous books written by jews about their hatred of gentiles. Try “You Gentiles” by Maurice Samuel.
I am certain one thousand perc ent that Spindell talks bad about blacks and hispanics when he is with his brethren. Jews only pretend to help others.
This jew named schuerman, don’t recall the actual name, who supposedly cared about blacks in the South, and was supposed to have been killed by the KKK (many members are jews) along with another jew and a black man, said that his main motive was to destroy the Western European Culture of the US. Just do a little research, anybody on this blog can find it.
Susan Sontagg(not real last name) said that the white man is a cancer.
Primakov Ignatiev: of Harvard no less, said that all whites should be exterminated.
Eli Wiesel the weasel: this nobel peace prize winner said that ‘every jew should hold in his heart a visceral deep seated hatred for everything German.
I am sure that Spindell will say this is antijew.
But he can’t say it is not the truth.
Omg omg! the antisemites must have secretly giving the baby herpes when noone was looking and blamed it on this poor poor Rabbi. Sha-lob a slech-o- ga HOObaboo! God help him!
the holocaust! the holocaust!
To whomever might be even remotely interested:
JT’s link was to an MSNBC article dated Feb 2, 2005; when I read it on July 14, 2009 I commented @11:34am that the events in his post may have occurred in 2005; I left links from The New York Times and the Jewish Ledger which described same events in 2005.
On this thread @11:56am I left links to NYC DOH and CDC fact sheets on circumcision both referenced these events and are good sources of information. Later @12:06pm on July 14 I left the link to the Wikipedia entry which used the same photo as JT’s blog and has quite a lengthy entry on circumcision including this practice.
I wished to defuse some of the accusations that were taking place on this thread and had hoped some facts might help. Oh well, all was not lost I hope you all saw Bob,Esq.’s SNL joke!
Mike S, I didn’t respond to your inquiry/reply to one of my earlier postings regards, Bob E’ questioning of Domino’s sex or gender (which both you and Swarthmore mom did in later postings) or your observation that Domino seemed to have an obsession with sex organs. It would have required more effort that I was prepared to give it and your follow-on posting, at the time. I’m doing that now and after rereading the thread this reply is expanded to take into account other observations.
I made my posting because I saw Bob E’s posting and yours to be the leading edge of a personal affront and is indicative of a subconscious impulse to sex/gender bias or insult. Notice I said subconscious.
I take your name and avatar to mean you’re male. I take Bob’s to mean he is male. I take Jill’s and Domino’s to mean they are female. Mine was questioned as being ambiguous. I assumed Lottakatz was a ‘feminine’ handle. Apparently not. I don’t care that it was ambiguous nor was I hesitant to declare my sex/gender. I asked the party inquiring why they thought I was more likely to be male (which as I recall they may have alluded to) and warned them to be careful how they answered that in a good natured way. I had been taught to write in a gender neutral manner, with a business not personal voice so if they replied ‘you write like a girl’ I’d have to try to be more professional when making an argument but I didn’t want sex/gender to be an issue regarding my postings either. I didn’t get a response and on second thought that was probably wise of the questioner 🙂
Consequently, to make presumptions on Domino’s sex/gender was offensive to me. I accept your avatars as sex/gender specific. Admittedly, there are a few (very, very, few) arguments that a concealed sex/gender might distort if personal anecdotes are called forth but as long as the argument is not based on those a concealed sex/gender is irrelevant IMO. I don’t use pejoratives based on race, sex etc. They are offensive to me. I tell people to stop it if I hear it in real life too.
In a culture that majorly respects 2 sexes and 2 clearly defined gender roles (an unrealistic limitation) and meets other sexes and gender roles with disdain at the low end of the spectrum and discrimination and violence at the extreme end of the spectrum; to use language to reassign a sex/gender to someone is to minimize their person, their ideas, and to imply their ideas are driven by their ‘unnatural’ state. That’s ugly territory and I would have thought it beneath the regular posters on this blawg.
I used a convivial written tone when calling that to your attention because I did not want to couch it in a argumentative tone for the reasons stated in my original response. I also wanted to point out (inappropriately) by an oblique method that persons that speak openly and with some goodly level of affection regarding their genitalia are subject to he same mistaken and inappropriate affront as the sex/gender remarks only from an old school psychological position. I should have been less oblique but you’re a smart guy and I didn’t want to have to lecture someone I respect or get into a pissing contest. My bad.
I love my Vagina but I’m not going to use my great affection for it as an argument in a debate over the pros and cons of female circumcision. This statement regards your query along the lines ‘how else to respond to’. Your a smart guy. A passing reference to your satisfaction regarding sexual function and ability to achieve orgasm is cool and fair game though. Srsly, if a person is achieving orgasm how much more cool can it get from a purely functional point of view? There are virtues no doubt for the parties regarding foreplay but, functional to the point of orgasm is the aim at a physical level.
Citations regarding the medical virtue of circumcision are better. So would a flat statement that you respect the custom (of any religion that has it) with no citations required. So is a statement that we will have to agree to disagree. You just told me more than I wanted to know and I found that humorous (but fairly normal), as I generally have when men (for whatever reason) have felt free to go on about how much they like their penis. I get that, I have a sex organ I like too. The opportunity to mix the IMO humorous aspect of those statements with the implication that they could well become the petard upon which to inappropriately and cruelly hoist you (as verbally reassigning someone elses’ sex/gender is cruel and inappropriate) was a too-fer for me and I should not have been so oblique.
I’m feeling pretty good today so this is becoming a book-length posting. My father as well as my last living best friend were taken to the hospital 12 hours apart two weeks ago today. They both died a week later (last Tuesday) about 12 hours apart and the last funeral was this Tuesday. I haven’t been up to posting properly. I have been sleep disrupted so I’ve been up all hours and skim the blawgs because things like vacuuming at 3:30am is rude to the better half who can sleep. Damn him 🙂 I really shouldn’t have been posting at all because I was just too tired to elaborate a position beyond a short posting.
This thread got off track and into ugly territory IMO because:
Trolls, anti-Jewish Trolls threw gasoline on to a discussion that increasingly became about religion and heads started ‘splodin. I just ignored them hoping they would go away.
I have to take some credit for that because of my first posting.
That posting was not in fact about religion though but could because of its brevity be assumed as such. It was about the equivalence IN WEIGHT of an act associated with the circumcision. I would not let my daughter be diddled in some function no matter how traditional it might be nor how efficient it might have been medically some thousands of years ago. Customs, no matter how appropriate at the time of their inception die out later for good reasons. I think someone else also made that point and I second it. That also seems to be the case from information posted subsequently. One can hope.
Thereafter the discussion became about circumcision which is both a matter of religion and medicine. I have no desire to see religion inform public policy at any level. I also have no desire to see bad medicine practiced. When the two have a mutually supporting relationship it’s a problem greatly magnified. I opt for good medicine.
If we were talking about ADDING a fully intact penis (or by extension clitoris) it very well might be a much different question on my part but it’s not. It’s about DELETING something that may well have medical benefit and diminishes sensation. I have a problem with that on a purely medical basis.
If you read my postings you will see that in the main I discuss religion with AY and keep it’s role and my opinion of it separate from my purely medical concerns.
I think this thread brought together a perfect storm of hot button, strongly held and advocated issues and acted as Troll bait. That’s unfortunate because any one topic, if kept civil, is worthy of dialog.
I’m not wimping on on the debate on my position on anything here, I’m just trying to tie up some loose ends and give you the courtesy of a response.
As for IS, well, he just royally pissed me off with his throw-away insult to Liberalism so I had to respond to him first even if it was entirely off-topic.
To sum up my opinions:
Religion: bad
Religion + State deference or support thereto: Soft Tyranny at best and no
Religious custom as medical policy: no
Circumcision (for those under the age of majority): public policy based on medical opinion only and revisited regularly as medical knowledge advances
Anti-Jewish Trolls: STFU
Liberalism sending the US into the arms of ‘soft tyranny’: get a clue
He/She yada, yada: Ugly, it’sembarrassing to read that stuff on this blawg.
That some of these opinions are out of the mainstream and in opposition to a majority view: we are just going to have to agree to disagree.
Lottakaz:
I am very sorry for your losses and we all appreciate your return to the blog.
Jonathan