By REBECCA WALD Superman has captured the imagination of every generation of American kids since 1938 when he first appeared in Action Comics #1, but leave it to satellite radio celebrity Howard Stern to tackle the really hard questions concerning this American superhero.Monday’s The Howard Stern Show kicked off with a call-in question from Stern…
BY Brian Leaf I’m a bit depressed. Our midwife gave me a book about circumcision. I’ve started the book and can’t put it down. I’m not sure that I’ll ever fully recover. The book tells me that the foreskin is like an eyelid protecting the sensitive mucous membrane underneath. Circumcision removes this protective skin, so…
Kirsten Seinfeld puts finishing touches on a belly cast. Our bodies are beautiful—and perfect—the way they are. This is the message of the pregnancy belly cast, a commemorative keepsake of motherhood that’s become very popular. Check out belly cast Google images, or Pinterest, and you’ll see dozens of belly cast examples, often created right at home…
Foot washing replaces circumcision in the alternative brit pictured above. Is there an alternative to circumcision? This question was recently posed to two rabbis in The Jewish Chronicle Online’s “Rabbi I Have a Problem” section. At issue, an outraged uncle whose niece had decided not to circumcise her newborn son and instead held an alternative brit.…
Apparently Alicia Silverstone isn’t so clueless. This Jewish mom stood up to some family pressure and decided not to circumcise her newborn son. She writes about the experience in her new book The Kind Mama: A Simple Guide to Supercharged Fertility, a Radiant Pregnancy, a Sweeter Birth, and a Healthier, More Beautiful Beginning (2014).Silverstone was…
“Cut,” a documentary film that challenges Jewish circumcision, is an official selection at the 2014 Pasadena International Film Festival. The film will be shown on February 13 at 3:30p.m. at the Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, CA. A special thank you goes out to Danielle Gladding, who made this possible. For those who would like…
Ronald Goldman, Ph.D. Ronald Goldman, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Circumcision Resource Center, a nonprofit educational organization in Boston, has been invited by the Council of Europe to participate in an interdisciplinary dialogue about circumcision at a meeting in France on January 28. There is a growing European debate about circumcision. In October the Council of…
The drawbacks and potential benefits of infant circumcision are now being publicly debated in Israel, the consequence of a pending High Court case there. I wrote about some of the ethical issues last week. The unusual case stems from a rabbinical court ruling where a mother was ordered to circumcise her nearly one-year-old son or…
By REBECCA WALD Jewish mother Elinor holds up a sign of protest against the rabbinical court ruling that she must circumcise her son. An Israeli mother ordered to circumcise her eleven-month-old son, or face a daily accruing fine, has today taken her case to the High Court of Justice, the court of last resort in…
By REBECCA WALD Every mom is different and brings her own style when it comes to raising her kids. I didn’t circumcise my son and feel it was 100% the right choice. At the same time, I don’t condemn parents who circumcise. I recognize that good people can experience the world in different ways due…
By YECHIEL WEISS There can be no doubt that bris milah is an important mitzvah. While the Torah does call for circumcision at eight days, there are indeed prominent Jews in the Tanakh who were circumcised later in life. Avraham Avinu was circumcised at 99; tradition holds that he kept the entirety of the written…
By MARK MORRIS Author, Mark Morris, with his partner Jude and their son Lev. I always thought that if I had a son I would not circumcise him. I felt the need to challenge this Jewish tradition. It felt like quite a brutal decision to take on behalf of my newborn son, for a covenant…
A beachside brit shalom in Vancouver, Canada. By SHAWN STARKMy wife, Amari, was seven months pregnant and we were at our midwife appointment. At this point we knew we would be having a boy. Near the end of our visit, the midwife asked us what we were planning to do about circumcision.Amari and I are…
By Lisa Braver MossSpecial to Beyond the Bris If you follow circumcision in the news, you’ve been busy lately. And if you happen to like journalism that’s baffling—well, there’s been plenty to enjoy. The Atlantic, for example, recently ran a piece about a married couple facing the circumcision decision. Like so many publications, the magazine…
By REBECCA WALDThe video has been published by photographer and videographer James Loewen. Loewen has been capturing emotionally gripping images and videos from inside the anti-circumcision movement. Many of his videos have been uploaded to his YouTube Channel, Bonobo3D. Loewen began uploading the videos four years ago and they comprise some of the most important…