German Circumcision Ban

We received this from Bnai Brith Canada:

CALL TO ACTION: Urge the German government to challenge discriminatory circumcision ban



TORONTO, 28 June 2012 – A German court recently ruled against circumcision, effectively banning a core tradition of immense significance to the Jewish faith. Circumcision is not merely a ritual that has been carried out since Judaism’s inception; it is a fundamental principle of the Jewish religion.

The District Court of Cologne’s recent ban on circumcision harkens back to Germany's dark past when institutional discrimination led, step by incremental step, to the Holocaust, the most heinous crime in human history. It is ironic that the current ban on circumcision has taken place in a city that itself saw the mass execution of 11,000 Jews during those dark days.

B’nai Brith Canada has called on the German government to immediately step in and challenge the District Court of Cologne’s ban on circumcision.

Please add your voice by writing a message to German Chancellor Angela Merkel urging her government to challenge this discriminatory ban.

Click here to send an email to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

For more information: communications@bnaibrith.ca

B’nai Brith Canada has been active in Canada since 1875 as the Jewish community’s foremost human rights agency

B'nai Brith Canada, 15 Hove St. Toronto, M3H 4Y8 Canada www.bnaibrith.ca

NOTE: There are many people around the world -- including Jews -- who are against circumcision. It doesn't automatically make them anti-semitic or Nazis.

Here is an article about the case.

The case that prompted the ruling took place in Cologne, when a 4-year-old boy, circumcised by a Muslim doctor, began bleeding two days after the surgery and needed to be brought into the emergency room.

The state prosecutor’s office learned of the case and sued, leading the district court to rule that the circumcision was a “severe and irreversible interference into physical integrity.”