Friday, June 17, 2011

ANTI-SEMITIC CARICATURES ASSOCIATED WITH CIRCUMCISION

RABBI SHMULEY, ‘AMERICA’S RABBI,’ STRONGLY CONDEMNS ANTI-SEMITIC CARICATURES ASSOCIATED WITH CIRCUMCISION
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach today condemned the growing anti-Semitic images and caricatures associated with the attempt to ban circumcision in San Francisco. These include the highly inflammatory “Foreskin Man” comic, depicting a superhero saving innocent boys from evil circumcisers, which the Jerusalem Post reported to have been produced by Matthew Hess, “one of the central backers of the anti-circumcision measures.” Rabbi Shmuley has long maintained that the attempted ban in San Francisco has strong anti-Semitic overtones. Comments made by some of its organizers suggesting that circumcision involves genital mutilation give the lie that Judaism and Jewish practice would harm an infant; in fact, Judaism is foremost among religions of the world in emphasizing the innocence of a child and the need to nurture and care for a child.
The correlation between circumcision and clitordectimy is likewise an attempt to malign a completely safe practice that has proven health benefits, with the British Medical Journal reporting that circumcised men are 8 times less likely to contract HIV-AIDS, and other studies indicating that circumcision reduces transmission of other STD’s like genital herpes and syphilis and the risk of urinary-tract infection. Female circumcision, on the other hand, is all about removing a woman’s ability to have pleasure during sexual relations and is a barbarous act of mutilation that has no corollary to its male counterpart.
As the author of Kosher Sex, Rabbi Shmuley has made it clear in his global bestseller that Judaism celebrates the sexual, intimate, and erotic bond between husband and wife. These attempts to malign circumcision as a method of denying a man’s sexual pleasure are bizarre, ignorant, and deeply malicious. In the wake of these attacks, Rabbi Shmuley calls upon all those behind this attempt to ban religious freedom—and the oldest of all Jewish practices—to reverse their misguided efforts, which have now spilled over into deep anti-Semitism.