Antisemitism

Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews.

Every now and then, intactivists are generally assumed to be antisemitic, because they also engage against MGM on boys of Jewish parents. These allegations are generally unfounded, if only because the deliberate exclusion of the boys of Jewish parents in legal questions would be a group-specific special treatment, which in turn would have to be regarded as antisemitism, following the logics. If intactivists were to protect all children from genital mutilation that was not medically indicated, but omit the children of Jewish parents, they would have to be accused of antisemitism.

A uniform, generally binding definition of antisemitism doesn't seem to exist. There are different attempts at a definition. See below for a tiny selection of definitions.

Definitions of antisemitism

• "Hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people."
• "hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group"

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Plenum suggested the following working definition of antisemitism:

“

IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities. – International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Plenum

History

Antisemitism has existed for at least 2,500 years.

Notably, the Book of Esther reports the case of Haman the Agagite who wanted to slay all Jews. This occurred in the years 483-473 BCE.

The Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834) required Jews to either convert to Roman Catholicism or leave Spain.

Germany, under the Nazi regime (1933-1945), instituted the greatest pogrom of all time against its Jewish citizens, resulting in the death of 6,000,000 Jews.

These acts of antisemitism were not caused by the intactivist movement. It is a fallacy to associate antisemitism with intactivism.

Opposing circumcision on minors isn't antisemitic

The United Nations was charged with the development of international human rights law at its conception in 1945. A fundamental, important principal of human rights law is the universality of human rights. That means that everyone without exception, including male and female, young and old, Jew and gentile, enjoy the same human rights.

Security of the person is one of the most fundamental of human rights. It is universal and applies to everyone without exception. The Abrahamic covenant requires that the human right of boys born into Jewish homes to security of the person be violated. Circumcision of a boy born into a Jewish home, therefore, is an antisemitic act.

Opposing circumcision has nothing to do with antisemitism which is defined as being or acting against Jews because they are Jews, not because they do this or that. Opposition to circumcision is opposing a harmful action: medically unnecessary amputation of healthy, functional tissue from the genitals of non consenting minors, completely independent of parental beliefs.

According to a White Paper published by the Danish Mosaic Religious Society, no Jew will deny an intact boy the right to his membership of the Jewish society:

“

You are born a Jew if you are born to a Jewish mother. In principle, there are no Jewish dogma, which means, among other things, that one cannot "deprive" a Jew of his identity as a Jew. There are Jews who do not abide by Jewish rules in any form whatsoever, and others who have cherry-picked among those rules and only adhere to the rules they want. This also applies to circumcision. It might be said this way: For most Jews it is crucial to be circumcised, but it is not essential to be circumcised to be a Jew. – Danish Mosaic Religious Society (White Paper: om rituel omskærelse af drenge, page 14)

If this statement is true, and there are no reasons to doubt it, Jewish males, for whom it is vital to be circumcised, can be circumcised as they turn of age, and they will still be valid members of the Jewish community.

Furthermore: In 2007, the WHO found that 30% of the world’s male population were circumcised. Those 30% were distributed like this

• 69% Muslims
• 0.8% Jews
• 13% North Americans
• 17.2% Others

Following these numbers, male Jews who are circumcised make up at most 0.8 % of the world's circumcised men (i.e. eight per thousand). Therefore, it is totally improper to claim that opposing circumcision is an expression of antisemitism or neo-Nazism.

Opposition to non-medical circumcision of minors as a parental right is directed against the act regardless of the parents' religious affiliation, and not just against the at most 0.8% Jewish circumcisions.

Antisemitism contradiction

Conceptual antisemitism in Judaism

The German website zwangsbeschneidung.de sees an "antisemitism contradiction in the Jewish religion created by Circumcision":

“

Antisemitism is definitely the violation of the human rights of a Jew because he is a Jew, circumcision of the male child is a violation of human rights, Jewish circumcision is done because the child is a Jew, so Jewish circumcision is an antisemitic act. The conclusion is that if circumcision is the foundation of the Jewish religion, the foundation of the Jewish religion is an antisemitic act. § 1631d BGB was created to enable Jewish circumcision. § 1631d BGB is therefore antisemitism by law. Antisemitism by law is fascist legislation. – N.N. (www.zwangsbeschneidung.de)

Antisemitism among (German) politicians

The antisemitism contradiction can not only be found in the religion itself, but also in the actions of German politicians in particular. If they e.g. deny the own human and fundamental rights of children of Jewish parents, out of fear of being accused of antisemitism - which is factually completely false - although they are fundamentally opposed to genital mutilation, this behavior is itself antisemitic, because such politicians do not consider children of Jewish parents to be worthy of protection (mostly obviously due to the fear of the Antisemitism club). This attitude is often justified by the believe that Germans would have no right to judge Jewish culture and tradition because of their German history, which further reinforces the antisemitic exclusion of children of Jewish parents from the all-encompassing understanding of human rights and makes such statements even worse. In addition, genital mutilation in children that is not medically indicated is played down and justified here as "culture" and "tradition", which also proves double standards, since no German politician is known who would also describe FGM in this way.

Note on IntactiWiki's own behalf

NO ANTISEMITISM: IntactiWiki has signed the Standing Against Antisemitism statement opposing antisemitism within the genital autonomy movement at Beyond the Bris.

See also

• Beyond the Bris
• Antisemitism club
• Issues with male circumcision and the Roman Catholic Church
• Judaism

External links

• Rothenberg M. Ending circumcision in the Jewish community? Presented at The Second International Symposium on Circumcision, San Francisco, California, April 30-May 3, 1991.
• Goodman J. Jewish circumcision: an alternative perspective. BJU Int. January 1999; 83(1): 22-7. PMID. DOI. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
• Romberg, Rosemary (April 2012). Anti-Semitism and Opposition, peaceful beginnings. Retrieved 3 March 2020.