Antisemitism

Every now and then, intactivists are generally assumed to be anti-Semitic, 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 has to be regarded as anti-Semitism, 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 anti-Semitism.

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

Definitions of anti-Semitism

• "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 anti-Semitism:

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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

Opposing circumcision on minors isn't anti-Semitic

Opposing circumcision has nothing to do with anti-Semitism 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 an action: medically unnecessary amputation of healthy 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:

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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 cherrypicked 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 flawed to claim that opposing circumcision is an expression of anti-Semitism 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.

Anti-Semitism contradiction

Conceptual anti-Semitism in Judaism

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

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Anti-Semitism 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 anti-Semitic act. The conclusion is that if circumcision is the foundation of the Jewish religion, the foundation of the Jewish religion is an anti-Semitic act. § 1631d BGB was created to enable Jewish circumcision. § 1631d BGB is therefore anti-Semitism by law. Anti-Semitism by law is fascist legislation. – N.N. (www.zwangsbeschneidung.de)

Anti-Semitism among (German) politicians

The anti-Semitism 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 anti-Semitism - which is factually completely false - although they are fundamentally opposed to genital mutilation, this behavior is itself anti-Semitic, because such politicians do not consider children of Jewish parents to be worthy of protection (mostly obviously due to the fear of the anti-Semitism club). This attitude is often justified by the fact that Germans would have no right to judge Jewish culture and tradition because of their German history, which further reinforces the anti-Semitic 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.

See also

• Anti-Semitism club

External links

• 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.