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T A B L E_ T A L K

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R E C E N T L Y

Circumcision in America
By Debra S. Ollivier
How did a medically pointless procedure become a routine practice performed on a majority of American males?
(10/26/98)

Citizens of the world, turn on your televisions!
By Sallie Tisdale
TV opened up my world. Really
(10/22/98)

Mommy's little accessory
By Dayna Macy
Jo Copeland designed glamorous couture clothes for the rich and famous. But while she was an extraordinary designer, she was a disaster as a mother
(10/21/98)

The worst trip ever
By Susan McCarthy
A sweaty cross-country trek in a 1937 Plymouth with two cranky siblings, a kangaroo rat in a box and a pogo stick turns into family legend
(10/20/98)

Beautiful Dreamer
By Lisa Kleinman
Babies No. 1 and 2 had to suffer through less-than-perfect strollers. But baby No. 3 will have the ideal ride -- that is, if there is a baby No. 3
(10/19/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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CIRCUMCISION IN AMERICA, PART 2 | PAGE 1, 2
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Which leads me to a word about Jews and the penis. When I mentioned to certain relatives that my son would remain as nature intended him, the conversation, once the shock wore off, went something like this:

"But honey, what about the, er, Covenant of Abraham?"

"What exactly is the connection between the Covenant of Abraham and my son's penis?"

"Well, I'm not sure. Let me put Sam on the phone."

Sam wasn't sure about the God-penis-Covenant connection either. Neither was Ruth. Nor Morley. Nor were any of my Jewish friends or relatives.

In fact, the Covenant was a pact between God and Abraham, an expression of both faith and tribal belonging that set the "chosen people" apart, and which has been passed on to all Jews. Jewish identity, however, is not determined by circumcision nor is it passed through the penis. As most Jews know, Jewish identity is passed through the mother, hence the traditional and immemorial Jewish concern about assimilation through intermarriage. The "Encyclopedia Judaica" reaffirms this: "Any child born of a Jewish mother is a Jew, whether circumcised or not." I'm reminded of a Jewish friend who insisted that his son be circumcised despite the fact that his wife was Catholic. "Circumcision," his rabbi reminded him, "will not make your son Jewish." (His wife's conversion to Judaism, however, would.)

Despite all this, the issue of Jewish identity, in which circumcision is inextricably bound up, remains one of the most complex, thorny and eternally debated subjects around. Volumes have been written on the subject, and everything is up for personal interpretation. With this in mind, and given that a vast number of Jews do not know what the Covenant really is -- their sons are circumcised in hospitals without a bris; they are not Orthodox, and do not keep kosher -- one can only surmise that circumcision is not an act of religious conviction but rather one of deeply entrenched cultural conformity rooted in the deep past. In fact, a cruel irony lingers here: Originally, biblical circumcision involved cutting only the tip of the foreskin (called brith milah), which still left enough foreskin for certain Jewish men to stretch it forward and pass as gentiles. This gave rise to a rabbinical movement called Brith Periah. Much more radical in nature, Brith Periah essentially removed the entire foreskin, making it impossible for Jews to emulate gentiles. Modern circumcision is based on this much more radical procedure of Brith Periah -- a strange medical twist that has leveled the playing fields of the penis among Jews and gentiles alike.

Jew or gentile, to the extent that "God" is behind circumcision and the oft-cited Covenant, one can only wonder: Why ordain the removal of such a fundamental part of the penis? And why the penis? Here the views of Moses Maimonides, a medieval Jewish philosopher, rabbi and figure in the codification of Jewish law, are enlightening in a more universal context. In "Guide to the Perplexed," Maimonides wrote that the commandment to circumcise "has not been prescribed with a view to perfecting what is defective congenitally, but to perfecting what is defective morally." Celebrated for his chastity by the sages, Maimonides elaborates: "With regard to circumcision one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible ... The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable. For if at birth this member has been made to bleed and has had its covering taken away from it, it must indubitably be weakened."

Maimonides' views evoke not only the Victorians, the doctrines that underlie female circumcision and the "unconscious motives" Dr. DeMeo wrote about: They also hark back to the forbidden fruits of sex and religion that have festered in the gardens of earthly delight ever since Adam and Eve discovered the apple.

Considering the troubling history of circumcision in light of my own son's corpulent little penis, I'm reminded that it is the choice -- and in some cases, the courage -- of American parents that will determine whether the next generation of American men reclaims what is rightfully theirs to begin with. In this regard it might be the late Dr. Benjamin Spock who stands for conventional wisdom at its best. When asked about circumcision in an interview with Redbook in 1989, he said quite simply, "My own preference, if I had the good fortune to have another son, would be to leave his little penis alone."
SALON | Oct. 27, 1998

The is the second of a two-part series. Part 1 appeared on Monday.

Debra S. Ollivier is a frequent contributor to Salon.

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R E L A T E D_.S A L O N_.S T O R I E S

Foreskin or against it Is circumcision the unkindest cut of all?
By Hank Hyena
August 20, 1997

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T A B L E _.T A L K

Did you circumsize your son? Why or why not? Join the ongoing debate in the Mothers area of Table Talk.