Every male among you shall be circumcised? How Millennial Jews are Questioning, Challenging, and Adapting the Ritual of Circumcision

• In Event: How Jews think about being Jewish: Three Perspectives

Abstract

The debate about male circumcision has garnered increased attention and has permeated public discourse in recent years. San Francisco contemplated banning the practice in 2011, and more recently, legislation criminalizing circumcision has started to gain traction in Iceland. Jewish anti-circumcision activist groups, such as JEWS AGAINST CIRCUMCISION and online forums such as BEYOND THE BRIS, provide evidence that dissension toward circumcision has begun to permeate the Jewish community and has propelled some Jews to action. This action manifests itself in different ways, with some Jews publicly advocating for and supporting legislation against circumcision, while others are creating and choosing non-cutting rituals as alternatives to BRIT MILAH. Focusing on Jews in Canada and the US, my research consists of an ethnographic study of Jewish parents and their engagement with, adaptation, or rejection of BRIT MILAH. This case study examines an emerging conflict between traditional religious praxis and newly adopted ethical values among millennial Jews. As the first scholarly study of non-circumcision Jews in Canada and the US, my research investigates a unique trend that is slowly gaining traction in the Jewish community. Using ritual theory as the theoretical foundation of this analysis, I argue that ritual is a place where Jews, consciously or not, are actively working through paradoxical ideas about masculinity, genital autonomy, the rights of the child, and Western medicine, and ritual becomes the medium through which values are renegotiated and boundaries are blurred. Ritual is intimately linked to power and authority, and expanding on the theories of Catherine Bell and Ronald Grimes, this paper argues that non-circumcision Jews are challenging authority and reclaiming power by opting out of BRIT MILAH and creating alternative rituals that are adapted to their ethical concerns about circumcision and their understandings of Judaism. This case study illuminates the process whereby ritual rebellion indicates a continued preference for maintaining identity and tradition. Rather than rejecting Judaism, non-circumcision Jews are seeking identifiably Jewish alternatives to circumcision and are creating novel ways of engaging with the process of continuity and the keeping of tradition.

Author

• Lindsey Jackson, Concordia University