Reply to Circumcision/Judaism

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am also a non-Jewish woman married to a Jewish man. We had a lot of discussions about this issue before our son was born. My husband is not religious, but wanted to circumcise our son basically because he felt it was "weird" not to be circumcised. Judaism was about a 10% factor in his preference, I would estimate. If Judaism hadn't been an issue, I probably would have been about 30% against circumcision based on the idea that it's unnecessary and doesn't clearly confer health benefits. But the Judaism issue made me more 50/50 because I want my kids to have at least some degree of Jewish identity. I [b]thought, what if my son grows up and wants to identify as Jewish and has to have an adult circumcision? That would be terrible (I assume).[/b]

As it happened, we decided to circumcise. But then my husband changed his mind after our son was born when he had a number of other medical problems.

I agree with the PPs that you shouldn't make this issue the battleground for your feelings about Judaism. If your husband wants to circumcise and you aren't really strongly against it, I would go ahead and do it. I think the fact that the father is the one with a penis gives him more than a 50% vote on this. If he really doesn't care and you are against it for non-religion-related reasons, then OK, don't do it.

I also think you should also try to get a handle on your feelings about Judaism by reading about the reform or reconstructionist movements. They do not think it's necessary for the mother to be Jewish in order for the kid to be Jewish, for instance. If you are generalizing that the religion as a whole is sexist based on the rules of the ruling rabbinate in Israel, which is definitely very extreme, you are not giving the whole tradition and identity a fair shake. If it is important to your husband at all I think you owe it to him to have a more informed and balanced approach. [/quote]

Just to go back to this point... I've had that thought also. However, I've also seen cases of boys who are suing their parents for circumcising them as infants because they feel their parents violated their right to make a decision concerning their own foreskin. I have no idea how my son is going to feel about this.  Regarding being Jewish when he gets older, like your son, he'd have to undergo a full rabbinic conversion which would make it pretty clear that he had not been considered Jewish prior to that, regardless of what he thought about himself. So maybe having the procedure -- if that's what he feels would make him legitimately Jewish -- would be the least of it.

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