The Conference of European Rabbis says it’s calling an emergency meeting in Berlin to discuss a regional court ruling that circumcising young boys for religious reasons amounts to bodily harm even if parents agree to it.
Conference president Pinchas Goldschmidt said in a statement Monday the Cologne court ruling last month “utterly failed to consider how fundamental” ritual circumcision is to the Jewish faith and identity. The Tuesday through Thursday meeting seeks to produce a strategy for addressing the issue.
Following the initial court ruling, president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Dieter Graumann, called the ruling “unprecedented and insensitive,” urging the country’s parliament to clarify the legal situation “to protect religious freedom against attacks.”
Graumann said the circumcision of newborn Jews has been practiced for thousands of years and “every country in the world respects this religious right.” There’s no law prohibiting the procedure but the ruling sets a precedent that could be taken into account by other courts.
Germany’s government has offered assurances that religious traditions remain protected.
Source: theblaze
Read: Rabbis call on German Jews to defy circumcision ruling
"And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child (and his parents did for him what the Law of Moses commands), his name was called JESUS (YESHUA/YEHOSHUA), which was so named (was given to Mirjam) of/by the angel before he was conceived in the womb." (Luke 2:21)
