In his latest legislative act, MK (The Movement) Elazar Stern on Tuesday 16 Kislev 5774 turned to Health Minister (Yesh Atid) Yael German regarding the status of a mohel in Israel. Stern feels a law and guidelines must be established to address certification, qualifications and regulation of a mohel. He points out that as MKs and other officials travel to Europe to defend bris milah, Israel lacks a legal framework to regulate mohelim.
Stern acknowledges “there is an inter-ministerial committee working with the Health and Religious Services Ministries based on administrative decisions which has led to a list of approved mohelim. The lack of regulations on the matter of mohelim opens a dangerous door for any citizen can select any mohel without any regulation from the Ministry of Health. This may lead to endangering public health.”
German responded explaining “Today there is voluntary certification and there are 650 recognized mohelim of which 450 have certification. There is room to entertain changing the certification course so that it is mandatory and not voluntary.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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6 Responses
My my my, without all these regulations and “concerned” people like mayor duneberg ym’sh in NYC, I don’t know how we survived bris milah over the last almost 3800 years.
That way they can ban non-zionist mohelim, and require everyone to adopt Dati Leumi minhagim.
No. 1: There are many explanations for why we have survived for 3,800 years, but none of them tell us what to do about applying modern medical science to an ancient practice. Every single Jewish life is precious, and if more regulation improves the medical risks of bris milah, Hashem surely wants us to apply our medical knowledge – which comes from Him – to bris milah.
#2. I feel sorry for any son/grandson of yours. You’re liable to pick an unqualified Mohel.
These laws come about AFTER a child CH’V suffers or dies unnecessarily. How can any of us be that callous as to not be concerned about it?
Yup…Leave it up to a German to have a problem with Bris Milah…
Based on the past experiences of the Israeli government, and of other countries where religious matters are supervised by the state, the medical skills of a mohel will not be what is tested, only his political correctness. Given that non-physician mohels are no more likely to injure a child than physicians (which has come out in studies), it seems the issue is not “safety” of the child, but rather the safety of the medinah which feels threated by the growth of hareidim. In order to co-opt the Jewish religion to make it serve the state’s purposes (as is the case in all countries with a state religion), it is necessary to prevent non-zionist hareidim from providing religious services and to delegitimitize the non-zionist religious community.