International Jewish music star Gad Elbaz revealed in a radio interview that he only learned in adulthood that he had never undergone a bris mila.
Elbaz shared the story during a candid interview with broadcaster Menachem Toker on Kol Chai Radio, leaving listeners and the host himself visibly stunned.
“I went my whole life believing I’d had a bris as a baby,” Elbaz said. “It was never something I questioned.”
According to Elbaz, doubts only began to surface years later, following his divorce, when he started reflecting more deeply on his life.
“My parents were secular, and the mohel was already elderly,” he explained. “At some point, I just felt I needed to look into it.”
Unsure how to proceed, Elbaz turned to a close friend who regularly serves as a sandak at brit milah ceremonies. He asked him for guidance — and for a discreet examination.
“The answer shocked me,” Elbaz recalled. “He checked and told me I had been uncircumcised my entire life.”
Shortly afterward, Elbaz underwent a full bris milah at the age of 39.
Toker, reacting live on air, said he could hardly process what he was hearing.
“It changed my life completely,” Elbaz said. “I felt that Hashem was choosing me, and I was choosing Him. Now I have a bris with Him.”
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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8 Responses
Ok so what he actually said was that his mohel told his parents that he was born mahul and that they only needed to do hatafat dam which is what they did but he later learned that more than hatafat dam was necessary. His parents were not secular to the level where they didn’t believe in bris mila like this YWN article suggests.
Kol hakovod to him for talking openly and honestly about an obviously sensitive subject.
I was looking for a good example of TMI but then I found this
I think a clarification is in order. Seems that he had undergone a bris procedure, but it was not completed properly, leaving him an ערל halachically. That is not the same as say some apostate Jew not having anything done at all to his young son.
He did officially have a bris but it was not done properly. (read what it says in Hebrew in the video)
A good night time story for a cold winter night.
Does he need a pidyon haben?
He said that his parents were secular and the original Mohel was old, and things didn’t look 100% to him – so he spoke with a friend who sent another Mohel to his house to check things out, and the new Mohel determined that he did not have a valid Mila. He then had it fixed, and said that now he has a”Brit” with HKB”H.
It’s not that his parents made a decision to not have a Mila.
an Israeli Yid