ja chank 2008 - South African Jewish Board of Deputies

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a cultural burden, those who are interested only in advancing female interests have no incentive to extend this burden to females. But a true egalitarian would think it unfair that a boy is cut while a girl is not. Therefore, a true egalitarian would either extend the burden to females or remove it from males 112 . It speaks either to the disingenuousness or, more likely, the self-deception of those Jewish egalitarians who simultaneously insist that brit mila constitutes a sexist favoring of males while declining to extend the same alleged favor to females. This paradoxical stance suggests that whereas they say, and perhaps consciously think, that brit mila favors boys over girls, they recognize at some deeper level that it does not. Here we should note that a neonatal ceremony means nothing to the neonate. An infant boy is unaware that he is the centre of attention. He is unaware that others are making a fuss over him and rejoicing at his birth and his induction into a religious covenant. Similarly, an infant girl for whom there is no such ceremony cannot feel deprived of any of this. And if she is given such a ceremony it does her no more good than such a ceremony does an infant boy. Thus the ceremony is more for the benefit of others. While egalitarians who give a girl a batmizva ceremony comparable to a boy’s may plausibly be thought to be benefiting her, giving an infant girl a neonatal ceremony to parallel a boy’s cannot plausibly be said to be benefiting her. What does make a difference to an infant is whether its genitals are surgically altered without an anaesthetic 113 . Jewish boys do bear this burden, while Jewish girls do not. If it were Jewish girls who were circumcised and Jewish boys who were not, I suspect, given the foregoing, that feminists would offer strident arguments that circumcision discriminated against girls and constituted a patriarchal control of female genitals. Even if the surgery were performed by women, these women would be judged, as they are in cultures that do cut female genitals, to be instruments of patriarchy. If men began to join the ranks of circumcisers, it would not be hailed as the egalitarian advance that the certification of mohalot – female circumcisers (of male children) 114 – has been in Jewish egalitarian circles. Here it has been said that a mohelet – female circumciser – can give a women’s touch 115 and that mohalot “may have a special ability to relate to mothers who are having anxiety” about the circumcision of their sons 116 . But this sounds like something we would surely not hear from feminists and egalitarians – namely, recommending a male obstetrician because he brings a “man’s touch” and can relate to the husband of the woman in labor. The irony of using egalitarianism to extend the status 112 For more on male disadvantage and the neglect of it, see my “The Second Sexism’, in Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 29. No. 2, April 2003, pp. 177-210. When pushed on the question of burdens borne only by men, many feminists would rather release men from the burden than extend it to females – but without acknowledging that it ever was a burden borne only by the males of a given culture or religion. 113 Michael Benatar and I argue that the failure to use an anaesthetic is the biggest problem with neonatal circumcision. See our “Between Prophylaxis and Child Abuse: The Ethics of Neonatal Circumcision” “Between Prophylaxis and Child Abuse: The Ethics of Neonatal Circumcision”, American Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 3, No. 2, Spring 2003, pp. 35-48. 114 Although there is biblical, talmudic and halachic foundation for allowing a woman to perform circumcision, tradition has dictated that ritual circumcisers are men. 115 Mike Weiss, “A Woman’s Touch: Lillian Schapiro is charting new territory as an Atlanta mohelet”, Atlanta Jewish Times, 8 June 2001. Accessed on-line (on 15 August 2005) at: http://atlanta.jewish.com/archives/2001/060801cs.htm 116 Ibid.
of circumciser to women but not using it to extend the status of circumcised to girls seems lost on our egalitarians. Yet on a true Jewish egalitarian view, there is nothing wrong with a female circumciser, or rabbi or cantor – on condition that she is circumcised.
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Page 5 and 6: Johannesburg College of Education.
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Page 15 and 16: where the mean high temperature in
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Page 19 and 20: Was this a problem solved or a prob
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Page 23 and 24: prevalent. 58 The subsequent 1902 a
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Page 27 and 28: and rebuilt. 82 Those living in the
Page 29 and 30: stories overheard as I walk, everyb
Page 31 and 32: from every part of the Continent, c
Page 33 and 34: perform those practices one chooses
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Page 41 and 42: salesmen, butchers and bakers. From
Page 43 and 44: surviving children, Clarrice Jeanet
Page 45 and 46: These days, a Jewish left wing acti
Page 47 and 48: While still a member of the Hashome
Page 49 and 50: ostracized Jewish victims of bannin
Page 51 and 52: One could add several more expressi
Page 53 and 54: SOME JEWISH BOOKSELLERS AND BOOKSHO
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Page 59: this. Please accept this record of

ja chank 2008 - South African Jewish Board of Deputies

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