New York – Mayor Bill de Blasio is defending New York City’s tentative agreement with members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community over a tradition known as oral suction circumcision.
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Health officials have linked 17 cases of infant herpes since 2000 to the ancient ritual of sucking blood from the wounds of the infants.
The new deal no longer requires the circumcisers to obtain signed consent forms before the rites. The circumcisers are called mohels in Yiddish.
Some health experts have said the city needs to establish more safeguards.
De Blasio said Wednesday the old policy of obtaining signed consent forms was “unenforceable” and offended some community members.
He also vowed that the city would stop any “wrongdoing” and prevent any mohel who gives a child herpes from continuing to administer the rite.
Kudos to Naftuli Moshe Indig and Chaim Duvid Zwiebel for the effort they had put in, to get this completed.
Kudos to our honorable mayor, you made a great kidish hasham. This is called freedom of religion.
He’s a strong mayor!!!! That’s really showing how he’s looking to work WITH communities and look for solutions. (Note that rabbonim also promised to cooperate in identifying mohalim who are considered dangerous and ban them for life!!). I love this mayor!
Anything short of an outright ban is unacceptable. Freedom of religion does not include freedom to harm a helpless, fragile infant. Shame on the Mayor for not having the fortitude to put his foot down on this issue.
As a fiercely anti Deblasio, now for the first time I’m thinking maybe he is not so bad, a very fair decision.
It’s all about votes.
It’s quite funny to see how Mayor de Blasio who,on this site, has constantly been viciously denigrated, vilified, mocked and slandered from day one of his term is now suddenly “honorable”, “a strong mayor”, “such a leader” and “deserving of kudos”.