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Olde Tyme Religion

Belgium’s Jewish community on edge after police raids on illegal circumcisions

2025-05-15

[IsraelTimes] Police in Antwerp looking for rabbis conducting the religious rite without medical license; Jewish group says raids part of larger campaign of intimidation against Jews in Belgium

They’re going to lose their famous Diamond District in Antwerp, populated primarily by Orthodox Jews and their returned Israeli cousins who kept up stone cutting trade in their new refuge. The small sprinkling of Indians offering cut price products will not be able maintain standards after the Jews all join the rest of the community in Israel

Belgium police conducted a series of raids on Wednesday in Jewish homes in Antwerp looking for people illegally conducting ritual Jewish circumcisions, local officials said.

Police conducted raids on three locations in Antwerp’s Jewish Quarter and nearby Green Quarter seeking knives and other equipment used in circumcisions, according to local reports. No one was arrested.

Police are concerned that the brit milah ritual is being performed on Jewish baby boys by unlicensed mohels (people who perform circumcision) instead of professional doctors. The ritual is commonly done in a synagogue, not a medical institution, by people who may not have undergone receive comprehensive medical training.

"The problem is that there is no clear law regarding circumcision at the moment," Belgian MP Michael Freilich, the country’s only Orthodox Jewish politician, told The Times of Israel.

While there are no laws specifically regulating Jewish ritual circumcision, Belgium has laws mandating that all medical procedures must be performed by a licensed doctor.

While this is driven by Jew hate, how hard could it be for a trained mohel to get a medical degree in order to forestall exactly this kind of problem? Or vice versa, for a nice Jewish doctor to go through mohel training to make the Orthodox Jews happy? Judaism has no philosophical problem with traditional Western medicine.

Freilich, who works with the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
on Jewish matters in his position as the European Jewish Association’s diplomatic envoy for issues of antisemitism and Holocaust remembrance, is working on developing EU certification for mohels, but that is likely years away, he noted.

Until then, the situation is precarious for Jews looking to perform the biblically prescribed religious ritual with a traditional mohel.

"This is a very sad day. On one hand, Jews must obviously respect the laws of their countries," Freilich said. "On the other hand, there has been a policy until now of the government turning a blind eye to this issue. The problem is not that brit milah is not allowed; it’s that there needs to be a clearer law about who can perform the procedure. We need to work together to find a solution."

European Jewish Association chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin condemned the raids, calling them part of a larger campaign of intimidation against Jewish religious figures in Belgium.

"Following the ban on ritual slaughter [in a 2019 law that requires that animals be stunned before they can be slaughtered for food], the harassment of mohels represents a further red line and a clear warning sign to Belgian Jews and the Belgian government," Margolin said. "Any restriction on circumcision in Belgium would send a clear message to Belgian Jews that they are not welcome in the country."

CUTTING UNDER SHARP SCRUTINY
Prosecutors in Antwerp, where most of Belgium’s approximately 30,000 Jews live, have been investigating illegal circumcisions since a renegade member of the Jewish community filed a series of complaints.

In November 2023, Rabbi Moshe Aryeh Friedman, an anti-Zionist activist from New York living in Antwerp, complained to police that six mohels were endangering children by using a controversial custom known as metzitzah b’peh in the circumcision process.

The practice involves mohels using their lips to suck blood from the penises of babies on whom they’d performed the Jewish ritual.

The controversial custom is thought to have caused the death of at least one child in New York in 2012 from herpes. Another outbreak among infants of Haredi families in New York occurred in 2017 and was attributed to metzitzah b’peh.

Then, in September 2024, Friedman informed police that circumcisions were being performed without legal approvals, and a local television station reported on the issue, stoking local concern.

"The only reason this is happening now is because of Friedman," Freilich said. "That doesn’t mean it would never have happened, but he made it go much faster."

Unlicensed circumcisions are under increased scrutiny in Europe. Last summer, authorities in Ireland arrested a rabbi from London for allegedly performing circumcision without required medical credentials in what may be the first case in modern Europa
Europa

...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
of a rabbi arrested in connection with a brit milah.

Circumcision is relatively uncommon among the general population of Europe, with only 10-20% of males having gone under the knife, compared to over 70% in the United States.

”We don’t cut our boys, unlike both Jews and Moslems. Then all we need do is pull down their pants to find them hiding among us.” Never mind the health benefits — it’s cruel to deprive men of the primal satisfaction of the pop, the fanatics proclaim indignantly.

Muslims generally undergo circumcision at a hospital, not in a religious ceremony, so the legislation is primarily a Jewish issue.

Most countries do not have any specific legislation regarding circumcision, allowing the Jewish ritual to continue as a religious freedom without intervening, Freilich explained. Only Germany has a law specifically allowing non-medical practitioners to conduct the brit milah under appropriate medical and hygienic conditions.

Freilich hopes to work with other European governments to adopt similar legislation allowing circumcision. He is also trying to encourage the EU to recognize certified mohels, he said.

Posted by:trailing wife

#1 As Dave Barry would say, Illegal Circumcisions would be a great name for a rock band.

Posted by: ed in texas 2025-05-15 10:03

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