Today's Jewish Movement to Question Circumcision

(Submitted by a MANN Reader)

Over the last hundred years, a Jewish and Israeli movement to stop circumcision has emerged. This is due to modern notions of an individual’s right to their own body, new historical information about the origin of circumcisions in Egypt and Africa, scientific discoveries about the damage caused by circumcision, and a desire by individuals to live a higher level of spiritual ethics. This movement includes Jewish Rabbis, scholars, parents, intellectuals, Israelis, and educators.

Jewish Groups for Genital Integrity
Jews Against Circumcision
Jews for the Rights of the Child
Bris Shalom Officiants by Mark D. Reiss, M.D.
Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish Perspective by Ron Goldman, Ph.D.
Beyond the Bris: Jewish Parenting Blog

Article here. Excerpt:

Lucy Valantine was approaching her fortieth birthday when she made the seemingly bizarre decision to leave her husband of five years. “On the surface, life was perfect,” she says. “We had a gorgeous Victorian house in the Home Counties, I had a great job with a blue-chip company, and my husband was a lovely chap. He was kind and gentle and my friends all loved him. There was nothing wrong with him, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to change my life.
...
Relationship counsellor Andrew G Marshall, author of I Love You, I’m Just Not In Love With You, says he has noted a trend towards such splits. “In the past 10 years, I’ve seen a huge increase in couples who don’t actually hate each other, they just don’t love each other enough to stick at it. Ninety per cent of these marriages would be perfectly serviceable if the people involved would just put in more effort.”

Story here.

'A Rochester woman is facing charges after leaving her children alone in her car.

The Ontario County Sheriff's Office says 33-year-old Shanita Polk left her three children, ages 5, 7 and 9, unattended in the Eastview Mall parking lot for an extended period of time.

She also provided police with a false name to avoid an active warrant for her arrest out of Rochester. Polk was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and criminal impersonation.

She was arraigned in Farmington Court and taken to the Ontario County. The children were picked up my family members. Polk will answer to the charges in Victor Town Court.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'New research is revealing more about men’s lives in the transition to fatherhood. Psychologist and PhD candidate Jeanette Lightfoot says that, despite a growing interest in fathers, much of the research is either comparative – contrasting them with mothers – or misses them altogether.

Little is known about men’s abilities to form close relationships and strong bonds with their infants, and only limited research has sought to better identify vulnerabilities and risk factors during the transition to fatherhood,” she says.

“While new fatherhood is an uplifting, rewarding and wonderful time for most men it is important to be able to identify those men who may be at risk of a poorer adaptation, and to develop appropriate supports and interventions to assist these men, their partners and their children.”'

Link here. Excerpt:

'CHICAGO (Reuters) - Male firefighters who were exposed to toxic dust and smoke from the 9/11 attacks on New York's World Trade Center have a 19 percent higher risk of getting cancer of all kinds than colleagues who were not exposed, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

The study is the first to look at cancer rates among the all of the exposed firefighters, and the findings may help pave the way for federal health benefits for rescue workers now suffering from cancer nearly a decade after the attacks.

"This study clearly shows World Trade Center exposure in these firefighters led to an increase in cancer," said Dr. David Prezant of the Fire Department of the City of New York, whose study was published in The Lancet medical journal.
...
Prior studies have shown increased rates of post traumatic stress disorder, asthma and other respiratory illnesses among rescue workers. To date, only a handful of smaller studies have shown increased rates of cancer, which can take five to 20 years to develop.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Timaru girl says she was forced to wash off her blue face paint as it was supporting a male cause – and her school, being a girls' school, could only support female causes.

However her principal has told the Timaru Herald the school has "no policy around any gender-related fundraisers".

Kristie Bennet, 15, turned up to Timaru Girls' High School yesterday with half her face painted blue to support Blue Friday, a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of prostate cancer.

She said she wanted to take part as her grandfather died from the disease last year.

She hoped her fellow students would spread the cancer message to the men in their lives.

"When I went to form class I was told straight away to take [the paint] off. I went to the deputy principal [to ask if I could keep it on] and she said we were only allowed to support female causes.

"She watched me take [the paint] off."'

Article here. Excerpt:

“The mother’s partner reported to the police in Polička that there was a child lying unconscious in a pool of blood. Upon arrival at the scene medics discovered four dead children and the mother who was attempting to hang herself and who also had cut wounds,” head of the Pardubice region emergency services, Pavel Svoboda, told the news server idnes.cz.
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The server novinky.cz reported Friday afternoon that so far police susoect [sic] the mother of murdering all four of her children - two boys and two girls said to be aged 10, 8, 7 and the youngest just two months old. According to the server’s information, in addition to knife wounds, marks were found on all the children suggesting they had all been strangled."

News submitted by

Ulf Andersson
PappaRättsGruppen
http://www.dads-r-us.se/

Story here. Excerpt:

'In 2006, David Tune’s ‘world fell apart’, as he puts it, when his ex-wife Vicky publicly accused him of sexually abusing their daughter.

For five years he has been dragged through the Family Courts, accused of the most heinous acts. Yet every single investigation has ended with the authorities concluding that he has no case to answer.

Not only has the entire system — police, social workers and judiciary — believed his word against his ex-wife’s, but they have believed in him so much that they have taken the child from her, and she now lives with her father.

This week, the most senior family court judge in the country took the highly unusual step of naming all the adults involved in this complex case, claiming that David had the right to tell the world he was not a paedophile.

Chapter 8 (Conclusion) of The Masculinity Conspiracy is now online.

This final chapter revisits some of the main ways that the conspiracy manifests, but more importantly examines how and why it happens, as well as revealing what ultimately lies behind the conspiracy.

If you don’t like reading online, print and Kindle editions of the book are also now available.

Article here. If the student population were only 34% female, would the president of this college be talking about what a problem that was? Excerpt:

'Destler said that Kevin McDonald, who was the chief diversity officer at RIT, has been elevated to the position of vice president for diversity and inclusion.

"Nevertheless, despite strong efforts by many of you, progress in building the diversity of our student, faculty and staff populations has been spotty." Destler said.

RIT, Destler added, has found that, while there has been progress in engineering and some other technical fields, overall female undergraduate enrollment has stagnated at about 34 percent. He has asked his Commission on Women to determine what needs to be done to reach a goal of 40 percent for female undergraduate enrollment.'

From IA:

America’s medical organizations all acknowledge that infant circumcision is NOT MEDICALLY NECESSARY—yet their members are responsible for nearly all the infant circumcisions performed in the United States!

This October, pediatricians are gathering in Boston for the American Academy of Pediatrics' annual conference, and Intact America will be there once again to tell doctors that circumcision is wrong for baby boys. Thanks to our ongoing Put Down The Knife! campaign, you too can tell doctors that circumcision is a harmful violation of a child’s right to bodily integrity, and it needs to end NOW.

If you haven't yet sent your letter, write to America's doctors right now and demand that they tell parents the truth about circumcision. If you’ve already sent your letter, then please consider asking your friends, family, and coworkers to send letters of their own. The larger our community, the louder our voice!

Article here. Excerpt:

'It's hard to make a cut-and-dried women's-rights issue out of this case because of the accuser's credibility problem, though the sisterhood did have some words to say. "This miscarriage of justice exhibits all the hallmarks of a society that tolerates sexual violence by blaming and shaming the survivors -- but the real shame belongs with the perpetrators and the prosecutors who allow them to walk off scot-free," said National Organization for Women president Terry O'Neill.

It is, of course, not at all clear that that is what happened. And will NOW take some responsibility in this mess, for contributing to a culture in which men and women are always adversarial rather than complementary? In which sex is the ultimate expression of independence and power, rather than a beautiful, intimate, life-giving act of love and mutual respect and human dignity?

Article here. Excerpt:

'A NEW women’s only group is being launched by the Banbury Constituency Labour Party on Wednesday (August 31).

The launch is open to members and non-members of the Labour Party and will take place at The Great Western Arms in Aynho.Organiser Annie Higgs said: “The purpose of the group is for women to share issues that affect them both locally and nationally, to meet socially with like-minded women and to invite inspiring speakers. We have an exciting programme of events coming up across the whole constituency.

“I’m hoping this group will empower women and give them a voice.”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'KEARNEY — Just For Us aims to offer women information, relaxation and fun.

The new women’s event will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 10 at Younes Convention Center. This is the first year the Kearney Hub will partner with Good Samaritan Hospital to present Just For Us.

The event will include exhibit booths, keynote speaker Peggy Kline, breakout sessions on women’s health issues, on-stage demonstrations, door prizes and more.'

Welcome to the web-based multimedia project that's putting real faces and voices to the current Jewish movement opposing circumcision. This dynamic site is being created by, for and about Jews who are united in the belief that cutting children's genitals is unnecessary and harmful. As our name implies, an increasing number of Jewish people are moving in a more ethical, more humanitarian and more Jewish direction: beyond the bris.