$140 per day


What??

How is this even possible?

AlJazeera reports:

A religious court in Israel has fined a woman $140 each day that her one-year-old son remains uncircumcised. The Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem has reportedly rejected an appeal from the woman, who is currently going through a divorce and whose husband insists the procedure be carried out.

Rabbinical courts in Israel have jurisdiction in Jewish religious matters, including marriage and divorce. However, the woman’s lawyer reportedly argued that the court does not have the authority to demand the circumcision. According to +972 Magazine, there is no legal requirement for parents to have their sons circumcised.

What??

A religious court can require people to mutilate their infant’s genitals and fine them daily if they refuse? How does that even work?

Making the decision against circumcision is a controversial one in Israel. Circumcision has been an important Jewish tenet for millenia, and for the religious, it symbolises a covenant with God.

No doubt it does, but how can sane contemporary people try to require anyone to cut off a bit of their infant’s penis because it symbolizes a covenant with god? Both parts are baffling – the mutilation part and the covenant with a fictional character part.

“Rabbinical courts in Israel have jurisdiction in Jewish religious matters” but does that include requiring everyone to be religious in the first place?

Smh.

Via Joanne Payton

Comments

  1. A Hermit says

    Huh…I was just looking for a place to post this…http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israeli-mom-fined-149-a-day-for-refusing-son-s-circumcision-1.2440644

    “The baby was born with a medical problem, so we couldn’t circumcise him on the eighth day as is customary,” the mother, whose name is given only as Elinor, told Haaretz.

    “As time went on, I started reading about what actually happens in circumcision, and I realized that I couldn’t do that to my son. He’s perfect just as he is.”

  2. stewart says

    If this goes to the Supreme Court, as the mother says it will now, Gordon’s question will be answered: democracy or theocracy?

  3. freemage says

    This may be the first time in my life that I’ve read a news story and asked myself, “Huh. I wonder how the Men’s Rights Movement is dealing with this story?” Because seriously, the cognitive dissonance this will create should be EPIC.

  4. anat says

    The story is confusing, but what is clear to me is that the reason the religious court got involved was because the parents were in disagreement. The court has no authority to force circumcision of its own initiative, but here one parent wants it done and the conflict may be one of several between a couple undergoing divorce. In Israel the rabbinate has jurisdiction over Jewish divorces, and that’s how they got involved in enforcing their way on one of the matters about which the couple was in disagreement.

  5. medivh says

    @freemage, #6:
    This story isn’t the first I’ve seen where rights are being trampled on that relate solely to men and boys. The MRM will ignore it to go screech at women because they aren’t a movement about rights, only about harassment.

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