For the first time in the history of the Shetland Isles, a lonely group of islands off the northeast coast of Scotland, a circumcision of a Jewish boy was performed.
The child, named Abraham Ben Yitzhak, was born to Mrs. Isidore de Mercado, wife of an Orthodox Sephardic Jew employed at the meteorological station at Lerwick, the major town in the islands. The officiating rabbi was flown to Lerwick from the mainland of Scotland in a plane which battled 80-mile per hour winds. The only other Jewish family in the islands acted as god parents.
The event was recognized as unique by the town authorities, who entered a record of it in the official annals. Surgeons and resident physicians at the hospital attended the circumcision ceremony.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
