The Buffalo Board of Rabbis and the Maimonides Medical Society here have reached “full agreement” on a question that arose over ritual circumcision, it was announced by the society’s secretary. Dr. Harold J. Levy.
The problem which both groups resolved was set forth in a letter to the medical group by Rabbi Isaac Klein, chairman of the committee on Jewish practice of the Buffalo Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Klein urged that doctors assist in preventing circumcision from “deteriorating into an empty gesture” by informing parents of new-born children about “both surgical and religious circumcision.”
In some cases, Rabbi Klein said, Jewish doctors “have discouraged the religious aspects of the ritual and have performed circumcisions without any religious connotation to it.” If parents prefer to observe the religious aspect of the ritual, the rabbi added, “it would be proper for a rabbi of the parents’ choice to consult with them concerning the circumcision.”
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.
