Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America [Paperback]

Leonard B. Glick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 7, 2006

The book of Genesis tells us that God made a covenant with Abraham, promising him a glorious posterity on the condition that he and all his male descendents must be circumcised. For thousands of years thereafter, the distinctive practice of circumcision served to set the Jews apart from their neighbors. The apostle Paul rejected it as a worthless practice, emblematic of Judaism's fixation on physical matters. Christian theologians followed his lead, arguing that whereas Christians sought spiritual fulfillment, Jews remained mired in such pointless concerns as diet and circumcision. As time went on, Europeans developed folklore about malicious Jews who performed sacrificial murders of Christian children and delighted in genital mutilation. But Jews held unwaveringly to the belief that being a Jewish male meant being physically circumcised and to this day even most non-observant Jews continue to follow this practice. In this book, Leonard B. Glick offers a history of Jewish and Christian beliefs about circumcision from its ancient origins to the current controversy. By the turn of the century, more and more physicians in America and England--but not, interestingly, in continental Europe--were performing the procedure routinely. Glick shows that Jewish American physicians were and continue to be especially vocal and influential champions of the practice which, he notes, serves to erase the visible difference between Jewish and gentile males. Informed medical opinion is now unanimous that circumcision confers no benefit and the practice has declined. In Jewish circles it is virtually taboo to question circumcision, but Glick does not flinch from asking whether this procedure should continue to be the defining feature of modern Jewish identity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Baby girls in the United States are spared such treatment, and laws are now in place to protect them. Glick provides readers with a wealth of information to question how this different treatment of patients based on gender can be acceptable, and he asks them to agree with him that it is not."--The Historian

"Marked in Your Flesh is an ambitious study of the ancient rite of circumcision, which has been central to the demarcation of Jewish identity from biblical times to the present. There have been many studies of circumcision, but Leonard Glicks is distinguished both by its impressive historical range and its sophisticated commingling of anthropological and textual methodologies. Through painstaking analysis the author has unmasked many of the socio-cultural and religious underpinnings of circumcision. Marked in Your Flesh should appeal to anyone interested in this practice."--Elliot R. Wolfson, Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University

"Marked in Your Flesh shines as the rarest of beasts-a book that is learned yet accessible, deeply serious yet profoundly entertaining. Glick writes with one eye carefully checking footnotes while the other eye compassionately keeps watch over the precious newborn babies that are his ultimate subject. This engagingly written book contains lessons applicable to all of us concerned with protecting human rights and human well-being against encroachment by cultural and social forces."--J. Steven Svoboda, Founder and Executive Director, Attorneys for the Rights of the Child

About the Author

Leonard B. Glick is a cultural anthropologist with a medical degree and a doctorate in anthropology. He is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Hampshire College and is the author of Abraham's Heirs: Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe (1999).

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195315944
• ISBN-13: 978-0195315943
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #615,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America, April 7, 2006

By 

Sami Aldeeb (Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America (Hardcover)

January 12, 1992, I paid a visit to the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, where I met Dr. Leila Mehra. I was then preparing a paper, which I developed in a book in Arabic, French and English on male and female circumcision. I asked her: "Why the WHO is concerned only with female circumcision and doesn't consider male circumcision?" She responded: "Male circumcision is mentioned in the Bible. Do you want to create problems for us with the Jews?" The same day, I met Mrs. Berhane Ras-Work, president of the Inter-African committee in her office in Geneva. Strangely enough, she gave me the same answer, illustrating that the two of them undoubtedly consulted each other before meeting with me.

While I am reading this book, UNICEF Switzerland is waging an intensive and aggressive campaign against female excision. UNICEF, as other international and region organisations, refuses to use the term circumcision, because it may produce confusion with male circumcision. Not one single word is said about male circumcision. UNICEF never produced any document on male circumcision, and always refused to open the debate about this subject. Maybe for the same reasons invoked by Leila Mehra and Berhane Ras-Work: "Male circumcision is mentioned in the Bible. Do you want to create problems for us with the Jews?" It is absolutely sure that if UNICEF begins a campaign against male circumcision similar to its campaign against female circumcision, it will be labelled anti-Semitic and many governments will stop financing it. Because of money and fear, UNICEF is violating its mission to protect the children, all the children, regardless of their religion or gender. The same can be said of the United Nations Organization (UNO), which developed many activities and issued many resolutions against female circumcision but refused to take any position against male circumcision, as it has been requested by activists struggling against this practice. Let us remember here a fact that the great majority of people, even intellectuals, ignore: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the rights of the child and other important international texts don't mention the right to physical integrity, most probably to avoid interpreting it as a condemnation of male circumcision.

Leonard B. Glick's book will not be bought or consulted by UNICEF, WHO or UNO, for two reasons: it does not speak about female circumcision and it is opposed to male circumcision. There are two ways to oppose this practice: pamphlet style or a large documented book covering the subject from different point of view: religion, medicine, sociology, law, art, etc. Such a book may necessitate several hundred pages which people will not read, and which may be consulted by some specialists and sleep on dusty shelves of the libraries. The book of Leonard B. Glick is between the two options. The text itself covers 279 pages, followed with 51 pages of footnotes, 25 pages of bibliography and an index of 10 pages.

The book is very well documented, pleasantly written and the subject is presented logically and coherently. It is certainly the result of a passionate and patient investigation through the amount of the quoted documents. And without passion and a feeling to fulfil a mission, one cannot write such a book. In the preface, the author explains what his relation with male circumcision was and how his position changed from indifference to opposition after having circumcised his three sons, act he regrets: "Had I known at their births what I know now, they would never have been circumcised" (p. VIII). Here is the recommendation of the author to his readers: begin reading about circumcision before doing it. He offers them what he learned through his researches as an anthropologist and physician. The last paragraph of the book reads: "I've tried to summarize in these few pages the wealth of information that convinced me that male infant circumcision is medically unnecessary, harmful to normal sexuality, and ethically unjustifiable. When all is said and done, I believe we face a single inescapable question: Are we now prepared to accept the principle that, from the moment of birth, every child has all the human rights of any other person - including the inviolable right to freedom from nonconsensual, nontherapeutic bodily alternation?"

The prologue of the book offers another personal experience that transformed Marilyn Fayre Milos into a major activist against male circumcision. She also circumcised her three sons, but was shocked by what she saw in the hospital as a nurse. Her opposition to male circumcision was the reason for which the hospital dismissed her for insubordination. Then she founded NOCIRC, an international organisation struggling against male (and female) circumcision worldwide. The book itself is dedicated to her.

These two personal experiences lead the author to investigate the religious reasons behind male circumcision in the Jewish community. He presents in the first chapter the basic texts of the Jewish faith relating to this practice (Old Testament, Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, etc.). Then in chapter 2 he explains what was the position of Jesus' apostles who were circumcised but had the mission to evangelise pagans (Gentiles) opposed to this practice. Pagans did not appreciate circumcision but tolerated it as long as it was practiced by Jews on themselves. They did nothing to eradicate it. The main opposition to male circumcision came from inside the Jewish people, through Apostle Paul, a highly educated Jew. From persecutor of the new faith, he became its major propagator, offering the religious arguments against male circumcision, which were used by the Fathers of the Church and major Christian theologians. Chapter 4 shows how Jewish intellectuals and physicians, mainly in German-speaking countries, but also in Italy and France, began opposing circumcision in the nineteenth century, despite the fierce opposition of the rabbis and conservative Jews. Chapters 5 to 7 explain how suddenly the Christian Western physicians rehabilitated circumcision for medical reasons, giving new arguments to Jewish physicians who helped in spreading this practice, mainly in the Anglo-Saxon countries. Nevertheless, male circumcision continues to question the Jewish community, as indicated in chapters 8 and 9.

These are some of the elements developed in this book. One thing more is to be mentioned. The author of this book is a Jewish scholar. To tackle male circumcision among Jews, only Jews have the full capacity to do it. A non-Jewish author will not be taken seriously by Jews if he opposes male circumcision, and may be labelled anti-Semitic. Despite the small number of the Jews and the fact that they represent the minority among circumcised people (compared to one billion Muslims and the large percentage of Americans who are circumcised), male circumcision cannot be abolished among Muslims and Christians if it is not first abolished among Jews. Both Christians and Muslims rely on Jewish religious arguments, and as long as Jews consider male circumcision as part of their religion, it would be difficult to oppose it, either on the international or on the national level. Non-Jewish activists opposed to circumcision in the USA agree that they should avoid criticizing the Jewish circumcision, leaving it to Jewish scholars. The same with Muslim male circumcision which should be left to Muslim scholars. This is not the case with female circumcision, mainly African custom. Western intellectuals, activists and politicians do not hesitate to attack the Africans without any restraint or respect for their feelings, probably to show their "moral" superiority. Instead of attacking female circumcision, they should first clean their own house by abolishing male circumcision. They forget one important principle: without abolishing male circumcision, it is impossible to abolish female circumcision. This book is a step in this direction and, for this reason, the author should be congratulated for his courage in writing on this highly sensitive subject.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to

Sami Aldeeb

[...]

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars JEWISH PHYSICIAN ANTHROPOLGIST IS PERFECT AUTHOR FOR THIS BOOK, July 6, 2005

By 

John V. Geisheker (Seattle, Washington USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America (Hardcover)

Jewish physician turned anthropologist Leonard Glick explores a subject for which his background is perfect preparation: an analysis of how cultural circumcision came from eons ago to become embedded in U.S. medicine. At turns wise and witty and but always compassionate, he painstakingly traces the path that Jewish brit milah took until it inspired a late 19th-century Anglo-American health fad which predated germ theory, has been abandoned by most Anglophone countries, and now survives mostly in the USA.

Glick even touches the third-rail of the historical debate-exposing how a handful of prominent Jewish physicians in the 20th century used tissue-thin guesswork to promote medical circumcision while they missed the irony that circumcising 100 million Americans could hardly serve to keep Jewish males unique.

For those interested in cultural history at the interface of religion and science, and especially those tracking the growing bioethical recognition of non-therapeutic circumcision as human rights' abuse, Professor Glick's account is a must-read.

John Geisheker

Attorney at Law

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Almost too moderate, April 25, 2006

By 

Hugh Young (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America (Hardcover)

If this book has a fault, it is its sustained, even tone. Glick answers the Orthodox with rabbinical wisdom and the Reform with humane logic, chides feminists for failing to address the rampant sexism of cutting only male babies and answers medical arguments with epidemiological statistics. Like everyone else (myself included), he tiptoes around the extraordinary practice of metzitzah (sucking the blood from the baby's wounded penis) that would be called by a grosser name if anyone else did it.

He makes no pretense of being even-handed, as so many committee-generated policy statements and encyclopaedia entries do - which merely serves to conceal their bias - and his openness strengthens his case, because in fact he is more balanced than many. As a medically-trained Jewish anthropologist who has performed circumcision, Glick is excellently placed to condemn the practice, and he does so with a moderation that is more effective than any intemperate attack would be.

His analysis of the extraordinary change in Jewish and medical attitudes towards circumcision in the US in the late 19th century, when Jews medicalised the ritual, and doctors, to prevent the supposed medical consequences of masturbation, adopted and promoted the most extreme Jewish form (but without metzitzah), by the mid-20th century doing it without asking, is excellent, and his treatment of Jewish doctors' role in the medicalisation is sensitive. Glick is no conspiracy theorist, nor "self-hating".

He is especially good at pointing out what supporters of circumcision leave out (such as that "Mohel to the Stars" Fred R. Kogen makes no mention of Abraham's covenant in the instructions for his lavishly catered cutting parties), and at finding the subtext in peripheral material, such as the sustained unease and disquiet surrounding reference to circumcision in TV sitcoms such as "Seinfeld" and "Sex and the City".

The only shortcoming is inevitable: the campaign to circumcise male babies - currently, to protect them against HIV/AIDS decades hence - has moved on apace since "Marked in Your Flesh" was published, and new studies have come out, with new flaws which Glick was not in time to address.

Anyone, Jewish or gentile, who anticipates having children in the US in the foreseeable future (unless they have already decided to leave their sons intact) should read this book.