New York’s Board of Health usually deals with topics like lead paint and tuberculosis, but this week is expected to draw heated arguments on bris milah.
On Monday, the 11-member panel is set to hear public comments on a proposal to require parental consent for circumcisions practiced by ultra-Orthodox Jews in which the mohel performs metzitzah b’peh.
A Department of Health study claims, without proof, that this practice increases the risk of a herpes infection, which can be fatal for infants.
“We are fully convinced that it presents no danger,” said Rabbi David Niederman, a spokesman for the Central Rabbinical Congress of the USA and Canada, a group based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
{Matzav.com Newscenter}
