Dr. Banai’s lecture topic addressed a debate that has been an ongoing discussion in Germany for quite some time. In May 2012, the regional court in Cologne declared religiously motivated male circumcision of children and youths as bodily harm, punishable by law. The basis for this is Article 2 (2) of Germany’s basic law, which safeguards bodily integrity. As a result, the Federal Government put forward a draft law to legalise male circumcision up to the age of 14. This law was accepted in the Bundestag (federal parliament) and Bundesrat (federal assembly) and as of 28 December 2012, is effective in Paragraph 1631d of the BGB (Civil Code). Despite the debate being prompted by a case of complications occurring from the circumcision of a Muslim boy, Dr. Banai limited her lecture on the Jewish practice of circumcision.

At the beginning of her lecture, Dr. Banai pointed out two sides of the question, which must be considered: the medical perspective and that of Jewish self-identity. From a medical point of view, circumcision is apparently neither recommended by physicians nor harmful enough to prohibit it. The topic would remain subject to further medical research and could bring different results in the future. Yet, circumcision is more an ethical debate than a medical question. In the context of Jewish identity, circumcision goes far beyond religious practice and is also part of an ancient tradition. The fact that 95 percent of Israeli males are circumcised is speaking clearly in favour of this. Despite this, there are Israeli citizens who have objections to this practice, but have silenced these objections to avoid social exclusion.

Furthermore, the legal problems that circumcision entails consist in conflicting rights such as freedom of religion, parents’ right to educate their children and the right of children to bodily integrity. Possible approaches to this problem could be a change of the law. This change would revise the general interpretation of the law or apply the law to specific cases. The law would remain open if circumcision can be described as violence and if irreversibility was hurting personal self-determination and autonomy. On the latter, Dr. Banai commented that also after circumcision it was possible to change one’s religion, since there was no religion that requires a member to be uncircumcised. Moreover, there were a multitude of decisions taken by parents that could also not be reversed, like moving to another country, bringing children up in a specific language, etc. Still, Judaism would be able to survive also without a highly invasive procedure like circumcision.

Apart from the ethical question, Dr. Banai also dealt with the political question. The larger context of the debate challenged various practices and brought up questions such as if the grounds on which these are criticized a search of progress, or simply resentment and prejudice? A big question mark has to be put behind the charge of anti-Semitism, which had been made by the Central Council of Jews in Germany. Dr. Banai responded to this by saying that the law had passed unusually fast and also the ethics council had decided very quickly. She suspected that the motivation behind this was the German government’s wish to keep Pandora’s box shut and to end the debate as soon as possible.

Following the discussion, Dr. Banai took the opportunity to address open questions. She made clear that Jewish life in Germany is not put in danger by a legal debate like this and explained that a prohibition of the practice of circumcision would still be wrong, but so would be a provision that explicitly allowed it.

(Dr. Banai is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies “Justitia Amplificata” at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. After her studies in political science at Hebrew University and studies in Paris and Berlin she completed her Ph.D. in Political Theory at the University of Oxford.)

Elena Müller

Translation from German: Elena Müller/Susi Doring Preston