IN MEMORIAM: DR. SHLOMO SPRECHER MD Z"L --- Metziza B'Peh:Therapeutic Touch or Hippocratic Vestige?
DR. SPRECHER Z"L
Metziza B'Peh:Therapeutic Touch or Hippocratic Vestige?
“I come to inform you that your letter regarding the permissibility of utilizing an instrument to perform mezizah arrived and I respond with amazement at the nature of this question. It is well-known to every Rabbi and discerning
person that the commandment of milah is comprised of cutting the foreskin and tearing the mucus membrane. As far as mezizah that is mentioned in the Mishnah, the Talmud and the Codes, it has no bearing or connection to the mitzva of milah that we have been commanded by the Torah, rather it is a matter of health and healing of the newborn. The entire matter of mezizah is only to remove the danger. It is not recorded any place in Hazal in what manner to perform mezizah, because it is known that therapeutic measures change from period to period and location to location.In the Talmud we find many therapeutic measures provided for many illnesses, but in our time we never heard that anyone should utilize these therapies recorded by Hazal. Rather, we follow the therapies selected by the contemporary physicians since the nature of people and therapies have changed from the time of Hazal. So in each generation the therapeutic measures change. So too with the therapy of meẓizah."
Conclusion:
I hope this excursion through the arcana of medical history has not obscured the basic message that paramount halakhic authorities, such as the Hatam Sofer and most of the Litvishe Gedolim, accepted at face value the nascent medical evidence that MBP poses a risk. Now that the process of person-to-person transmission of infection is so firmly established, can we really be cavalier about that risk? For example, the CDC Hepatitis C guidelines include the risk of transmission of this deadly disease via even occasional sharing of a toothbrush! Can we guarantee that no mohel performing MBP can transmit this illness, which can be latent for several decades? Can our community anticipate a nes nigleh each time MBP is performed?
READ ENTIRE HALACHIC ANALYSIS BY RABBI DR. SOLOMON SPRECHER MD Z"l.
Six babies are said to have been infected with infant herpes in New
York City since Mayor Bill de Blasio cut a deal with the Hasidic
community that continues to allow ritual circumcisers mouth-to-genital
contact.
The news emerged
Thursday after a newborn was rushed to the hospital two weeks after
undergoing the procedure, known as metzitzah b’peh, in which the mohel
sucks the blood out of the circumcision wound using his mouth.
The Health Department under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg cracked
down on the practice due to hygienic concerns, with his administration
requiring parents to sign a waiver before the procedure.
De Blasio, who derives a large base of support from the Hasidic
community, rolled back that policy, setting instead for a compromise in
which the community was supposed to help test circumcisers from herpes
and prevent those infect from oral-genital contact with infants. Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
A national poll by Gallup shows that the president’s approval rating among Jews stands at 31%. That’s 11% below the national average.
On the negative side, Gallup suggests, are the lack of mention of
Jews in his statement for International Holocaust Remembrance day, his
slow and lackluster response to the wave of anti-Semitism in the first
two months of his tenure and the appointment of Steve Bannon as his
chief strategist. Bannon, the report comments, “has been accused of
making anti-Semitic comments.”
On the positive side, Trump did eventually denounce anti-Semitism,
has a Jewish daughter and son-in-law closely involved with his
administration, and he has mouthed strong support for Israel.
But, Gallup notes, Trump has sent mixed messages on Israel — where he
has now said to “hold off” on new settlements and the movement of the
Embassy to Jerusalem.
Mostly, the pollsters say, the low approval rating just reflects the
political affiliations of the Jewish population, which leans 64%
democratic.
Three Democratic senators are calling on the administration to
investigate whether President Trump’s counter-terrorism adviser
Sebastian Gorka broke the law by not disclosing to immigration
authorities that he was a member of a Hungarian Nazi-allied group.
Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois, Ben Cardin from Maryland and
Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal wrote a letter to the Department of
Homeland Security and the Justice Department, asking them to examine
Gorka’s immigration papers.
The senators based their letter on the Forward’s report
which found that Gorka swore loyalty to Vitezi Rend, an ultra
nationalist organization which according to the State Department, its
members are presumed to be inadmissible to the United States.
“We are deeply concerned by reports that Dr. Gorka concealed the
material fact of his membership in the Vitezi Rend, a far right
anti-Semitic Hungarian organization, when he applied for U.S.
citizenship,” the three senators wrote. Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com or on Twitter @nathanguttman
Donald Trump’s No. 1 critic is about to get an award from Trump’s No. 1 donor.
Mark Cuban, the Texas outspoken billionaire who had trolled Donald
Trump on Twitter and made a point of sitting in the front row during
presidential debates only to get under Trump’s skin, will be awarded
later this month the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson’s “In Pursuit of
Excellence Award” at a gala dinner the Adelson’s educational campus will
hold in Las Vegas.
Sheldon Adelson backed Trump financially throughout the campaign to
the tune of tens of millions of dollars and has become one of the
president’s closest allies, spending inauguration week with the Trump
family and sitting down for a private White House dinner with Trump last
month.
The Adelsons established the school a decade ago, building on the
already existing Hebrew Academy of Las Vegas and expanding it to include
pre-school to 12th grade Jewish education. Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com or on Twitter @nathanguttman
Decades after officials worried they might be sheltering the infamous
Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele, members of the Mennonite sect in Paraguay
are coming to terms with their historical ties with the Third Reich.
Mennonites are supposed to embrace non-violence and shun political
life. But that was not the case in Fernheim, the Paraguay settlement
where a group of Mennonites fleeing the Soviet Union put down roots
after the Russian Revolution. Founded in Germany, the Mennonite religion
has retained ties to the country, and the Fernheim community received
funding from Hitler’s government, which it celebrated.
Following the outbreak of war, Fernheim was severed from much of its
contact with the Third Reich, leading to disturbances as settlers argued
and eventually came to blows over how to best continue the National
Socialist legacy. The unrest became severe enough that American
diplomats and Paraguay’s military intervened.
Uwe Friesen, head of the colony’s historical association, spearheaded
the drive to talk about that history, sponsoring a conference titled
“The Racialist Movement and National Socialism among the Mennonites in
Paraguay.”
He told the Religious News Service that it was the right time to
re-examine the history, a process that he said was true to Mennonite
ways and could lead to healing.
“Making peace means living out and offering reconciliation,” he said at the conference. The effort in Fernheim follows larger initiatives among Mennonites to consider their religion’s ties to National Socialism. Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
Following President Trump’s controversial budget
proposal boosting the military and slashing Meals on Wheels and other
safety net programs, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that his caucus is willing to shut down the government to defeat the White House’s blueprint.
“If they put those poison pill amendments in and try to shove them
down the American people’s throats, of course they might be responsible
for shutting the government down,” the New York senator said in a
Thursday press conference. According to him, proposals to slash domestic
spending, defund Planned Parenthood and allot monies to a border wall
are non-starters in budget negotiations.
Schumer’s Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell accused his fellow leader of hypocrisy, now that Democrats are in the minority.
“I’m amused by the Democrats apparently warming up to the idea that
threatening to shut down the government is a good idea. It seems to me
everybody’s got kind of memory loss on the other side,” he told
reporters. Republicans briefly shuttered the government four years ago after a budget disagreement with former President Obama.
The two sides have until late April to fund the government and avert a shutdown. Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [solomon@forward.com](mailto:solomon@forward.com] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
SIX MORE NEW YORK BABIES GET HERPES AFTER UNDERGOING METZIZA B'PEH:
Six
babies are said to have been infected with infant herpes in New York
City since Mayor Bill de Blasio cut a deal with the Hasidic community
that continues to allow ritual circumcisers mouth-to-genital contact.
The news emerged
Thursday after a newborn was rushed to the hospital two weeks after
undergoing the procedure, known as metzitzah b’peh, in which the mohel
sucks the blood out of the circumcision wound using his mouth.
The Health Department under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg cracked
down on the practice due to hygienic concerns, with his administration
requiring parents to sign a waiver before the procedure.
De Blasio, who derives a large base of support from the Hasidic
community, rolled back that policy, setting instead for a compromise in
which the community was supposed to help test circumcisers from herpes
and prevent those infect from oral-genital contact with infants. Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
It’s been a tough media weekend for Sebastian Gorka, the deputy assistant to the president who was the subject of an article in the Forward about his membership of a Nazi-allied group in Hungary.
The Chicago Tribune published a critical review
of Gorka’s scholarship by Dan Nexon, an associate professor in the
Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Nixon notes
that a scholar of Islam should be able to read Arabic (Gorka can’t),
that Gorka uses out-of-date statistics and uses them wrongly, and that
Gorka has published little but a dissertation that is no support for his
chosen position.
the dissertation is particularly thin on the central topics that Gorka trades on: Islam, terrorism, and Islamic terrorism.
The Huffington Post foreign affairs reporter
Jessica Schulberg drew out the relationship between Sebastian Gorka’s
mother and the infamous Holocaust denier David Irving. She was, she
asserts, one of the main Hungarian translators helping with his book
“Uprising!”
Irving asserts that the Hungarian revolution against the communist
government was ‘primarily an anti-Jewish uprising’ ― an assessment
disputed by mainstream historians.
CNN noted
that a Gorka statement to Breitbart News Daily Radio about Trump’s
Muslim policy is false. Gorka told the far-right opinion outlet, “There
is not one instance on the campaign trail or after the President took
office in which the travel suspension was mentioned without reference to
national security — it was never mentioned, ‘we’re doing this because
of a certain religious group.’” But six months after Trump declared his
candidacy, his campaign’s December 7, 2015, press release states clearly
Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of
Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives
can figure out what is going on.
Haaretz/Ariel DavidRemains of the second Arch of Titus in Rome.
Archaeologists in Rome have discovered the remains of a second Arch
of Titus commemorating the siege of Jerusalem by Roman emperor Titus in
the 1st century C.E.
Like the original Arch of Titus,
it was built around 82 C.E. by Domition, the younger brother and
successor to Titus as the leader of the Roman empire. The second arch
was located less than a mile away from the first one.
According to a Haaretz interview
with lead archaeologist Marialetizia Buonfiglio, it was rare for Roman
leaders to build two monuments to the same war. Domition may have built
the second arch as a way to boast of his power after Rome had just
weathered a devastating fire and the destructive eruption of Mount
Vesuvius.
The original arch of Titus is one of the most iconic depictions of
Jewish history in the world. Located on the Via Sacra in Rome, it
includes a detailed relief of the siege of Jerusalem.
A menorah on the arch was used as a model for the official symbol of Israel. Until the founding of Israel in 1948, rabbis prohibited Jews from walking under the arch. Contact Naomi Zeveloff at zeveloff@forward.com or on Twitter @naomizeveloff
Getty ImagesHis Debut: Yehuda Glick gives his maiden speech before the Knesset on May 25, after his surprise ascent to the lawmaking body.
A parliament member of Israel’s ruling Likud party who survived a 2014 assassination attempt
by a Palestinian is calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu to apologize for the death of three Palestinian sisters in one
of the most high profile incidents of Israel’s 2009 war with Gaza.
The father of the sisters, Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Gaza infertility doctor who now lives in Canada, sued Israel in 2010. He asked Israel to apologize, accept responsibility for the killings and for compensation.
Likud Knesset member Yehuda Glick wrote in a Facebook post on
Saturday evening that Abuelaish is an “amazing man” who is owed an
apology by Netanyahu on behalf of the country. Glick said he was
impressed by Abuelaish’s foundation, Daughters for Life, which provides
scholarships to young women, including Israelis, to study abroad.
Israel said it bore no responsibility for the deaths of Abuelaish’s
daughters because they happened during wartime. At a hearing in March,
Israel acknowledged that it fired on the building, but also claimed that
the deaths occurred because of a Palestinian weapons cache in the
building. Abuelaish has rejected this claim. Contact Naomi Zeveloff at zeveloff@forward.com or on Twitter @naomizeveloff
A national poll by Gallup shows that the president’s approval rating among Jews stands at 31%. That’s 11% below the national average.
On the negative side, Gallup suggests, are the lack of mention of
Jews in his statement for International Holocaust Remembrance day, his
slow and lackluster response to the wave of anti-Semitism in the first
two months of his tenure and the appointment of Steve Bannon as his
chief strategist. Bannon, the report comments, “has been accused of
making anti-Semitic comments.”
On the positive side, Trump did eventually denounce anti-Semitism,
has a Jewish daughter and son-in-law closely involved with his
administration, and he has mouthed strong support for Israel.
But, Gallup notes, Trump has sent mixed messages on Israel — where he
has now said to “hold off” on new settlements and the movement of the
Embassy to Jerusalem.
Mostly, the pollsters say, the low approval rating just reflects the
political affiliations of the Jewish population, which leans 64%
democratic.
Three Democratic senators are calling on the administration to
investigate whether President Trump’s counter-terrorism adviser
Sebastian Gorka broke the law by not disclosing to immigration
authorities that he was a member of a Hungarian Nazi-allied group.
Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois, Ben Cardin from Maryland and
Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal wrote a letter to the Department of
Homeland Security and the Justice Department, asking them to examine
Gorka’s immigration papers.
The senators based their letter on the Forward’s report
which found that Gorka swore loyalty to Vitezi Rend, an ultra
nationalist organization which according to the State Department, its
members are presumed to be inadmissible to the United States.
“We are deeply concerned by reports that Dr. Gorka concealed the
material fact of his membership in the Vitezi Rend, a far right
anti-Semitic Hungarian organization, when he applied for U.S.
citizenship,” the three senators wrote. Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com or on Twitter @nathanguttman
Six babies are said
to have been infected with infant herpes in New York City since Mayor
Bill de Blasio cut a deal with the Hasidic community that continues to
allow ritual circumcisers mouth-to-genital contact.
The news emerged
Thursday after a newborn was rushed to the hospital two weeks after
undergoing the procedure, known as metzitzah b’peh, in which the mohel
sucks the blood out of the circumcision wound using his mouth.
The Health Department under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg cracked
down on the practice due to hygienic concerns, with his administration
requiring parents to sign a waiver before the procedure.
De Blasio, who derives a large base of support from the Hasidic
community, rolled back that policy, setting instead for a compromise in
which the community was supposed to help test circumcisers from herpes
and prevent those infect from oral-genital contact with infants.
Read more: http://forward.com/fast-forward/365526/6-more-new-york-babies-get-herpes-after-undergoing-circumcision-rite/
Six babies are said
to have been infected with infant herpes in New York City since Mayor
Bill de Blasio cut a deal with the Hasidic community that continues to
allow ritual circumcisers mouth-to-genital contact.
The news emerged
Thursday after a newborn was rushed to the hospital two weeks after
undergoing the procedure, known as metzitzah b’peh, in which the mohel
sucks the blood out of the circumcision wound using his mouth.
The Health Department under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg cracked
down on the practice due to hygienic concerns, with his administration
requiring parents to sign a waiver before the procedure.
De Blasio, who derives a large base of support from the Hasidic
community, rolled back that policy, setting instead for a compromise in
which the community was supposed to help test circumcisers from herpes
and prevent those infect from oral-genital contact with infants.
Read more: http://forward.com/fast-forward/365526/6-more-new-york-babies-get-herpes-after-undergoing-circumcision-rite/
Hello everybody, I just want give this great testimony to the whole public about a great man who help me out in serious illness. I have HSV-1 AND HSV-2 DISEASE for good 3 years now and I was almost going to the end of my life due to the illness. All I have in my mind is, let me just give up because life is not interesting for me any longer and i also pray that God should accept my soul when ever I’m gone luckily for me, my kid sister run to me that she found a doctor in the INTERNET who can cure HSV-1 AND HSV-2 DISEASE. She helped me out in everything, the man asked for my details so he can prepare a herbal medicine for me. After he was done consulting on my details he told me how my medicine will be prepare, after he was done preparing my medicine he sent me my medication and after using it for 7 days i later started noticing something different in my blood so I went for my HSV-1 AND HSV-2 DISEASE test and I was tested Negative, I’m so happy that I can say I’m not patient of HSV-1 AND HSV-2 anymore. If you have HSV-1 AND HSV-2 or any sickness,HIV/AID,HPV,CANCER,HEPATITS B DIABETITS ALS,PENIS ENLARGEMNT please for your safety, contact DR IHIBOR VIA his email address:drihiborherbalhome@gmail.com or his Mobile whatsapp contact number +2349050141449
Hello everybody, I just want give this great testimony to the whole public about a great man who help me out in serious illness. I have HSV-1 AND HSV-2 DISEASE for good 3 years now and I was almost going to the end of my life due to the illness. All I have in my mind is, let me just give up because life is not interesting for me any longer and i also pray that God should accept my soul when ever I’m gone luckily for me, my kid sister run to me that she found a doctor in the INTERNET who can cure HSV-1 AND HSV-2 DISEASE. She helped me out in everything, the man asked for my details so he can prepare a herbal medicine for me. After he was done consulting on my details he told me how my medicine will be prepare, after he was done preparing my medicine he sent me my medication and after using it for 7 days i later started noticing something different in my blood so I went for my HSV-1 AND HSV-2 DISEASE test and I was tested Negative, I’m so happy that I can say I’m not patient of HSV-1 AND HSV-2 anymore. If you have HSV-1 AND HSV-2 or any sickness,HIV/AID,HPV,CANCER,HEPATITS B DIABETITS ALS,PENIS ENLARGEMNT please for your safety, contact DR IHIBOR VIA his email address:drihiborherbalhome@gmail.com or his Mobile whatsapp contact number +2349050141449
ReplyDelete