An appeal to the Israeli government by the Israel Ambulatory Pediatric Association calls to stop the ‘oral suction’ technique used by cirmcisers during circumcision rite has been rejected and dismissed by the “Mohels (specially trained Jews) who engage in the practice as just an attack on circumcision.
According to a news report, the suction technique is practiced by Mohels as a Halachic obligation.
Rabbi Chaim Moshe Weisberg, an esteemed mohel, told Ynet that haredim will continue to uphold the tradition without any change.
According to Weisberg, the recent controversy surrounding the custom is just an attempt to stop the ritual of circumcision altogether. “They’re not after the child’s best interest; they’re against circumcision,” Weisberg said adding that “They want all parents to stop circumcising their sons, as they did in Germany.”
Weisberg, descendant of a family of mohels, is certain that the IAPA’s battle against the “oral suction” technique will not prevail. “The cases of reported diseases, allegedly originating from the custom are very few – and even then they can’t prove it was actually transferred from the mohel.”
In 2006, the New York State Health Department suggested that parents sign a waiver if they want their newborn to undergo metzitzah b’peh after circumcision. Said suggestion, published in the New York Times, followed cases of neonatal herpes that were allegedly caused by oral suction.
Fearing the transfer of diseases, the IAPA proposes to replace the traditional practice of metzitzah b’peh, which calls for direct contact between the mohel’s mouth and the circumcision wound, by using a tube or pipette to avoid direct contact.
The real question here is not even why Rabbis would want to hold a baby’s penis in their mouths—as weird as that is—but rather what the psychological mindset might be which would give rise to such a peculiar practice in the first place.
