Bavaria, Germany – Rabbi David Goldberg of Hof, a 64-year-old mohel, is the first person to be criminally charged in Germany for performing a circumcision since the Cologne district court ruled this past June that “circumcisions for religious reasons constitute illegal bodily harm” to infants.
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Rabbi Goldberg, originally from Jerusalem, has been the rabbi of Hof since 1997 and has performed over 3,000 circumcisions. Hof is home to about 400 Jews.
According to the Juedische Allgemeine paper, (http://bit.ly/O29I07) Rabbi Goldberg was charged after a doctor from Hesse reported him. Rabbi Goldberg said he only found out about the charges when members of the press contacted him. Hof’s chief prosecutor verified that charges were filed.
After the Cologne ruling, Muslims and Jews in Germany expressed outrage causing the Bundestag to pass a joint resolution calling for the government to guarantee the legal right for circumcisions to be performed. The resolution stated, “A medically professional circumcision of boys, which does not cause unnecessary pain should be generally permissible.”
Cologone Rabbi Yaron Engelmayer said the court’s ruling has “enormously” impacted the Jewish community. “De facto it looks as if doctors across the country are afraid [to perform circumcisions]. The mohels are inquiring, and we tell them: without circumcision, there is no Judaism. Therefore it is hard to imagine how the courts could criminalize a correctly performed Jewish circumcision ceremony. It would be too harsh a sign, especially from Germany.”
why does hashem reward germany so much?
amazing one would think with their history they would be the last to do this
Nuremberg laws, here we go again.
outrages
their nazi faces are being displayed
why are jews living in this blood soaked land?!
Is this a nazi comeback? Can we get Israel involved.
Actually the Reform movement in the mid 19th Century petitioned the German government to ban circumcision as a “barbaric practice.” Unfortunately, this is a vestige of that grave sin.
Just like 1933
As usual, the emotional and hysterical reaction here is embarrassing. This was not a countrywide decision and the entire German political and legislative leadership came out strongly against this court’s decision. It was a few judges on one district court. But here we go, making it seem like every German is behind it, calling them Nazis, etc. We always yell and scream when anybody lumps all Jews together, but we are the first to do so to everyone else. A commenter above asked “Can we get Israel involved?” What do you want Israel to do? Bomb Germany? What an idiotic question.
Reminds me of Yavan during the time of Matisyahu and the Maccabim. kanayim when First the ARRURIM took our bodies..now they’re working on our neshamos! YEMACH SHMAM !! Where are the kanayim when we need them??
Get out of that country soaked in our grandfathers blood and btw mothers after your son gets a bris -don’t see a goishe doctor !!! U r looking for trouble !! also if the doctor had no business checking down there for eg u took him for an ear infection then REPORT the doc !!!
They were always so worried about the health of Jewish children!?
Why are Jews still living in Europe?
Yemach shemo vizichroi Nazis!!! The holocaust is cheis veshulem repeating!!!!!!
Nazis what they are they will burn in hell!!!! Big time!!
Deutschland has the fastest growing jewish community in the world. And BTW, its a crime to deny the holocaust there.
To # 21
So please move there, to that “idishkite-thriving country”
See how long you will last
And also bring your grandparents there, they still have a chance to meet their “camp shomrim”
Half of my grandparents family was killed by Germans in 1941-1942
Sorry, but Rabbi Yaacov Emden, the Yaavetz, was a human being like you and me. A very learned human being to be sure, but unless you’re prepared to say that every word he ever said or wrote was with Ruach KaKodesh, then you can’t say everything he wrote — every sentence, every opinion, every mashul, etc. — was Torah M’Sinai. Your attitude is exactly what I was referring to in my earlier comment. What has happened to the frum community? When I was a kid we used to laugh at the Catholics because they believed the pope was infallible. At least the pope is just one man. We frum Yidden now seem to have hundreds and hundreds of popes, l’havdil — teachers and rebbeim whose every word we consider infallible. Again: Rav Emden was a tzaddik and a talmid chacham but he was a HUMAN BEING, which means he was not perfect or infallible.
Yes, They are humans, but we do have a commandment to learn from the teachings of our Rebbes meaning there is absolutely no reason to not believe what Rav Emden said so it’s perfectly fine quoting him and that’s not the problem in the frum community, there are many of thsoe but this is not one of them.