Brit mila in Germany

If this blog was silent for a long time, there is a motivation and it has to do with the mental and physical challenges before welcoming a new baby to the world. The baby b''H arrived, a bit later than expected, but shortly after Kol Nidre. After the happiness of becoming the new boy neshama to the world, second in line were the worries about preparing him for the challenges of being a Jew.

The first step: brit mila.When you are living in Israel or in big communities, finding a right mohel, being sure that there is a synagogue where to go, inviting people in due time etc. As brits do not have a high occurence here, due to the limited number of new Jewish children born, I considered that it is very important to find a mohel with the proper medical knowledge besides the religious background. Another challenge that needed a bit of research and a lot of phone calls (if interested to find a recommended mohel in Berlin area, do not hesitate to get in touch via the blog).

According to the halacha, the brit should be done the 8th day after birth, including on Shabbat or yom tov. The problem appears when the kid had a small infection and you need to overstay in hospital and thus, to miss the deadline. Normally, the brit can be done any time after and if it was delayed once, it does not matter when it is done. However, the sooner the better, so the search continued with high intensity after being out of hospital with the baby. 

As we tried to follow both the tradition and the medical requirements, asking doctors if the child is good enough to go through the brit was normal. Less normal was to agreee with the message read on the faces of the non-Jewish doctors when explained that we are questioning the medical condition of our son because we want to make the brit: from pity to disgust. This explains the support of some German medical representatives after the 2012 court decision Cologne according to which brit was considered "a serious and irreversible interference in the integrity of the human body", not justified by the freedom of religion and the rights of parents. One prestigious chief doctor in a very respectable hospital in Berlin outlined during a short discussion that the opinions against the brit are not necessarily a German trademark. Of course, as history showed it already on several occasions, forbiding the brit is a trademark of anti-Semitism across centuries. 

The less expected answer come from a hospital that we initially considered as a possible support during our search where we were told that the brit is done there only till the 18th day and that only after 3 years. The more we asked the more we realized how pitiful we are for being away from the place when you do not have to explain why your kid does not have yet a name and why it is so important to have the brit done. A place where being Jewish is enough.