Marked in Your Flesh Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America

by Glick, Leonard B.

• ISBN13: 9780195176742
• ISBN10: 019517674X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-06-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The book of Genesis tells us that God made a covenant with Abraham, promising him a glorious posterity on the condition that he and all his male descendents must be circumcised. For thousands of years thereafter, the distinctive practice of circumcision served to set the Jews apart from theirneighbors. The apostle Paul rejected it as a worthless practice, emblematic of Judaism's fixation on physical matters. Christian theologians followed his lead, arguing that whereas Christians sought spiritual fulfillment, Jews remained mired in such pointless concerns as diet and circumcision. Astime went on, Europeans developed folklore about malicious Jews who performed sacrificial murders of Christian children and delighted in genital mutilation. But Jews held unwaveringly to the belief that being a Jewish male meant being physically circumcised and to this day even most non-observantJews continue to follow this practice. In this book, Leonard B. Glick offers a history of Jewish and Christian beliefs about circumcision from its ancient origins to the current controversy. By the turn of the century, more and more physicians in America and England--but not, interestingly, incontinental Europe--were performing the procedure routinely. Glick shows that Jewish American physicians were and continue to be especially vocal and influential champions of the practice which, he notes, serves to erase the visible difference between Jewish and gentile males. Informed medicalopinion is now unanimous that circumcision confers no benefit and the practice has declined. In Jewish circles it is virtually taboo to question circumcision, but Glick does not flinch from asking whether this procedure should continue to be the defining feature of modern Jewish identity.

Author Biography

Leonard B. Glick is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Hampshire College.

Table of Contents

"This is my covenant" : circumcision in the world of temple Judaism	p. 13
"Great is circumcision" : Christian condemnation, Jewish veneration	p. 35
"Offering incense to heaven" : Jewish circumcision in medieval and early modern Europe	p. 55
"The height of foulness" : circumcision in European religious and popular culture	p. 85
"Trembling of the hands" : radical challenges in a pivotal century	p. 115
Good sanitarians : circumcision medicalized	p. 149
"This little operation" : Jewish American physicians and twentieth-century circumcision advocacy	p. 179
Unanswerable questions, questionable answers : justifying ritual circumcision	p. 215
"Deep feelings of nervousness" : circumnavigating the taboo topic	p. 241
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