Despite a recent death from the procedure, after hearing only the minority view that metzitzah b’peh (MBP) – the direct oral to genital sucking done by the mohel to the baby’s open circumcision wound during the brit milah, circumcision, ceremony – is safe, Agudath Israel of America’s Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah, Council of Torah Sages, has decided not to decide if performing metzitzah b’peh is a risk to health or if it should be banned.
Exclusive: Agudath Israel of America’s Rabbis Meet, Hear From One Side Only, Discuss Metzitzah B’Peh
Despite a recent death from the procedure, after hearing only the minority view that metzitzah b’peh (MBP) – the direct oral to genital sucking done by the mohel to the baby’s open circumcision wound during the brit milah, circumcision, ceremony – is safe, Agudath Israel of America’s Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah, Council of Torah Sages, has decided not to decide if performing metzitzah b’peh is a risk to health or if it should be banned
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Agudath Israel of America’s Moetzet Gedolei HaTorah, Council of Torah Sages, has decided not to decide if metzitzah b’peh (MBP), the direct oral to genital sucking done by the mohel to the baby’s open circumcision wound during the brit milah, circumcision, ceremony is a health risk, FailedMessiah.com has exclusively learned.
The rabbinic leader of most of North America’s haredi community met in a closed session. While other items were discussed at the meeting, the rabbis invited Dr. Daniel Berman, and infectious disease specialist and member of the Orthodox community. Berman, who wrote an article defending MBP for a haredi journal, is essentially alone among medical and public health experts in support of the procedure, which has been linked to Herpes Simplex Virus 1 transmission to infants resulting in at least two deaths, a severe case of brain damage, and several other babies hospitalized.
The rabbis met with Berman and discussed MBP. But they failed to meet with any of the many opposing experts, all of whom are far better qualified than Berman.
Two separate sources, both extremely close to the situation, confirmed the meeting.
The rabbis have made no plans to hear from the opposing experts, and they have done nothing to ban MBP, despite a recent death caused by the procedure.
Halakha, Jewish law, mandates that dangers to life be treated more seriously than Jewish ritual law.
Even so, Agudah’s rabbis have not instructed haredim on this issue or notified them of the danger involved, and are content to allow those haredim to continue subjecting their 8-day-old male infants to MBP.
“The key question for those communities that follow the halakhic view that metzitzah b’peh is an integral part of the mitzva, though, is whether the level and degree of any risk associated with the practice – especially when mohalim follow certain hygienic measures that the Health Department acknowledges minimize whatever risk there may be – are so great as to justify nullifying a practice they regard as a religious obligation,” a source familiar with the rabbis’ position told me, asking that he not be named.
But the Health Department does not believe the “hygienic measures” the source referred to do anything to reduce disease transmission risk, and the protocols adopted against the best advice of medical and public health experts in 2006 based on them were rescinded in 2007 because there was no medical evidence of merit to support them. In fact, the key research the protocols relied on was done by a dental researcher who has publicly stated that his work was misused and that the conclusion drawn by haredim and Pataki Administration politicians in 2006, that use of mouthwash and other steps would reduce disease transmission to infants from MBP, was unsupported by his work.
Even so, Agudath Israel of America continues to misrepresent that research and operate as if those protocols were still in place.
Agudah’s failure to hear from the vast majority of experts who believe that MBP is a proven danger to infants is troubling.
Halakha mandates following the majority of experts unless the minority is made up of the very top experts in the field.
But in this case, Dr. Daniel Berman is not a pediatric infectious disease specialist and he is not a leading expert in infectious disease. His only ‘merit’ would appear to be that he is Orthodox with close connections to haredi leaders.
This would not provide halakhic grounds to justify following his minority opinion – especially when some of the opposing experts are themselves Orthodox.
As I reported last week, if the rabbis heard all the evidence, every one of them would be compelled by halakha to rule that metzitzah b’peh should be discontinued immediately.
Even rabbis who believe that metzitzah b’peh is an “integral part of the mitzva” would have to rule that it should be discontinued, at least until it could be proved safe by accepted peer reviewed medical research.
But it may be precisely the assessment of the “level and degree of any risk” associated with metzitzah b’peh the rabbis fear most.
Assessing this risk would be a public relations nightmare, and admitting that a risk does, in fact, exist, would almost certainly lead to a government ban on metzitzah b’peh.
And that is why the rabbis of Agudath Israel of America, along with Satmar and other affiliated hasidic groups, have adopted a do nothing strategy to deal with the issue, hoping that by avoiding public statements and controversy, the risks from MBP will fade from public view, allowing the dangerous procedure to continue unabated.
They’re trying to wait it out, a source close to both Satmar’s point man on the issue and Agudath Israel’s leadership told me. “The strategy is to do nothing and hope it goes away.”
But that can only work with the cooperation, tacit or otherwise, of politicians like New York State’s Governor Andrew Cuomo, and New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
So far, both politicians – but especially Cuomo, who met with haredi rabbis about MBP last month but who refused to disclose anything about what was discussed or who exactly participated – seem to be giving haredi rabbis the time they want, even though babies are exposed to potential disease transmission through MBP every day.
Babies infected with HSV-1 through MBP may show no symptoms at all. Others will show mild to moderate symptoms. Some will have severe symptoms. Symptoms often appear a few days to a few weeks after infection and can be confused with diaper rash. All infected babies will carry the disease for life and will, if they don’t die from the infection in infancy, transmit the disease to others, creating a public health risk even when babies have no symptoms at all.
In September, a Brooklyn hasdic family’s baby died from an HSV-1 infection transmitted to him through metzitzah b’peh. On the advice of their rabbis, the family has reportedly refused to tell the Department of Health the name of the mohel and is refusing to cooperate with investigations into their baby’s death.