A Chabad emissary in Germany, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, had his son circumcised by an Israeli mohel last week. The mohel did metzitzah b'peh (MBP), the direct mouth-to-bloody-penis sucking done immediately after removing the foreskin. The was videoed with Teichtal's knowledge and posted online by a German newspaper, prompting a lawsuit against Teichtal by a child advocate.
Mohel touches his own mouth a moment before starting Teichtal circumcision, 3-2013, Germany
A Chabad emissary in Germany, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, had his son circumcised by an Israeli mohel last week. The mohel did metzitzah b'peh (MBP), the direct mouth-to-bloody-penis sucking done immediately after removing the foreskin. The was videoed with Teichtal's knowledge and posted online by a German newspaper, prompting a lawsuit against Teichtal by a child advocate.
The video has since been heavily edited by the newspaper, and the entire circumcision and MBP is now missing.
Even so, you can see a clear lack of sterilization and sanitation, including the mohel touching his own mouth a moment before starting the circumcision. In addition, no gloves are worn and the area of the bima has not been sterilized:
This circumcision took place in the same week that a new peer-reviewed scientific paper was released. It shows an MBP-transmitted herpes infection that did not display until 2-and-a-half years after the brit milah, circumcision. If this is substantiated, it would mean that it is likely that hundreds of toddlers are infected. It would also mean that Rabbi Moshe Dovid Tendler's assertion that MBP was transmitting sub-clinical herpes infections that were manifesting years later as learning disabilities could very well be true.
Should MBP be banned?
Yes, I think both halakha and secular medical ethics demand that it should be.
The child advocate who has or who is in the process of filing the lawsuit against Teichtal also noticed that the circumcision cut made by the mohel could not have removed the membrane under the foreskin. He surmises that another procedure was done to remove it, but can't see it in the censored video.
A commenter on his German-language version of his blog post explains to the advocate that the membrane is removed by the mohel who uses his sharpened thumbnail to rip it off.
This traditional procedure was added to the biblical brit milah circumcision by the rabbis at the end of the Hasmonean-Hellenist period of rule (about 30 BCE). Before that, the membrane – and, it seems, much of the foreskin itself – was left intact. But because it had become commonplace for Jews to 'reverse' their circumcisions in order to look Greek when in the public baths or when competing in athletic events in the nude (as was then the norm), the rabbis ordered the entire foreskin removed and the membrane under it to be ripped off.
To ensure this was done, the halakha was structured so that if a circumcision was done that did not remove the entire foreskin, it was invalid and had to be repeated. And if the membrane was not ripped off, the same was true.
Apparently Germany's rabbis forgot to explain the membrane removal to Germany's lawmakers, because it apparently is not mentioned specifically in the law allowing ritual circumcision.
This could lead to a countrywide circumcision ban if the advocate's lawsuit is successful.