Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a professor of biology at Yeshiva University,
says that not only is there no religious requirement for metzitzah
b’peh—"It was largely brought to America by Hungarian immigration after
the Holocaust—but “you will not find a single respected pediatrician who
will defend that oral practice.”…
Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler
Capital NY reports:
…[Commenting on metzitzah b’peh (MBP), the direct mouth-to-bloody-penis sucking done by many haredi (and some Zionist Orthodox) mohels immediately after removing the baby’s foreskin,] Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a professor of biology at Yeshiva University, says that not only is there no religious requirement for metzitzah b’peh—"It was largely brought to America by Hungarian immigration after the Holocaust—but “you will not find a single respected pediatrician who will defend that oral practice.”
According to Tendler, the mayoral candidates’ stance on the issue is all about the politics.
“They’re fighting for several thousand, maybe tens of thousands of votes in the Wiilliamsburg area alone,” he said.
But what of that religious freedom argument?
“Are they going to support also female circumcision on that basis?” he asked.
MBP actually came to modern day America with Hungarian haredim, Chabad-Lubavitch (who are of Russian-Lithuanian-Polish origin) and other hasidim.
Non-hasidic haredim (except from Hungary) had largely stopped doing MBP by the last third of the 1800s.