Haredi Rabbi Samuel Sigmund Suchard is lobbying top haredi rabbis in Israel to have them support lifting the ban placed on him by South Africa's top haredi rabbis 16 months after Suchard, who is in his 80s, cut off a large part of a baby's penis during a circumcision he was performing.
Above: A circumcision (file photo used for illustrative purposes only)
Haredi Rabbi Samuel Sigmund Suchard is lobbying top haredi rabbis in Israel to have them support lifting the ban placed on him by South Africa's top haredi rabbis 16 months after Suchard, who is in his 80s, cut off a large part of a baby's penis during a circumcision he was performing.
I believe Suchard is asking for the attached letter written by Dr. P. Gonen, a "specialist general surgeon and mohel" based in the haredi city of Bnei Brak, Israel, be given to "Rav Chaim" – who is, I think, the #2 haredi non-hasidic rabbi in Israel Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky. Kanievsky is about Suchard's age, and has issued a string of bizarre rulings and statements over the past 18 months.
Gonen's letter says that there can be an adhesion between the galns of the penis and foreskin that the mohel cannot see until after he cuts, and that can cause injury and even severe injury to the glans. But this is common, Dr. Gonen writes, and the maiming of babies that comes from it "does not cast any aspersions whatsoever on the capability or competence of the Mohel."
Of course, one might therefore argue that all circumcisions should be done by a well-trained qualified surgeon under sterile conditions in a hospital, but that is surely not what Dr. Gonen or Suchard want.
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Elderly Mohel Cuts Off Large Part Of Baby's Penis In Botched Circumcision.
More Than One Year Later, Elderly Rabbi Banned For Botched Circumcision.