Jewish clergy godwinning is one of the more annoying practices to be witnessed in the wake of the recent court ruling in Germany that declared male circumcision for religious reasons to be unlawful.
But I have to say that the Chief Rabbi of Britain clearly takes the cake for worst godwin, and generally worst argument to be presented for why we should mutilate male infant’s genitalia. A few choice quotes from Chief Rabbi Sacks’ own blog :
It is hard to think of a more appalling decision. Did the court know that circumcision is the most ancient ritual in the history of Judaism, dating back almost four thousand years to the days of Abraham?
I’m sorry, who? There is no credible evidence that any Abraham ever existed, and we don’t tend to hold onto harmful and dangerous practices just because our forebears 4000 years ago thought it was a good idea. We also wash our hands after going to the loo these days, although god obviously didn’t think that would be a useful piece of advice to put into the Bible or Torah at the time.
Did it know that banning milah was the route chosen by two of the worst enemies the Jewish people ever had, the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV and the Roman emperor Hadrian, both of whom set out to extinguish not only Jews but also Judaism? Either the court knew these things or it did not. If it did not, then how was it competent to assess the claim of religious liberty? If it did, then there are judges in Germany quite willing to say to religious Jews, in effect, “If you don’t like it, leave.” Do judges in Cologne today really not know what happened the last time Germany went down that road?
Fallacy of guilt by association, and of course another godwin. The decision of the court in 2012, based on medical evidence, has fuckall nothing to do with Hadrian or Antiochus, the argument is ludicrous, and the Chief Rabbi should be ashamed of himself for making it. Also, I didn’t find the faintest hint of “If you don’t like it, leave” in the court ruling. It’s a bit similar to a rapist complaining that because the state considers rape verboten, that is just like asking all rapists to leave the country.
That is what the court in Cologne has done. It has declared that circumcision is an assault on the rights of the child since it is performed without his consent. It ignored the fact that if this is true, teaching children to speak German, sending them to school and vaccinating them against illness are all assaults against the rights of the child since they are done without consent.
Seriously, Chief Rabbi, how did you get to hold the job you’re in? Noone can be this dumb, surely. Just answer me this. When was the last time a child bled to death or died of infection from having their bleeding cock sucked by a Rabbi with herpes, from learning German or going to school?
Well, since amongst a total of 11 million victims altogether, Germany murdered six million Jews whether they were religious or not between 1933 to 1945 – plus plunging the world into six years of abject misery you might reasonably expect Jewish people to be at least a little distrustful of Germany after that. There’s talk of Jewish people leaving Germany? Tragically, there can’t be that many left from what was a vibrant and loyal population of German Jews pre-1933.
And before you slap me down for doing a ‘Godwin’ let’s remember that in your post you started it.
Now, here’s a test of how rational you are, Martin: do you know what your parents or grandparents did between the years 1933 to 1945? Were they anti-Nazis (yes, there were many brave Germans who were) or were they Nazis? If so, how involved were they with the Nazis and what role did they play in implementing the holocaust? It’s no use pretending that post-1945 all the Nazis were identified, killed or imprisoned. In fact, many of those who committed the most vile atrocities went back into society and continued to be very prosperous and well-respected within the Federal Republic – many of the big industrialists for instance – plus, of course, the 1936 Nazi Olympic guy Carl Diem who was even honoured by the Federal Republic in the 1960s by being featured on one of their commemorative postage stamps. Germany is a wealthy country today due in part to the slave labour used by the major German corporations during World War Two and also because of the money that they stole from other countries and their own Jewish citizens during the war. In fact, immoral and greedy Deutsche Bank is still loathe to return to its rightful owners the cash and valuables they thieved during the holocaust.
I think it’s still too early for relations between Jewish people and non-Jewish Germans to be normal yet – even if Germany never turns to Nazism again. In fact, I doubt very much whether people will ever look at Germany as just another ‘normal’ country ever again. Sorry, no offence intended, but that’s just the honest gut feeling that most other people feel however much they try to rationalise or suppress it. It goes deeper than religion.
Here’s a test of how rational you are, then. What does whatever my grandparents did between 1933 and 1945 have to do with the truth value of anything being said about a current issue, in this case mutilating children ?
And what’s your argument when male circumcision is being criticised in for example the USA? Which war stories are you going to pull out to poison the well then?
I notice that Nice Jewish Girl says unnice things about Germany but doesn’t castigate the Italians or the Syrians at all. These two states are the modern successors of the Roman Empire ruled by Hadrian and the Seleucid Empire ruled by Antiochus IV.*
*I know at its height the Seleucid Empire was based in modern Iran, but Antiochus Epiphanes’ empire was primarily in what’s now Syria.
The Koln court ruled that brit milah is actionable IF performed before a man’s 18th birthday. Antiochus IV and Hadrian banned bris full stop, which is a very very different kettle of fish.
Because of the Third Reich, what the German court did was unwise. But it was also morally defensible.
There are about 100,000 Jews in Germany, most of them refugees from the former Soviet Block. They are surprisingly concentrated in Berlin. Many are not at all religious. The court’s ruling will have a far greater impact on Germany’s large Moslem population.
Martin, sadly the fact that you casually make reference to a medievalist anti-semitic conspiracy theory about Jews poisoning wells as a cause of the bubonic plague to ram home your ‘point’, probably indicates to the rest of us that the religious, traditional southern German Catholic upbringing that you received might well have done a lot more lasting harm to you than if you’d been circumcised. And you consider yourself to be a rational person of science?!
Would you care to link to the quote where I allegedly made this reference, in your view?