Two days ago Philip L. Sherman, New York City’s most prominent mohel, passed away after performing over 27,000 circumcisions over forty-five years. A truly holy man, this mohel had time to play music and ride motorcycles between his busy schedule of B’rit milahs, an average of three daily.

“My record is eleven in one day two twins and seven others.”

Jews are circumcised according the Yahweh’s instructions to the tribe in the Torah, which is first mentioned in Genesis 17: 9-12: “And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised.” thus creating a covenant with their Lord.

Traditionally a mohel cut off the foreskin and then sucked off the blood in a rite called Metzitzah B’peh, thereafter the foreskin was buried in the earth, a practice perhaps dating back to wandering in the desert after fleeing Egypt to escape their debtors.

Eight days old and such a trauma.

Kantor Sherman acknowledged that the infant boy does feel pain.

How can he not?

Some stranger in cutting off his foreskin.

Circumcision is not a prerequisite to being Jewish. If the mother is Jewish then the boy is Jewish. That simple. As for just goys, the medical profession subscribes to the practice for health reason, however the diseases attributed to having a foreskin are extremely rare and our present acceptance of this archaic butchering of the body dates back to Victorian fears of masturbation damaging a young boy’s soul and body, although the Puritans also ascribing the the procedure.

I was cut without thought. 1952. The Richardson House. I doubt my foreskin was buried with millions of others from male babies. It is all barbaric to me, as if female genital mutilation as practiced throughout the Muslim lands and Africa. In Kenya I have stood outside the refuges for young women. Their families call for them. Come and cut your skin. Be one with us. The missionaries say nothing about the trimming off the female foreskin, as in America no one questions the continuation of this barbaric practice.

Jesus’ foreskin or the Holy Prepuce adorns many European churches, although the one True Holy Foreskin is located in a Calcutta church called Chiesa del SS. The faithful have claimed that rubbing the ancient skin on a blind person’s eye can restore their vision. Maybe the Catholic will one day attempt to raise Jesus from the dead from the DNA extraction from the Holy Foreskin, and then The Nailed God came perform the miracle of foreskin regrowth. Until then the Mohel will have his way with the foreskin, one tiny schlong at a time.