Itongadol.- President Shimon Peres on Monday sent a letter to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland, asking for his intervention on the recent call for a ban on ritual circumcision by the inter-governmental body and urging it to reconsider its position.
The forty seven member state body is not affiliated with the European Union.
Stressing the great importance of circumcision in Jewish and Muslim religious tradition, Peres noted that male circumcision has been practiced by Jewish communities for thousands of years and is a fundamental element and obligation of Jewish tradition.
Addressing Jagland by his first name, as an indication of their close relationship, and reminding him that he has dedicated a large part of his career to defending civil liberties, Peres stressed that Jewish communities across Europe would be greatly afflicted to see their cultural and religious freedom impeded upon by the Council of Europe, which Peres observed is "an institution devoted to the protection of these very rights."
European Jewish leaders have responded to the proposal that governments reassess their rules on circumcision harshly, calling the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly’s declaration that the practice is a “violation of the physical integrity of children” everything from an expression of “anti-semitism” to insanity.
In response to criticism by the Foreign Ministry accusing the European body of equating female genital mutilation with male ritual circumcision and ignoring medical research indicating the practice’s medical benefits, Marlene Rupprecht, the Parliamentary Assembly’s rapporteur, placed the fostering of debate over circumcision into the same category as battling anti-semitism.
“The text adopted by the parliamentarians in a vote does not intend to stigmatise any religious community or its practices. On the contrary, the Assembly calls for public debate, including intercultural and interreligious dialogue, aimed at reaching a wide consensus on the rights of children to protection against violations of their physical integrity,” she said in a statement on the group’s website.