So apparently Orthodox Jews have this ritual following circumcision in which a rabbi "cleans" the wound by filling his mouth with wine and placing his mouth around the base of the baby's freshly circumcised penis and sucking the blood off. I think I first heard about this on 4chan or something and assumed it had to be some retarded anti-semitic myth.
Apparently my internet liberal skepticism was wrong. Metzitzah b'peh is a real thing. It has also been confirmed to have caused at least 11 cases of herpes in New York City, two of which are confirmed to have led to the deaths of the infected infants. Due to this, the City of New York wants to make parental consent a required part of the ritual, as well as having practitioners provide literature warning of the inherent dangers of having weird old guys put their mouths on a baby's bleeding penis. It kinda blows my mind that parental consent is apparently not required already, but my knowledge of Orthodox Jews is pretty limited and/or made up.
Orthodox Jews in New York are suing to block this legislation cos they really like this tradition I guess. According to the Rabbi in charge of their Circumcision Assosciation, while the Mayor of New York may want them to do this, the Mayor of the Universe requires them to give babies blowjobs. And the Mayor of the Universe's 2000+ year old word kinda carries a bit more weight with them.
The NYC Health Department doesn't seem to be attempting to ban it outright, merely making health warnings necessary. Is that overstepping its authority? At what point should the state interfere with matters of religion? Lots of religions do weird things- as a Shia I've seen stuff on Ashura that makes grindcore mosh pits look like Hannah Montana concerts. But that stuff is done to oneself. The whole circumcision debate has valid points on both sides, but this metzitzah b'peh seems pretty reprehensible. Idk who can, or even should, prevent it tho.
source <--Nazi Palestinian Radio




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