For Jews, male circumcision is mandatory as it is prescribed in the Torah. In the Book of Genesis, it is described as a mark of the Covenant between God and the descendants of Abraham: "Throughout all generations, every male shall be circumcised when he is eight days old...This shall be my covenant in your flesh, an eternal covenant. The uncircumcised male whose foreskin has not been circumcised, shall have his soul cut off from his people; he has broken my Covenant". In Leviticus: "God spoke to Moses, telling him to speak to the Israelites: When a woman conceives and gives birth to a boy... on the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised."
Functions
Biblically, the infant's father is commanded to perform the circumcision himself. However, as most fathers are not comfortable or do not have the training, they designate a mohel. The mohel is specially trained in circumcision and the rituals surrounding the procedure. Many mohalim are doctors or rabbis or cantors and are required to receive appropriate training both from the religious and medical fields. Traditionally, the mohel uses a scalpel to circumcise the newborn. Today, doctors and some non-Orthodox mohalim use a perforating clamp before they cut the skin. The clamp makes it easier to be precise and shortens recovery time. Orthodox mohalim have rejected perforating clamps, arguing that by crushing and killing the skin it causes a great amount of unnecessary pain to the newborn, cutting off the blood flow completely, which according to Jewish law is dangerous to the child and strictly forbidden, and also renders the orlah as cut prior to the proper ritual cut. Under Jewish law, a mohel must draw blood from the circumcision wound. Most mohels do it by hand with a suction device, but some follow the traditional practice of doing it by mouth. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning in 2012 about the health implications of the latter practice, citing 11 cases of neonatal Herpes simplex virus and two recorded fatalities. A 2013 review of cases of neonatal HSV infections in Israel identified ritual circumcision as the source of HSV-1 transmission in 31.8% of the cases.
Female mohels
According to traditional Jewish law, in the absence of a Jewish male expert, a woman that has the required skills is also authorized to perform the circumcision, provided that she is Jewish. Non-Orthodox Judaism allows female mohels, called mohalot, without restriction. In 1984, Dr. Deborah Cohen became the first certified Reform Jewish mohelet; she was certified by the Berit Mila Program of Reform Judaism.
