Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Danish parliament to debate bill that would ban non-medical circumcision

(JTA) — The Danish parliament is scheduled to consider a bill proposing a ban on non-medical circumcisions.

Henri Goldstein, the president of the Jewish Community in Denmark, says the measure represents “the worst threat since World War II” to the country’s Jews, who traditionally circumcise baby boys on their eighth day of life, a ritual known as brit milah.

The Danish parliament is set to vote sometime during its next session on the bill filed last month by Simon Emil Ammitzboll-Bille, a former interior minister and leader of the left-leaning Forward party.

“I don’t think cutting little boys should be legal in connection with an old, religious ritual,” Ammitzboll-Bille wrote on Facebook. “That’s my principled stance. That a person’s body belongs to them and that young men should get to decide whether they want to be circumcised. That’s why I am in favor of introducing an age limit of 18 years for non-medical circumcision.”

Jewish, Muslim, Christian and other groups regard circumcising boys as a basic religious freedom. But there have been various efforts to ban the practice in Europe by a mix of liberals, citing individual freedoms, and right-wingers, who say they are defending local culture.

Rabbi Yitzi Loewenthal, the emissary of the Chabad Hasidic movement in Denmark, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the ruling Social Democrat party has not said how it will vote on the bill, “but there’s a risk it will be passed, so this is quite serious.”

In 2018, a bill to ban non-medical circumcision was introduced in Iceland, but it was scrapped amid an international outcry. Currently, circumcision remains legal throughout Europe.

The post Danish parliament to debate bill that would ban non-medical circumcision appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.