Defying the enlightenment: Jewish ethnicity and ethnic circumcision

Abstract

For much of their history, European Jews viewed religion and ethnic identity as inseparable; social behavior, not belief, mattered, and conformity was essential. The Enlightenment introduced rationalism, individualism, and modernity into Western Europe—all incompatible with an ethnically segregated lifestyle. Many European Jews adopted Enlightenment principles and became at least partly assimilated. But even those who abandoned most ritual practices continued circumcising male infants as an ethnic tradition. Two partly opposed doctrines became prominent in twentieth-century thought: cultural relativism, teaching that all cultural traditions merit equal acceptance and respect; and (an essentially contrary argument) that human rights apply to individuals, not to traditions. Some defenders of ethnic circumcision use doctrinaire cultural relativism to reject the human rights argument. With this as background, I discuss contemporary Jewish- American circumcision advocacy. A key question: Since few Jewish Americans now observe the more demanding ritual practices, why the insistence on retaining infant circumcision?