why do jews cut babies?

Question

i mean, its pretty self explanatory, you dont cut babies, period.

Answer 1

Its simple. Jewish belief is that God told them to. That is enough for anybody to do anything where religion is concerned. It makes sense to the those who practice the religion, but possibly not to anybody else.

Its their way.

[edit]
The question wasn't why do babies get circumcised, its why do jews circumcise their (boy) babies.

Answer 2

For many decades every hospital in the western world did the same thing.

Even today, it can be difficult to convince a hospital not to perform the procedure, despite the fact that it has no proven medical benefit whatsoever.

At least the Jews have tradition, ceremony and ritual to go with it, for everyone else it's simply a bad habit that seems deeply entrenched; a 'simple' procedure that can be tacked onto a new parents' medical bill.

Answer 3

Becaue Jews still follow the old testament Laws....God made a covenant with Abraham, and their side of it was basically to circumsize themselves and any boy from then on. They don't "cut" babies.....it's called circumsision. It's a safe practice and not evil or cruel.

BTW my son is not circumsized....but I am sharing what I know from the bible!

Answer 4

Mim: It isn't Muslims per se who castrate their girls, it's Arabs. It isn't a religious rite like traditional male circumcision, it's purely a cultural custom to make women servile to men.

At the same time, sub-incision defies any explanation: the South Seas tribal practice of ripping open the underside of older boys' penises so that they have to squat to pee as a rite of "manhood"(???).

Answer 5

Circumcision has proven to have many health benefits and it's not just Jews, Muslims also circumcise their baby boys and over 60% of all boys in the USA are circumsised. It's not uncommon.

Answer 6

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet, circumcision also eliminates thousands of nerve endings, making sex less pleasurable than for someone who is uncut.

Big deal, every so often you need to clean under the "hood", a small price to pay for greater sensation.

Barbaric, "tradition" or not.

Answer 7

Many boys are circumcised now. It's just that the Jews practice it as a part of their religion.

Answer 8

its a custom followed by jews,muslims and the enlightened from other religions.leaving aside the medical benifits its a religious custom

Answer 9

most of israel's adjacent tribes (canaanites, philistines ...) had cults of child sacrifice.

it is likely that the jews at first also sacrificed their children to yhwh and that when they realised that this wasn't such a good thing to do they adopted circumcision as a half-way house.

circumcision is a procedure with serious health risks in a society without anaesthetics, antibiotics, or any notion of clinical sterility. large numbers of children would have died of complications (as they still do in sub-saharan africa).

but of course the children that die are only the ones god intended to.

as for why jews still cut babies - they must enjoy it.

[edit]

circumcision rates in america are steadily falling - a trend led by the better educated (which is what one would expect). america is the only western country which still routinely circumcises young men.

Answer 10

A lot of non-Jews do, too. Or at least used to.