Jewish groups seek brit milah guarantees after CPS says some circumcisions could be ‘child abuse’

"However, while circumcision is legal, we have recently prosecuted cases where significant harm and distress has been caused to victims where this procedure has been carried out improperly and in unsafe circumstances.”

It added that it was “currently carrying out extensive consultation with different communities to ensure we strike the correct balance and ensure their views are taken into account before finalising the guidance”.

And it promised to apply “rigorous scrutiny” which was “especially important when detailing when legitimate and unharmful traditional practices cross over into criminal behaviour”.

Jonathan Arkush, co-chair of Milah UK, said: “We are confident that the importance of this issue to our community is respected and understood by the UK government, and we will ensure any public guidance that is to be considered respects Jewish practice.

“Throughout, our focus is on the importance of circumcision being practised safely for everyone, and on highlighting the robust training, regulation and safeguarding processes followed within our community, so that this essential tenet of our faith can be carried out with care and confidence.”

He told The Guardian that to refer to circumcision as a harmful practice was “deeply pejorative and misplaced”.

The drafting of the leaked guidance follows two convictions last year for unhygienic circumcisions – one by a former surgeon, another by a man pretending to be a doctor. Neither man was Jewish.

At the end of last year, the assistant coroner for West London, Dr Anton van Dellen, also highlighted concerns after the death of a six-month-old Muslim boy, Mohammed Abdisamad, in February 2023 a few days after he had been circumcised.

While mohelim sometimes perform circumcisions outside the Jewish community, it is understood that the circumciser in this case was not Jewish.

In a report on preventing future deaths, van Dellen warned that risks remained “unless action is taken”, saying there was no system of accreditation or regulation for those who carried out “non-therapeutic” circumcisions, no requirement for infection control measures, and no requirement for aftercare.

Bris, the British Initiation Society, which regulates Orthodox circumcision and is one of the oldest organisations in the Jewish community, says mohelim undergo “rigorous training and testing before qualifying as accredited members” of the organisation.

“Their training ensures they are highly skilled in both the halachic (Jewish legal) and medical aspects of bris milah,” it says.

The association for Progressive mohelim says that all its practitioners are doctors.