Two European-Jewish groups on Tuesday announced the opening of a certification programme for performers of Jewish circumcision to address legal crackdowns on the custom, prompting a top EU official to laud the move as a “credible model” for cooperation.
According to a statement by the European Jewish Association (EJA) and the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE), the new programme, titled the Centre of Excellence for Religious Male Circumcision, will provide mohalim with “advanced medical and safety training, practical assessment and certification under the supervision of an international network of urologists, paediatricians, physicians and medical scientists”.
The EJA said the new initiative was set up “against the backdrop of growing legal and political challenges to Jewish religious circumcision in Belgium and other European countries”.
In May 2025, Belgian authorities searched the homes of three mohalim in Antwerp, leading to their prosecution earlier this year for allegedly violating Belgium’s legal code on surgical procedures.
Belgian law does not forbid circumcision but requires all surgeries be performed by trained medical personnel. Many mohalim are not recognised as such by authorities in Belgium and other countries unless they undergo standard surgical training.
The prosecution, initiated by a complaint from a member of the local Jewish community, led to a diplomatic crisis involving the US and Israel, with diplomats from both nations accusing Belgian authorities of discrimination.
In the wake of the announcement, European Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare Oliver Várhelyi said that “Jewish life and Jewish religious practice belong in Europe,” but must meet “European standards”.
The new Brussels-based programme “offers a constructive and credible model for doing exactly that,” the statement continued.
Its curriculum covers “the medical and safety framework surrounding the procedure, including newborn assessment, hygiene and infection prevention, infant welfare, bleeding and wound care, recognition of complications, emergency response and infant basic life support, medical referral and aftercare,” EJA said.
Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the chairman of both the EJA and the RCE, told JNS: “Faced with growing challenges to the practice and, in particular, to the ability of trained mohalim to perform it in parts of Europe, we decided that our response must go beyond defending our religious freedom.
“We are creating the highest possible professional framework to support it.”
It follows a similar effort in 2013 when another Jewish group, the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) announced the establishment of a union of mohalim in an effort to standardise ritual circumcision and combat earlier attempts to ban the rite.
The Union of Mohalim in Europe seeks to “unite approved mohalim across Europe under a single banner, ensuring that all communities can be assured of the high level of training and regulation,” CER said.
The Union was established following a crisis around brit milah in Germany in 2012, a court ruling in Cologne that year that defined ritual circumcision as causing “bodily harm.”
The ruling led to partial bans on circumcision in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and intensified the heated debate over the issue in Scandinavian countries and beyond.
Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, subsequently passed legislation that guaranteed parents the right to circumcise boys for religious reasons.
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