Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America Book

This is an interesting case study of one of the most prominent body modification practices in the ethnographic record, namely Jewish circumcision. It is organized historically; it starts by discussing how the practice evolved during the early days of Judaism, goes on to discuss the maintenance of the practice among Jews in the European diaspora and how this was viewed by the Christians who they lived among, and finally culminates with a discussion of how Christians in English-speaking countries surprisingly adopted a form of circumcision very much like the Jewish form for themselves during the 19th century, though as a medical practice rather than a religious one. (Although it does not say anything about the subsequent decline in popularity of the practice in all English-speaking countries other than America, instead focussing solely on America in its coverage of the 20th century, which is a bit of a pity.)

The author makes no secret of his opinion on circumcision: he thinks it is morally wrong and that it should be abandoned as a practice. However, the tone is academic rather than polemical; the author is Jewish himself, and had already circumcised his own sons before he arrived at this opinion, so his condemnation of the practice is internally directed and not contemptous.

Although the focus on Jews might be considered a limitation, the author does explain why it makes sense to consider Jewish circumcision separate from circumcision as practised by Muslims and the many other peoples around the world who practise it. There are two substantial differences in the nature of the operation, which (contrary to what you might think) make Jewish circumcision (and medical circumcision, which seems to have been modelled after it) somewhat more severe than other forms of circumcision. Namely:

* Other peoples generally circumcise boys at a relatively late stage of development, often as part of an initiation ritual, whereas Jews and doctors circumcise infants with no capacity to resist, who will remember it as the way they've always been rather than as a stage of development that they underwent.

* The operation performed in most cultures is relatively simple---just a cut taking off the protruding outer foreskin, leaving the inner part of the foreskin, which in children is strongly adhered to the glans, intact. Jewish circumcision on the other hand is a somewhat more complex operation, in which care is taken to remove the *entire* foreskin. After the initial cut, the *milah*, the surgeon carrying out the circumcision (or *mohel*) must also carry out *peri'ah*, which involves tearing off the remaining part of the foreskin to ensure that the glans is completely uncovered. The Mishnah says that circumcision without *peri'ah* is not circumcision at all, so this is an essential part of the procedure. Medical circumcision is similar; the surgical technique is not so fixed, but the aim is to thoroughly remove the entire foreskin, just as it is for Jews.

This is definitely something I was surprised to learn. To finish this review, let me just mention various other things I learnt from the book which struck me as worth noting:

* Among Orthodox Jews there is actually a third stage in the ritual of circumcision---*metsitsah*, the sucking of the bleeding penis. In ancient times it was believed that this would aid recovery. Nowadays we know that it does more harm than good, and to avoid infection, all but the most extreme of modern Orthodox Jews use a tube to avoid direct contact with the wound. Reform Jews have abolished this part of the ritual entirely, although this was only done during the 19th century amid much controversy, which you will find chronicled in the book. This is one way in which Jewish circumcision has not been a static unchanging ritual over the years, but has changed in accordance with the science and the morality of the age. In fact many forward-thinking Jews in the 19th century were in favour of abolishing circumcision altogether; it seems that the compromise of abolishing *metsitsah* took some of the steam out of a burgeoning anti-circumcision movement among Jews.

* The *peri'ah* and *metsitsah* stages were themselves innovations of the Rabbinical period; during the time of the Second Temple, the operation was more of a simple cut as in other cultures. The reason that these additional stages were invented, and that their necessity was so emphasized in the rabbinical texts, was that previously, many Jews were able to assimilate into Roman society by stretching out the remaining parts of the foreskin---by stretching it repeatedly over a long period, one can gradually get the foreskin into a permanently stretched state, thus increasing the amount of skin it is able to cover. (This is the same technique used by some men today who wish to restore their own foreskins.) The rabbis made *peri'ah* and *metsitsah* necessary in order to make it as difficult as possible for this to be done, in order to keep Jews from being able to assimilate (a natural response given the immense stress Jewish society was under after the destruction of the Second Temple). So this is the other major way in which the nature of Jewish circumcision has changed over time. (It is also thought that the routine of circumcision of infants was an innovation since the Biblical period, since hardly anybody in the Bible seems to have been circumcised as an infant.)

* From the Jewish perspective, the purpose of the circumcision ritual is to maintain the convenant (a fancy word for "agreement") of the Jewish people with God. As told in Genesis 17, God appeared to Abraham and said that he would bless Abraham with fertility and would be the God of his descendants, who would possess the land of Canaan; however, there was a price: the foreskins of Abraham's male descendants. Thus, circumcision is essentially a sacrifice. (It is not conceptualized by modern religious Jews as a sacrifice, because religious Jews believe that the foreskin is a useless piece of skin with no function, and circumcision is just a "mark". But of course the foreskin does in fact have a function, and at the time the ritual was taken up the ancestors modern Jews would presumably have regarded it as something not easy to give up.)

* The motivation for the adoption of circumcision by English and American doctors in the 19th century is not particularly straightforward; it appears to have been a sort of fad which was believed to be capable of curing or protecting against all sorts of different ailments, exactly which ailments depending on who you asked. (Although the degree of wild speculation has decreased, this would also be a reasonably accurate summary of the status of the practice within medical science today.) But probably the most compelling effect to the 19th-century mind was that it was thought to dull sexual feeling and reduce the sexual drive and thus make people more moral according to 19th-century moral standards (the same argument was also used to justify circumcision much earlier by the influential Jewish philosopher Maimonides). Nowadays this effect is seen as a negative rather than a positive, and so it is talked about by anti-circumcision rather than pro-circumcision people.

Oh, finally, one thing I should mention: part of the final part of the book is devoted to analysing portrayals of circumcision in American popular culture such as in children's books, or in TV sitcoms (such as the Seinfeld episode *The Mohel*). This is kind of interesting to read, in the same way as reading the website TV Tropes can be, though I'm not sure how far it contributes to the overall book. There are some interesting things to be said about the overall tone in which circumcision is discussed in American popular culture: basically (the author tries to illustrate) it's a tone of evasion, avoidance, and underlying doubt.