A doctor in Germany has filed a police complaint against the chief rabbi of the city of Hof, in Bavaria, for carrying out a ritual circumcision. The doctor claimed that Rabbi David Goldberg inflicted physical harm on a boy when Goldberg performed a brit milah on him. It is now up to the prosecution whether to press charges.
The case comes just as the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, is visiting Berlin, to garner support for the continuation of Jewish circumcisions, after a court in Cologne ruled in May that circumcisions are illegal because they cause physical harm. In that case, a doctor was sued for circumcising a Muslim boy. He was acquitted on technical terms, but the case prompted the German government to commit to creating legislation to resolve the issue.
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