When my nephew Eli was born, there was no way on earth he was going to be circumcised. His father is not only not Jewish, but British, from a culture where circumcision is rare. And his mother—my sister-in-law Ellen, a Jew who grew up Reform in the Milwaukee suburbs—wasn’t thrilled about the notion of brit milah anyway.
“It was never important to me,” she told me. “To me, circumcision is paranormal hoo-ha. I don’t believe in God, so why would I chop off part of my child for something I don’t even believe? It’s like sacrificing a goat or something. I’m not going to kill a goat.”
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