Of course, there haven’t been changes across the board. Rabbi Schweitzer does alternative ceremonies for people who choose not circumcise. They’re certainly pushing the boundary of who can be a Jew,” said Rabbi Peter Schweitzer of the City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism in Manhattan. (In contrast, 42 percent said “having a good sense of humor” was essential.) Only 19 percent of American Jews said that observing Jewish law was an essential part of what being Jewish means. But there are some indicators to suggest why circumcision may be subject to increasing debate: A Pew survey of American Jews in 2013 revealed a significant rise in secular Jews who are marrying outside the faith, and roughly a third of intermarried Jews who are raising children say they aren’t raising them Jewish. There’s no reliable data on the percentage of American Jewish boys who are circumcised each year. Edell cut the pomegranate, a totem of fertility with its plentiful seeds, while her mother held her son. Instead she had a “gentle bris” ceremony with alternative ritual objects: a pomegranate, a gold kiddush cup, and a large ceramic bowl filled with water to wash the baby’s feet, an ancient act of welcoming the stranger. She decided not to circumcise, a choice she said her parents eventually accepted. And yet I’m also a feminist and activist, and believe very strongly in the right to your own body,” she said. “I knew that I wanted to raise my child Jewish and in a Jewish home. The questions parents consider range from the practical - How much will it hurt? - to the existential - Will my son even be Jewish? She has been performing the bris ceremony since 1990. Emily Blake, a New York-based OB/GYN who is also trained as a mohel in the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist traditions. “I talk to a lot of families that really struggle with this decision,” said Dr.

“I think there was a time when all American baby boys were circumcised, of all religions,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish movement in North America. The science around the medical benefits of circumcision in the United States is inconclusive, though the American Academy of Pediatrics notes that it can help prevent some sexually transmitted infections like H.I.V., as well as penile cancer and urinary tract infections. Much of that can be attributed to a growing Hispanic immigrant population, a group that historically circumcises less. But since the 1970s, the conventional wisdom has shifted a bit: The American Academy of Pediatrics said in 2012 that while the benefits outweigh the risks, it would not “recommend universal newborn circumcision.” Medicaid no longer covers circumcision in a number of states and in the past four decades, the percentage of newborns that are circumcised has dropped by six percentage points, according to an analysis published in 2014 in the medical journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. For much of the 20th century, the consensus was to circumcise. This change in the Jewish community has paralleled an American trend.

Jewish brisk