The Jewish circumcision ceremony, brit mila, is enacted by a trained specialist called a mohel. Typically, mohels record the circumcisions they have performed in small mohel books, which have become especially important in the field of genealogical research. [1]
The first pages of a mohel book are typically dedicated to the special prayers recited during brit mila.
The remaining pages are used to record the details of circumcisions, usually the place, date and name of the boy who was circumcised. [2]
Mohels often chose smaller books for this purpose, so they could easily be carried around. Often, they decorated the books and title pages to look like medieval manuscripts. From the 18th century, blank mohel books were printed especially for circumcision entries. Today, the entries are usually digital, and efforts are being made to digitalise existing mohel books as well. [1]
While Christian births were documented in baptismal registries, Jewish births were not recorded systematically. In central Europe, birth registers were only introduced after 1876 (excepting France). Prior to this, Jewish cemeteries and mohel books were the most reliable records of Jewish family names and place. However, these books often remained in private hands, making them hard to access for scholars and families doing genealogical research. [1]
Mohel books in combination with cemeteries and place names can give an overview of the movement of Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages and later centuries.
The brit milah or bris is the ceremony of circumcision in Judaism and Samaritanism, during which the prepuce is surgically removed. According to the Book of Genesis, God commanded the biblical patriarch Abraham to be circumcised, an act to be followed by his male descendants on the eighth day of life, symbolizing the covenant between God and the Jewish people. Today, it is generally performed by a mohel on the eighth day after the infant's birth and is followed by a celebratory meal known as seudat mitzvah.
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Alsatian origin and Jewish ethnicity and faith. In 1894, he fell victim to a judicial conspiracy that sparked a major political crisis during the Third Republic, known as the Dreyfus Affair (1894–1906), when he was wrongfully accused and convicted, due to antisemitism, of being a spy for the German Empire. Upon his arrest, he was sentenced to degradation and deported to the penal colony on Devil's Island to be imprisoned until his death. However, evidence emerged showing that Dreyfus was innocent and that the true culprit was a Catholic officer named Esterhazy. Gradual revelations indicated that the internal investigation conducted by the army was biased; Dreyfus was an ideal scapegoat because he was Jewish, and the army's high command was aware of his innocence but preferred to cover up the affair and leave him in the penal colony rather than lose face.
A mohel is a Jewish man trained in the practice of brit milah, the "covenant of male circumcision". The equivalent for a woman circumciser is mohelet.
Circumcision likely has ancient roots among several ethnic groups in sub-equatorial Africa, Egypt, and Arabia, though the specific form and extent of circumcision has varied. Ritual male circumcision is known to have been practiced by South Sea Islanders, Aboriginal peoples of Australia, Sumatrans, and some Ancient Egyptians.
Between the 12th century and modern times, the Swiss city of Basel has been home to three Jewish communities. The medieval community thrived at first but ended violently with the Basel massacre of 1349. As with many of the violent anti-Judaic events of the time, it was linked to the outbreak of the Black Death. At the end of the 14th century, a second community formed. But it was short-lived and disbanded before the turn of the century. For the following 400 years, there was no Jewish community in Basel. Today, there are several communities, ranging from liberal to religious to orthodox, and there are still more Jews who don’t belong to any community.
Aposthia is a rare congenital condition in humans, in which the foreskin of the penis is missing.
A wimpel is a long, linen sash used as a binding for the Sefer Torah by Jews of Germanic (Yekke) origin. It is made from the cloth used to swaddle a baby boy at his bris milah, uniting the communal world of the synagogue with the individual's own life cycle.
Lengnau is a municipality in the district of Zurzach in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.
A sandek or sandak is a person honored at a Jewish brit milah (circumcision) ceremony, traditionally either by holding the baby boy on the knees or thighs while the mohel performs the brit milah, or by handing the baby to the mohel.
The history of the Jews in Switzerland extends back at least a thousand years. Jews and Judaism have been present in the territory of what is now Switzerland since before the emergence of the medieval Old Swiss Confederacy in the 13th century.
Circumcision is a procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin is excised. Topical or locally injected anesthesia is generally used to reduce pain and physiologic stress. Circumcision is generally electively performed, most commonly done as a form of preventive healthcare, as a religious obligation, or as a cultural practice. It is also an option for cases of phimosis, other pathologies that do not resolve with other treatments, and chronic urinary tract infections (UTIs). The procedure is contraindicated in cases of certain genital structure abnormalities or poor general health.
Meyer Kayserling was a German rabbi and historian.
The circumcision of Jesus is an event from the life of Jesus, according to the Gospel of Luke chapter 2, which states:
And when eight days were fulfilled to circumcise the child, his name was called Jesus, the name called by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
The history of the Jews in Alsace is one of the oldest in Europe. It was first attested to in 1165 by Benjamin of Tudela, who wrote about a "large number of learned men" in "Astransbourg"; and it is assumed that it dates back to around the year 1000. Although Jewish life in Alsace was often disrupted by outbreaks of pogroms, at least during the Middle Ages, and reined in by harsh restrictions on business and movement, it has had a continuous existence ever since it was first recorded. At its peak, in 1870, the Jewish community of Alsace numbered 35,000 people.
A kinnui or kinui is the secular name held by Jewish people in relation to the language spoken by the country they reside in, differing from their Biblical Hebrew name.
Jacob Snowman M.D., M.R.C.S. was a British doctor and mohel, notable for having circumcised King Charles in December 1948, and other members of the British nobility and Royal Family.
The Jewish Museum of Switzerland in Basel provides an overview of the religious and everyday history of the Jews in Basel and Switzerland using objects of ritual, art and everyday culture from the Middle Ages to the present.
Shimshon (Samson) ben Mordechai of Slonim, was an 18th-century rabbi, philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. He was one of the leaders of Haskalah and the Misnagdim, and was influenced by the Vilna Gaon. He was the Av Beit Din of Slonim and Königsberg and is thought to have been descended from Shimshon Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague's brother, through his grandson, Samson ben Pesah Ostropoli.
The Lengnau mappot; a collection of 218 Torah binders, were discovered in the 1960s in the women's gallery of the synagogue in Lengnau (Aargau). In 1967, the wimpels were the subject of research by Florence Guggenheim-Grünberg, whose contribution was the first systematic description of this kind of collection. Today the Lengnau mappot belong to the Jewish Museum of Switzerland.
Markus Getsch Dreyfus also Markus Götsch Dreifus(s), was a Jewish teacher and publicist involved in the struggle for Jewish emancipation in Switzerland.
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