The York, Pennsylvania prison has recorded a sudden upsurge in “Jewish” prisoners, along with a much higher food budget following their demands for kosher food.

The law requires serving kosher food to Jews who request it, but that does not cover the non-Jews. Kosher food has to be prepared outside the prison and costs up to four times the price of a non-kosher meal. Multiply the difference by the 140 “kosher” prisoners and the result is an additional $100,000 a month.

Acting York County Solicitor Donald Reihart said during a recent prison board meeting that the prisoners think kosher food is better, which may or may not be the case.

Rabbi Jeffrey Astrachan of York’s Temple Beth Israel, York’s largest Jewish congregation, told York media, “It’s more expensive to prepare a kosher meal because of the processes that are involved with the slaughtering and the preparation of the food, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the food is any better.

“You could give someone two pieces of bread and a piece of cheese and that could be a kosher meal. It doesn’t mean you’re going to get some brisket or matzo ball soup. They could get a kosher meal that still tastes horrible.”

His congregation has approximately 600 people, one percent of whom keep kosher, he added. There is no orthodox Jewish synagogue in the city, so that leaves the question of how many “outsiders” in the prison are Jewish, which has a population of approximately 2,400. Nearly 1 percent claim they are Jewish, which means there are a whole lot of Jews from elsewhere, or more likely, there are a lot of fakes.

Prison officials are trying to figure out to solve the problem. Some of the Jewish wanabees give themselves away quickly, switching back and forth every so often from kosher to non-kosher meals. Apparently, they just can’t give up the bacon and eggs.

A “circumcision check” would not solve the problem because there are plenty of non-Jews who are circumcised. On the other hand, prison officials could tell those who are not circumcised and who claim they are Jewish that they must get a quick operation on you know where. That would probably work.

That the leaves the question of those who are circumcised but are not Jewish. Their birth certificates could be checked, but then there is the question of those who claim they converted.

Linda Seligson, the cultural director at York’s Jewish Community Center, has an even better idea to get rid of the phony Jews. Simply wait for Passover and see how many of the inmates can get along eating matzah for eight days and sticking to a diet of potatoes and more potatoes because of the Ashkenazi restriction on eating “kitniyot,” such as corn and other grains.

So much for the “food of freedom” for prisoners.

But what about the Sephardim, who do not hold by that custom?

York Daily Record columnist Mike Argento has a better solution. He reminds readers that being a Jew is not all matzo balls and gravy.

If the inmates stay Jewish long enough, they will encounter anti-Semitism, and then the prison budget will go back to where it was.

Iran has followed up on its ban of wicked Western influences, such as Barbie dolls and the Simpsons, by adding Far Eastern Buddha statues to its list of foreign evils.

The Iranian-based Arman daily quoted Saeed Jaberi Ansari, who helps protect Iran’s “cultural heritage,” as saying the items are part of a “cultural invasion.”

Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh, the director of the Center for Arab & Iranian Studies in London, criticized the ban as nothing more than “circumcised art,” according to the Saudi-based Al Arabiya website.

“Art is not an area the regime will succeed fighting against,” he said. “This has nothing to do with not allowing sculptures or artworks in the country – like some Islamic countries. Iran does have its film and theater festivals, but it’s what you can call ‘circumcised’ arts.”

The Simpsons were banned last year to defend the Islamic Republic against Western culture, but the Iranian regime reasoned that Spiderman and Superman were permissible because they help the “oppressed.”

Stretching the ban to the Far East’s Buddha statues won’t work, according to  Dr. Nourizadeh.

“Artistic circles will speak out; Iranian intellectuals will respond sharply,” he explained.

However, Ansari, the defender of culture, reportedly said that the “cleansing” would continue to prevent the promotion of a specific belief.

“The regime believes Iranian citizens, particularly the youth, are being corrupted by the West, foreign entities, imperialists, Zionists, you name it which encourages young people to leave Islamic values and Khomeini’s values,” he said.

Buddha statues are used more as ornaments than they are for religious practices in Iran, which officially guarantees the rights of non-Muslims.

The welfare of Klal Yisroel will be upheld. This is how I see the new regulation requiring informed consent before performing Metzitza B’Peh (MbP).

For those not up to speed about this ritual procedure – it involves suctioning off the blood by mouth from a circumcision wound. The Gemarah, in its description of the very important Mitzvah of Bris Milah, explains the procedure for that in relative detail.

As has always been the case throughout Jewish history, the rabbis understood that the Torah always put the health of the individual above just about all else. So they mandated what was a safety feature of the bris – the suctioning of the blood (metzitza) off the wound so that it would not become a source of infection. In fact that is clearly how metzitza is stated in the Gemarah. As a safety precaution.

So according to the Gemarah even though it does not invalidate the actual bris if metzizah is not done, it is nonetheless a Halachic requirement to do so.

The Gemarah does not describe the method of suction one must use. It just says “metzitza” – suction. Historically the most efficient method was to simply suction it off quickly by mouth. For thousands of years that is how every bris was done. Until the 19th century. At that time many of the greatest poskim of the era allowed alternative methods of suctioning after there were some deaths attributed to a possibly infected mohel.

But that did not stop the hardcore traditionalists from insisting that doing so by mouth was not only preferable but required! Those who argued saying that there were legitimate poskim who permitted non-oral suction methods were rebuffed with claims that these poskim never intended their kulos (leniencies) to be permanent.

They insist that MbP is an integral part of the bris. Here is the way the Forward put it in the name of one of the most prominent mohalim, Rabbi Avrohom Cohn who heads the American Board of Ritual Circumcision and who is in the forefront of fighting this new regulation:

[T]he ultra-Orthodox minority who do use metzitzah b’peh, including members of Cohn’s group, avow that this technique must be part of the circumcision ritual in order to fulfill divine commandments set out in the Torah and the Talmud. Personally I don’t know how they can make that claim. If there were ever circumcisions done without MbP, they would be invalid by this definition. Which would make those poskim guilty of being machti es haRabim (causing the public to sin). Besides – what would those poskim gain by omitting MbP? Why bother doing it at all?! If MbP is integral then there was no point to doing a bris! Furthermore they are casting aspersions on every circumcision that does not do MbP.

Nonetheless they feel that any interference with that practice violates their right to practice their religion as they see fit. Even New York city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygene (DOHMH) requirement to sign an informed consent form stating they have been made aware of the possible risk of infection to the child.

One may ask, “What is the big deal?” “Let them sign the forms and they can do what they want!” That’s how I feel about it. But they feel they cannot sign a document that would in effect be saying that Halacha as they understand it is dangerous to your health.

They claim is that there is no danger to a child that has MbP. That’s the way it has been done for millennia. And that there is no poof that the few babies that died were because of infections transferred by mouth from the mohel. And that even if it were proven in one or 2 cases – the statistical probability of it happening is negligible considering the tens of thousands of times each year MbP was done without incident.

The Department of Health obviously disagrees and points to studies that have show a strong likelihood of several babies being infected by a mohel with the herpes virus. From the Forward:

More recent DOHMH studies have revealed 12 area infants who have contracted herpes after circumcision. with two of the infants dying soon after.

And since herpes can be asymptomatic, the risks are real, small though they may be. Hence the regulation. Which carries financial penalties if not followed.

One of Indonesia’s largest Islamic organizations is causing a controversy by objecting to a UN plan to ban female circumcision, ABC News reported.

The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) says female circumcision is part of Islamic teachings and that it is their constitutional right.

MUI chairman Ma’ruf Amin has called on hospital and clinics to provide the service to people who would want their daughters circumcised.

“What we reject is the ban. If there is a request … don’t turn [the parents] away,” Ma’ruf was quoted as saying.

Ma’ruf’s comments were made in response to the approval last month of a non-binding resolution calling on UN members to enforce laws against female genital mutilation (as well as pass such laws, if they’re not already on the books).

The practice of female circumcision was officially banned by the Indonesian Ministry of Health back in 2006, because it is “potentially harmful.”

In 2010, however, the Indonesian Government issued a ministerial regulation outlining how the practice should be carried out by medical doctors. That initiative confused many.

Justina Rostiawati, from the National Commission on Violence Against Women, said that the regulation was an acknowledgement that the earlier ban on female circumcision was not working.

“When the hospital or the health services in that area refused to carry out the circumcision, the mother would take the female baby to the midwife, or just to a traditional healer, or birth attendant – where it’s even more dangerous,” Rostiawati said.

Professor Terry Hull of the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute at the Australian National University said female circumcision is increasing in Indonesia and the practice is becoming more brutal.

“Over the past two decades, there’s been an increasing ‘medicalization’ of the practice, where medical personnel are taking part in what they interpret as Islamic rituals, and they are drawing blood and sometimes cutting away skin from the clitoris and sometimes from the labia.”

French Jewish leader Richard Prasquier said that banning circumcision in Europe “would inevitably mean the end of Judaism” there.

“You can seek a ban but you need to understand the consequences: The inevitable disappearance of Jewish life from Europe,” Prasquier on Thursday told a European Parliament conference on religious freedoms.

Pasquier has been president of the CRIF since 2007.

CRIF (Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France) is an umbrella body comprising all French Jewish groups, that was originally created in 1944 under the Vichy Regime. Nowadays, this national federation, made up of 62 Jewish organizations, is the voice of the organized French Jewish community.

France has Europe’s largest Jewish community, numbering between 500 and 800 thousand.

The conference, titled “Freedom of Religion and/or Mutual Respect in Europe,” was jointly organized by the European Parliament and the European Jewish Association.

Prasquier said attacking circumcision “is telling Europe’s Jews to pack their suitcases and leave” and that includes “Orthodox, traditional, or non-observant such as myself.”

He was replying to a question by Diane Luquiser, one of the conference’s 50 participants, who asked why Judaism could not “adapt to modern times” and abandon the practice “which hurts children.”

Prasquier revealed he was circumcised 11 years after his birth in Poland in 1945.

“Circumcising me was a difficult decision for my father, a Pole who had to drop his pants when the Nazis caught him,” he said. “That kind of difficulty is a reality which we would not like to see repeating itself.”

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, director of the European Jewish Association – the Brussels-based organization behind the conference – said that allowing Jewish and Muslim rites is “necessary for mutual respect.”

Over the past year, ritual circumcision of underage boys has been briefly banned in a Swiss hospital and in some Austrian hospitals after a court in Cologne ruled in June that such circumcision amounted to a criminal offense.

Last month, the German cabinet passed a draft law to permit ritual circumcision and clarify the legal situation.

JTA content was used in this report.

Left-wing German MPs are threatening to oppose their government’s attempt to keep male circumcision legal in Germany. More than 50 MPs from three parties are now proposing that parents should have to wait until their son is 14 so he can give his informed consent to the operation.

Last summer, a regional court ruled that circumcision could amount to criminal bodily harm.

It should be noted that circumcision is by far less painful and traumatic to an 8-day old infant than it is to a teenage boy.

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Yishai presents a fascinating audio piece from the BBC about the issue of the legality of circumcision in Germany.  Be sure to tune in to stay informed!

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European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor unveiled a model bill designed to set “strict legal terms” on religious freedoms for the continent.

Kantor, who is also co-chairman of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation, or ECTR, presented the model bill on Oct. 15 at the European Parliament.

Designed to delineate the legal boundaries of tolerance in light of “anti-Semitism, racism and attempts to limit freedom of worship in Europe,” the document proposes to enshrine Jewish and Muslim religious slaughter practices, shechitah and halal, as well as ritual circumcision. It also recognized the state’s right to regulate the practices.

Citing “overriding” public safety reasons, the bill proposes to ban burkas and other face-covering headgear. Kantor said he hoped the parliaments of European Union member states adopt the principles laid down in the model bill in legislation, as “only by defining the boundaries of real tolerance can we ensure it.”

The model bill was co-authored by Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former Polish president and co-chair of ECTR, a Brussels-based NGO comprised of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, several former heads of states and others recognized for urging tolerance.

Under the model bill, “migrants who refuse to learn the local language may face deportation due to their unwillingness to integrate,” said Yoram Dinstein, one of the documents’ co-authors and an Israeli expert in international law.

“Many support tolerance as an abstract idea but find it hard to specify how it should be applied,” Dinstein told JTA. “This document tries to translate aspirations into practice.”