Contested Rituals – Contested Identities? Discourses Resulting from the German Circumcision Debate 2012

The German debate on circumcision of the year 2012 quickly also turned into a debate on existential questions: Is circumcision a crucial element of being a Jew? Why at all should secular Jews insist, of all mitzvot, on the circumcision of their baby sons? And what if they wouldn’t anymore?

Jews in Germany found themselves discussing deeply domestic Jewish questions in the light of a public that interfered, mostly from the perspective of utterly different motivations, in this discussion.

In my paper I want to give a picture of some central arguments within the discussion, but also shed light on the overall question, how far definitions of group identity in today’s Europe have become an issue of public interest and interpretation. The need to discuss this seems all the more pressing in the face of growing nationalist and identitary movements in Europe.