JTA \u2013 The United\u00a0States\u00a0ambassador to Belgium is demanding that Belgium end an investigation into mohels who may have been using unsafe practices while circumcising Jewish babies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bill White made the demand, an unusual intervention into another country\u2019s domestic affairs, in a post on X on Monday, 16 February,\u00a0directed toward Belgium\u2019s minister of health.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the\u00a0[very rude]\u00a0Belgian Minister of Health Frank\u00a0Vanenbroucke, you must make a legal provision to allow Jewish religious\u00a0mohels\u00a0to perform their duties here in Belgium.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0done in all civilised counties as legal procedure,\u201d White tweeted. \u201cBelgium\u00a0is a civilised country. Stop this unacceptable harassment of the Jewish community here in Antwerp and in Belgium.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a02026, you need to get into the 21st century and allow our brethren Jewish families in Belgium to legally execute their religious freedoms!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
White is a longtime advocate for veterans who became a Republican after Donald Trump was first elected president in 2016. He was confirmed as ambassador to Belgium last\u00a0autumn\u00a0despite criticism that he had amplified social media posts by Dries\u00a0van\u00a0Langenhove, a far-right Belgian political activist\u00a0who\u00a0has\u00a0recently been sentenced to prison after being convicted of racism and Holocaust denial.\u00a0<\/p>\n
White\u2019s post comes\u00a0nearly a\u00a0year after Belgian authorities raided multiple sites, including two in Antwerp\u2019s Jewish\u00a0quarter, at the outset of an investigation into illegal circumcision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Belgium, the law requires all circumcisions to be performed by licensed medical professionals. The country has\u00a0a track record\u00a0of limiting religious exemptions in laws.\u00a0In 2024, Europe\u2019s top court upheld a ban in most of the country against kosher slaughter, which its critics contend is inhumane to animals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Belgian media reported that the Antwerp raids stemmed from a complaint made by a member of the Jewish community. In 2024, Moshe Friedman, a local rabbi, filed a police complaint against six mohels who practice\u00a0metzitzah\u00a0b\u2019peh, a custom in which the circumciser cleans the circumcision wound with oral suction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The custom, which can risk infecting infants with dangerous diseases, is practiced only in haredi Orthodox communities such as the\u00a0substantial\u00a0one in Antwerp. Several years ago,\u00a0a number of\u00a0babies in New York City were infected with herpes\u00a0via\u00a0metzitzah\u00a0b\u2019peh.\u00a0<\/p>\n
White\u2019s X post, which he said was on behalf of Trump and a slew of administration officials, said three mohels were facing \u201cridiculous antisemitic prosecution\u201d\u00a0which he said must be dropped\u00a0immediately\u00a0to preserve the US-Belgian relationship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
White alleged that\u00a0Vanenbroucke\u00a0had told him that he intended to avoid intervening in the case, calling it a \u201csneaky tactic\u201d.\u00a0Vanenbroucke\u00a0and other Belgian officials\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0immediately\u00a0respond publicly to White\u2019s post.\u00a0<\/p>\n
White said he would be travelling to Antwerp to meet the mohels next week. \u201cFrank you and Conner Rousseau should come with me!\u201d White tweeted, referring to a Flemish politician with no public connection to the investigation. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0disgusting\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0happened to these fine men and their families because of your inaction. Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The mohel raids in Antwerp follow the arrest in 2024 in Ireland of a British rabbi suspected of performing circumcisions illegally. There, the law requiring a medical licence to perform circumcisions includes an exemption for circumcisions performed for religious reasons,\u00a0but the rabbi was alleged to have circumcised babies who\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0Jewish. The prosecution in that case is\u00a0reportedly\u00a0ongoing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Trump administration says it aims to defend religious freedom around the world, and its ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has called attention to what he alleges is poor treatment of Christians there. Meanwhile, a Catholic member of Trump\u2019s new domestic Religious Liberty Commission was removed last week after using a public hearing to attack Israel and press the case that opposition to Israel\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0antisemitic.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JTA \u2013 The United\u00a0States\u00a0ambassador to Belgium is demanding that Belgium end an investigation into mohels who may have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,2039,2040],"class_list":{"0":"post-2323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-jta","10":"tag-mohel"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}