A leaked draft document from Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service has ignited outrage across Jewish and Muslim communities by classifying male circumcision as a potential form of child abuse. The guidance, which places the millennia-old covenant of brit milah alongside virginity testing, hymen reconstruction surgery, and exorcism rituals, represents the latest assault on religious freedom in a nation where traditional faith practices face mounting legal scrutiny. For Jews, this is not an administrative matter of medical regulation. This strikes at the heart of Jewish identity itself.
The document from the Crown Prosecution Service on “honor-based abuse, forced marriages and harmful practices” states that unlike female genital mutilation, “there is not a specific criminal offense of carrying out male circumcision.” But then it adds the damning qualifier: “However, this can be a painful and harmful practice, if carried out incorrectly or in inappropriate circumstances. It may be a form of child abuse or an offense against the person.”
Brit milah is not merely a medical procedure or cultural custom. It is the physical manifestation of the eternal covenant between God and the Jewish people, commanded directly to Abraham in Genesis. When God appeared to Abraham, He declared: “This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your offspring after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you” (Genesis 17:10-11). This covenant was not offered as an option or suggestion. It was commanded as an eternal bond, binding every generation of Jewish males to the God of Israel.
The timing of brit milah on the eighth day carries deep significance. The Sages teach that seven represents the natural world, the seven days of creation. Eight transcends nature, representing the supernatural covenant with God. By performing circumcision on the eighth day, Jews declare that their relationship with God exists beyond the physical realm. Brit milah takes precedence and is practiced even on Shabbat and holidays, times when almost all other activities cease. The covenant takes precedence.
Jonathan Arkush, former president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and chair of Milah UK, rejected the draft guidance as fundamentally misleading. “To suggest that circumcision is in itself a harmful practice, is deeply pejorative and misplaced,” Arkush told the Guardian. “Any procedure that is carried out inappropriately or without proper controls, including piercing a child’s ears, could be a harmful practice and a possible case of child abuse.”
Arkush emphasized the rigorous standards maintained by the Jewish community. “The incidence of complications in circumcision performed in the Jewish community is vanishingly rare,” he said. “Circumcision is a core part of our identity. I have never met any Jewish man who thinks they’ve been harmed by circumcision.”
The CPS document was drafted amid scrutiny following tragic cases where infants died after improperly performed circumcisions. According to the UK Office for National Statistics, seven deaths since 2001 have listed circumcision as a contributing factor. Most involved severe bleeding after procedures carried out outside regulated settings. Last month, a coroner issued warnings about insufficient regulation after the death of six-month-old Mohamed Abdisamad from a streptococcus infection in 2023. The case recalled the 2014 death of Oliver Asante-Yeboah, who died from sepsis after a circumcision performed by a rabbi.
Jewish leaders do not dispute that negligence or malpractice must be addressed. What they reject is the implication that the religious act itself is suspect. In the Jewish community, brit milah is performed by trained practitioners called mohalim (plural of mohel), who undergo extensive training and operate under strict religious and medical standards. The ceremony includes specific blessings, the presence of a minyan (prayer quorum of ten men), and the symbolic attendance of the prophet Elijah, for whom a chair is set at every circumcision.
Yet secularist organizations celebrated the CPS draft. The National Secular Society’s human rights lead, Alejandro Sanchez, argued that “circumcision, as a surgery, is inherently dangerous. It should only be performed by doctors and, when it comes to children, only with medical necessity.” He added: “Decisions about circumcision should therefore be deferred until the individual is old enough to decide for himself, based on his own values.”
This position fundamentally misunderstands the nature of covenant. The covenant God made with Abraham was not conditional on Abraham’s descendants reaching an age of consent. It was eternal and binding from the eighth day of life. Rabbi Jonathan Romain of Progressive Judaism defended circumcision as an “enormously powerful symbolic act of identity,” while acknowledging the need to ensure qualified practitioners keep pace with demographic changes.
Dr. Gordon Muir, a London urological surgeon, went further, calling circumcision “unnecessary” and arguing it “will not do any physical good.” He stated: “I think it is a form child abuse and the correct thing to do would be to wait until the child is 16 or more and is able to make a rational decision about it.” Muir claimed he faced hundreds of critical letters after publishing an academic paper finding no high-quality evidence supporting benefits from circumcision.
The battle over circumcision in Britain reflects a broader conflict between secular progressive values and religious tradition. The draft guidance treats circumcision as comparable to genuinely abusive practices like female genital mutilation, ignoring the vast medical, historical, and religious differences between them. Female genital mutilation has no health benefits and causes permanent harm. Male circumcision, performed properly, carries minimal risk and has been practiced safely for thousands of years across multiple religious traditions.
The Crown Prosecution Service claimed the draft would undergo extensive consultation before finalization, stating: “We absolutely recognize that for many, male circumcision is a safe and celebrated tradition. However, while circumcision is legal, we have recently prosecuted cases where significant harm and distress has been caused to victims where this procedure has been carried out improperly and in unsafe circumstances.”
But the damage from the draft has already been done. By classifying brit milah alongside practices universally recognized as abusive, the CPS has signaled that religious Jews may face criminal investigation for fulfilling God’s commandment. This is not about protecting children from harm. Proper regulation and oversight can address the rare cases of negligence without delegitimizing the practice itself. This is about whether Britain will allow Jews to remain Jews.
The prophet Jeremiah warned of a time when the nations would challenge the covenant itself: “Thus says the Lord: If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also My covenant with David My servant may be broken” (Jeremiah 33:20-21). The covenant of circumcision stands as permanent as the rising and setting of the sun. No government decree can nullify what God has commanded.
Britain now stands at a crossroads. It can choose to respect the religious freedom of its Jewish and Muslim citizens, implementing sensible regulations that ensure safety without criminalizing faith. Or it can proceed down a path that treats the covenant between God and Abraham as potential child abuse. The Jewish people survived Pharaoh’s decree, Haman’s plot, and Hitler’s Final Solution. They will survive Britain’s prosecutorial guidelines. The question is whether Britain will survive the moral bankruptcy of criminalizing covenant with God.