Michael Gerson’s July 6 op-ed column [“Making circumcision criminal”] laudably criticized a recent decision by a German court criminalizing ritual circumcision. Gerson rightly pointed to Europe’s long history of anti-Semitism.
But here’s what you wouldn’t know from reading the column: The German case involved a Muslim family, not a Jewish one. Gerson thus cited a ruling against a Muslim family to fashion an entire column devoted to religious freedom and prejudice vis-a-vis the Jewish community, with not the barest reference to the rising tide of Islamophobia in Europe.
Gerson could have easily discussed the ruling as it relates to both the Jewish and Muslim communities or, at a minimum, just acknowledged that the family directly affected by this ruling was Muslim.
