Minority Rites: The Strange History of Circumcision in English Thought

NOTES

• Gilman , Sander . 1991 . The Jew's Body 119 New York
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• 1978 . Obstetrics and Gynaecology Discussions of male circumcision in the medical press are variously very brief, focused on the technology of the operation or downright unsophisticated. See for example, Stephen Waszak, ‘The Historic Significance of Circumcision’; LI/4, the article by E. Grossman and Norman Ames Posner, ‘Surgical Circumcision of Neonates: a History of its Development’, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, LVIII/2 (1981); a risible account by one Earle Hackett, ‘The Foreskin Saga’, Medical Journal of Australia, 4 August 1984, pp. 187–9. Accounts in the popular press include Peter Baker, ‘Pain and the Covenant’, Jewish Chronicle, 27 March 1992; Julia Bard and Dr. J. Goodman, ‘fighting the Cuts’, Jewish Socialist, no. 26, Jan.-Aug. 1992; Dr. Tony Smith, ‘Common Procedures: Circumcision’, The Independent, 24, Jan. 1993; R. Epstein, ‘A Kinder Cut’, The Guardian, 26 Oct. 1993; Lisa Brinkworth, ‘Why do we condone male circumcision?’, Cosmopolitan, March 1994, pp. 14–18; Victor S. Schonfeld and Julia Bard, ‘Severing the Chain’, The Jewish Quarterly, Winter 1995/6, no. 160, pp.27–31. Thanks to Rodney Mace and June Chubb for some of these references.
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• Hyamson , Albert M. “ ‘The Jew Bill of 1753’ ” . In Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society VI, 1980–10, pp. 156–88.
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• Hyamson . op. cit., p. 157.
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• Dresser , M. and Ollerenshaw , P. , eds. 1996 . “ Catholics and Jews: Political Difference and Religious Identity' ” . In The Making of Modern Bristol Tiverton See my Protestant, in The collection of pamphlets originally in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America Library and now held on microfilm in The Jewish Studies Collection of the University of London are a rich source on the Jew Bill.
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• Perry , Thomas . 1962 . Public Opinion, Propaganda and Politics in Eighteenth-Century England Cambridge , MA
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• Wolper , Roy . Eighteenth Century Life ‘Circumcision as Polemic in the Jew Bill of 1753: the Cutter Cut?’ VII, no.3, pp.28–36.
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• Wolper . op. cit, pp.30–33.
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• Katz , David . 1994 . The Jews in the History of England 1485–1850 Oxford (, 1996 ed.).
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• Katz, ibid., pp.246–7 and 253.
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• 1995 . Anti-Semitic Stereotypes: a Paradigm of Otherness in English Popular Culture 1660–1830 Baltimore and London Frank Felsenstein, pp. 146–7.
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• Felsenstein, op. cit, p. 139.
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• Felsenstein, op. cit, pp. 146–7.
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• Colley , Linda . 1992 . Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 London (, 1994 ed.).
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• FFBJ) Felix Farley's Bristol Journal (henceforth 19–26 May 1753.
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• Parliamentary History, XIV, (London, 1813), p. 1384–5.
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• Collection of Ballads', Bodleian Library, GA fol. A248(43).
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• FFBJ 10–17 November 1753.
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• FFBJ 30 June–7 July 1753 see also spoof advert of ‘Moses Ben Amri, surgeon’, 2–9 June 1753 offering readers his services and the poem ‘The Era’ 12–19 January 1754.
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• FFBJ 14–21 July 1753
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• Felsenstein (note 11), p. 140.
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• FFBJ 17 Nov. 1753
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• FFBJ 28 July 1753
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• Katz , David . (see note 9), pp.299–300.
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• 1813 . The Lamentations of the Children of Israel London University of Bristol Special Collections
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• Pasquin , P. P. 1814 . Jewish Conversion. A Christianical Farce. Got up with Great Effect under the Direction of a Society for Making Bad Jews Worse Christians London
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• Bristol Central Reference Library, ‘Replication to the Parsons and Quakers’ (J. Smith, Bristol n.d.) Weare Collection of Broadsides, Bristol Central Reference Library, B22361, W/O/S 9.
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• The Lancet Vol. 6 (1825), pp.300–302.
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• 1839–1939 . Medical Press The Jacob in question was undoubtedly Arthur Jacobs who in 1826 was elected Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the School of the Irish Royal College of Surgeons, who was editor of the and who was feted in 1861 by a medal struck in his honour by the Irish Royal College of Surgeons; The Medical Press and Circular (London, 1939), pp.3, 49.
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• Gibbon , E. 1939 . The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London: Ward Lock and co. nd.) I, pp.295–7; According to Maurice Jacobs, ‘Circumcision’, Annals of Medical History, Vol. I, 3rd series, pp.68–73, Voltaire's views on circumcision excited Jewish criticism. For a defence of the traditional Christian view of circumcision's divine origins, see John Brekell, A Dissertation Upon the Subject of the Circumcision Containing an Enquiry into the Original of this Religious Rite…. (London, 1763), esp pp.3–9.
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• Hitchcock , Tim . ‘Redefining Sex in Eighteenth-Century England’ . History Workshop Journal , 41 pp.76–7.
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• Anon . A Peep into the Synagogue, or, a Letter to the Jews (London, 178?), reel 2, Jewish Studies Microfilm Collection, University of London; Felsenstein (see note 11), p. 146 dismisses the pamphlet as ‘anti-Judaic’ but notes that Cecil Roth had supposed the author to be a reforming Jew.
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• Ibid.
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• Fuller , Thomas . 1653 . The Infants Advocate of Circumcision on Jewish Children and Baptism on Christian Children London
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• Sharp , John . The Practical Preacher, Consisting of Select Discussions from the Work of the Most eminent Protestant Writers. Vol.IV, (London, 1762), pp.62–76.
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• 1806 . An Enquiry into the Nature of That covenant of which Circumcision was the Sign: and also in to the Similarity of Design in Baptism and Circumcision… ‘Examinator’ [Francis Deakin], (London,), p. 12.
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• Kinghorn , Joseph . 1829 . The Argument in Support of Infant Baptism, or The Covenant of Circumcision Examined, and Shown to be Invalid (London, n.d. [c.], pp.11–12.
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• 1989 . Quarterly Review See for example, ‘On the Present State of the Jews’, XXXVIII (1828) p. 130 ff. (which alludes to their ‘very degraded moral state’; Jewish Studies Collection, University of London, B. Goakman, The Obligation of Christians to Attempt the Conversion of the Jews (London, n.d., [but c.1811]); and in the same collection, A Presbyter of the Church of England, The Obligations of Christians to Attempt the Conversion of the Jews, (London, n.d. [but c.1814]), esp. pp.7–9. A perusal of the Arminian Magazine, later The Methodist Magazine yields up unfavourable associations between Jews and the Devil—e.g. ‘Account of Sarah Ryan’, The Arminian Magazine, 1779, pp. 298–9, which are increasingly replaced by condemnations of other religions, Cf. Review of C. Buchanan's ‘Memoir of the Expediency of an Ecclesiastical Establishment for British India’, The Methodist Magazine, 1806, pp.352–3. For a full explication of Evangelical attitude towards the Jews see Sarah Kocher, ‘Britain and the Holy Land. Prophecy, the Evangelical Movement, and the Conversion and Restoration of the Jews 1790–1845’ (DPhil., University of Oxford,). I am grateful to Nancy Stephens for drawing my attention to Dr. Kocher's work. Kocher demonstrates the centrality of Jewish conversion to the thought of Claudius Buchanan (p.46), a review of whose book is cited above.
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• Bristol Mercury Letter from ‘Cosmopolite’ in the 22 September 1829; see Felsenstein, (see note 11), p. 142.
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• Rose , G. H. 1846 . “ ‘The Early Spread of Circumcision’ in ” . In Collected Tracts London Sarah Kocher (see note 38), p.80.
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• 1879 . The church of Rome: an Imitation in Part of the Church of the Circumcision 14 – 15 . London ‘Octogenarian’
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• Kocher , Sarah . (see note 38), pp,136ff.
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• Fuller , Thomas . (see note 34), p.6.
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• Skefington , William . 1875 . “ ‘Christian Equality (Circumcision)’ ” . In Rev. Baring Gould, Village Preaching for a Year 75 – 84 . London
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• Baring Gould, op. cit, p.84.
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• Baring Gould, op. cit, p.83
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• 1829–1830 . brit milah 770 See for example the uninformed and rather alarming description of a in the report of a lecture by Mr. Lawrence at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in The Lancet and the letter in response in the same volume, p.879.
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• 1846 . The Lancet Letter from ‘Detector’ in Vol. 2 p. 702.
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• 1858 . mohels Light is shed on the fees mid-Victorian could expect to receive in the report of a case in the Court of the Queen's Bench in The Lancet, Vol. 1 p 231.
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• 1835–36 . The Lancet 241 – 3 . Report on William Farr's ‘Lectures Introductory to a course on Hygiene or the Preservation of the Public Health’ in Vol.1
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• Hutchinson , J. 1855 . “ in ” . In Medical Times and Gazette December pp.542–3.
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• Acton , William . 1865 . The Function and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs in Childhood, Youth, Adult Age and Advanced Life Considered in their Physiological, Social and Moral Relations 5 – 6 . London and 79; K.M Newton, ‘Daniel Deronda and Circumcision’, Essays in Criticism, Vol.XXI, (1981) pp.313–27, is wrong to say Acton ‘probably’ advocated infant circumcision. On the general debate in Victorian England about masturbation, and on Acton's ‘obsession’ with it, see Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1990), pp. 195–6 and pp.227–30.
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• Acton, ibid., pp.5–6 and 79.
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• The Lancet Letter from Robert Fowler in Vol.1 (1860), p.383.
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• Newton , K. M. 1981 . Daniel Deronda 316 – 19 . See and Circumcision', Essays in criticism, Vol.31 and Mary Carpenter Wilson, A bit of hen flesh: circumcision and “the signification of the phallus” in Daniel Deronda Genders, Vol.1, (Spring 1988), pp. 1–23; see also the Medical Times and Gazette, 23 October 1852, p.415.
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• 1870 . The Lancet 471 See note 1 and the report in Vol.1 discussing the publication of Dr. Schwarz's report on two fatal circumcisions in the Wiener Med. Presse in which the said Doctor reportedly ‘deprecates the subject with great warmth.’; The Lancet, Vol.2 (1874), p.23, discussing Dr. Levit's pamphlet published in the Allg. Wiener Med. Zeit, 17 Nov. 1874, as well as a conference paper on Levit's work by Dr Kohn delivered at a meeting of the Medical Society of Vienna, on 11 Nov. 1874.
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• Almog , S. , ed. 1988 . Anti-Semitism Through the Ages 287 Oxford The intent was that, with integration, the signs of Jewish peculiarity should disappear. Everyone constantly monitored the process and asked, ‘Are their Jewish traits continuing to disappear’? Jacob Katz, ‘The Prepatory Stage of the Modern Anti-Semitic Movement 1873–1879’ in on Austrian policy.
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• 1874 . The Lancet 823 Letter from ‘a Jewish Surgeon’, Vol.2 and 856.
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• Ibid.
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• Asher , Asher . 1873 . The Jewish Rite of Circumcision, with the Prayers and Laws Appertaining Thereto 9 (London, 5633-)
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• Asher . op. cit., p.32.
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• Bland-Sutton , John . “ ‘Circumcision as a Rite and as a Surgical Operation,’ in his ” . In Selected Lectures and Essays (n.d., 4th edition), pp.209–20.
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