Brit milah

The brit milah (Hebrew: בְּרִית מִילָה, Modern Israeli: [bʁit miˈla], Ashkenazi: [bris ˈmilə]; "covenant of circumcision"), or bris (Yiddish: ברית, romanized: bris), is the ceremony of circumcision in Judaism and Samaritanism during which a newborn male's foreskin is surgically removed. According to the Book of Genesis, God commanded the biblical patriarch Abraham to be circumcised: an act to be followed by his descendants on the eighth day of life symbolizing the covenant between God and the Jewish people. Today, it is generally performed by a mohel on the eighth day after the infant's birth and is followed by a celebratory meal known as a seudat mitzvah. Brit milah is considered among the most important and central commandments in Judaism, and the rite has played a central role in Jewish history and Jewish culture. The Talmud, when discussing the importance of brit milah, considers it equal to all other mitzvot (commandments). Barring extraordinary circumstances, Abraham's descendants who voluntarily fail to undergo brit milah are believed to suffer Kareth, which is, in Jewish theology, the extinction of the soul and denial of a share in the World to Come. The brit is understood by Jews to signify acceptance into the ongoing covenant between God and the Jewish people, which is why most gerim (converts to Judaism) undergo a form of brit to finalize conversion. Historical conflicts between Jews and European civilizations have occurred several times over brit milah, including multiple campaigns of Jewish ethnic, cultural, and religious persecution, with subsequent bans and restrictions on the practice as an attempted means of forceful assimilation, most famously in the Maccabean Revolt by the Seleucid Empire. "In Jewish history, the banning of circumcision (brit milah) has historically been a first step toward more extreme and violent forms of persecution". These periods have generally been linked...