Richard,
You point out several follies of the outlook of Jewish thinking and it's effect, but in my opinion, you fail to address the main issues by ignoring science and basic sociology.
I quote from usenet:
Quote
Finally - and perhaps most importantly - it should be noted that Dr.
Schoen "forgot" to mention that rabbis are advocating the amputation
of
far more infant foreskin than God originally/allegedly commanded...
Ancient rabbis changed the Biblical rule on circumcision - from "tip"
circumcision to total foreskin amputation - in part because Jews -
including Jewish priests - were growing fond of wrestling in the nude
with Greeks (as was the Greek custom of the day) - and penises
without
tips were objects of derision - so Jews were stretching them - so
ancient rabbis eventually decided to change the Biblical rule and
amputate the entire foreskin in infancy...
"...[T]he consequence was [the] attempt to appear like the Greeks by
epispasm ('making themselves foreskins')... [See Circumcision in
Singer
I (and 400 others, eds.), 1901]
Forty years later (134 BCE), the high priest of Jerusalem, John
Hyrcanus, forcibly circumcised the Idumeans, "leading them to think
they
were Jews." [Gribetz J, Greenstein EL, Stein RS. The Timetables of
Jewish History. New York: Simon and Schuster 1993. Judah Gribetz is
president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.]
It was during this period that Jewish priests apparently decided that
stretching the foreskin was wrong and threatened the extermination of
those Jews who stretched their foreskins:
"The Book of Jubilee (xv. 26-27), written in the time of John
Hyrcanus,
has the following: '...God's anger will be kindled against the
children
of the covenant if they make the members of their body appear like
those
of the Gentiles, and they will be expelled and exterminated from the
earth.'" [Charles, The Book of Jubilees iv.-ix. iii. 190-192, under
Circumcision in Singer I (and 400 others, eds.) The Jewish
Encyclopedia.
New York: Ktav 1901.]
But Jews of this period apparently construed the "no stretching"
decree
to mean that it was all right not to circumcise; for when the son of
John Hyrcanus took power in 104 BCE (by imprisoning his mother and
killing his brother), he forced circumcision on the residents of
Galilee
- "many of them Jews." [Gribetz 1993]
The shift to total foreskin amputation is believed to have occurred
one
hundred years later, after the unsuccessful Bar Kokba uprising
against
the Roman Emperor Hadrian (who had completely outlawed circumcision):
"In order to prevent the obliteration of the "seal of the
covenant"...the Rabbis, probably after the war of Bar Kokba (see Yeb.
l.c.; Gen. R. xivi.), instituted the 'peri'ah' (the laying bare of
the
glans), without which circumcision was declared to be of no value
(Shab.
xxx. 6)." [See Circumcision in Singer I (and 400 others, eds.), 1901]
"Thenceforward [total foreskin amputation - the laying bare of the
glans] was the mark of Jewish loyalty." [See Circumcision in Singer I
(and 400 others, eds.), 1901]
Wallerstein indirectly noted in 1983 that ancient rabbis changed the
Biblical rule on circumcision:
"Originally, the surgery involved only cutting the tip of the
foreskin.
This was changed in the Hellenic Period to prevent [Jews from]
elongat[ing] the foreskin stump in order to appear uncircumcised."
[Wallerstein E. Humanistic Judaism 1983;11(4):46]
And in the June 1997 issue of Moment, Hershel Shanks, editor of
Moment,
noted that "the rabbis of the Talmud OFTEN changed the Biblical
rules"
(emphasis added):
"A friend...[argued]...with regard to the Orthodox rabbis'
pronouncement
declaring Reform and Conservative not Judaism...[that]...t's all
traceable to the [U.S.] Reform decision nearly 15 years ago to adopt
patrilineality - a child born of a Jewish father, if raised as a Jew,
is
Jewish....
"....n Biblical times, Jewish descent was determined by the
Jewishness of the father...The rabbis changed that 2,000 year-old
tradition...Indeed the rabbis of the Talmud OFTEN changed the
Biblical
rules (emphases added)..."
[Shanks H. Tolerance v. Halachah. Moment. (Jun)1997;22(3):6, 8-9]
I won't print the information here regarding Morris Fishbein Yemach Shemoi Ye'abed Zichroi (May his name and memory be obliterated) the so called "Hitler of the healing arts", who promoted the agenda of male circumcision in America, thus mutilating the genitalia of hundreds of millions of boys, over the past 100 years, for fear of Anti-Semitism.
Our follies are skin deep my friend Richard, and they go back around 2,000 years. Their repercussions are longstanding.