City Hall proposes warning about dangers of Orthodox Jewish circumcision rite

...and respect for traditional practices by the religious community

“It's based on the real world realities of a community that the city needs to relate to respectfully,” de Blasio said in Albany on Wednesday.

The goal remains to reduce the incidences of neonatal herpes. But de Blasio is telling the board of health that the best way to do that is to ... allow metzitzah b'peh to continue

• However, if the mohel tested positive for herpes but his strain did not match the infant’s, the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene would ask him to stop doing circumcisions, but if he wants to, he could continue to do circumcisions without penalty.

• In no cases in which a mohel is infected is the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene likely to release that mohel's name to the public, the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene admitted in the aftermath of the new deal. And this means haredim will not know the risk of using that mohel and, worse yet, neither will the non-haredi Jewish families who often contract with a haredi mohel without even realizing the mohel's affiliation.

• The HSV-1 virus is notoriously hard to capture and test. Basic tests for HSV-1 get frequent false negatives, and attempts to match DNA are equally elusive, meaning it is very likely infected mohels will be missed.

• Infected mohels whose strain of HSV-1 do not match the ill baby will be allowed to continue to put other children at risk of serious brain damage and death by continuing to do MBP.

• There are also several easy ways to game the non-binding system.

• Everything in the agreement first depends on babies contracting herpes. In other words, the dangerous practice of MBP is not banned, all mohels are not being routinely tested, surprise city monitoring of circumcisions is not being done and neither are any other steps that would protect babies

• There is no monitoring or inspection procedure in place to enforce a ban on an infected mohel, and the city will not be releasing the names of infected mohels, even if their herpes strain matches that of an ill infant. Therefore haredim will will not know a mohel is banned unless haredi rabbis want them to, meaning any ban is almost unenforceable.