In an escalation of diplomatic tension, U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White recently demanded that charges be dropped against multiple mohels in the city of Antwerp. The demand follows early-morning raids nearly a year ago, back in May 2025, when police confiscated certain ritual tools and targeted practitioners for “illegal circumcisions.” White has slammed the prosecution as “antisemitic harassment,” insisting that the Jewish community be free to perform the thousands-year-old ritual he claims is “done in all civilized nations as a legal procedure.”
The question at hand is whether the Jewish practice of brit milah can be performed by a trained professional who doesn’t possess a medical license. In many European countries, it’s not completely clear.
In places like Ireland, where a mohel was arrested in 2024, prior to the incident, it was understood that there was a distinction between ritual and medical circumcisions. While the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 prohibits the practice of medicine by non-registered persons, the Irish Jewish community historically viewed brit milah as a religious rite, rather than a medical act. Additionally, the timing of the arrest—at the height of the Gaza war when Ireland was openly critical of the military operations of the Israel Defense Forces—led many observers to label Ireland’s actions antisemitic.
Initial media coverage of the Antwerp story appeared to be a clear-cut violation of Belgian law—i.e., the requirement that only medical professionals can perform circumcisions. If this were true, then the Jewish practitioners’ actions were negligent. If they had acted in open defiance of the health standards, then their recklessness could have turned from localized friction into a continent-wide ban.
However, the legal reality is more nuanced. Even though Belgian law technically requires a medical license for the procedure to take place, its application to religious ritual has historically been a “gray zone” of non-enforcement. The country’s legal framework is strictly secular and has long since banned shechitah (the Jewish ritual slaughter of animals for consumption). The status quo regarding ritual circumcision was a functional norm until the authorities’ hands were forced.
The case dates back to 2023, when Rabbi Moshe Aryeh Friedman, a controversial communal figure originally from Brooklyn, N.Y., but living in Europe for decades, filed a police complaint against six mohels, claiming their practice of direct oral suction endangered children’s health.
This practice, known as metzitzah b’peh, has been debated in the Jewish community for more than a century due to its potential health risks, which can cause brain damage or even death. Once Friedman had alerted the authorities, they were legally required to act. But what’s clear is that the mohels were not practicing in defiance of established norms.
While both Ireland and Belgium struggle with enforcement, a middle-ground road map exists elsewhere in Europe called the Nordic Method. In order to bridge the gap between ritual practice and meeting medical standards, a mohel must have a medical professional present at the brit milah. Many countries, such as Sweden, also require some form of pain relief, such as numbing cream, to be administered before the procedure.
Although it may be true that the actions in Belgium and Ireland are legal overreaches directed at the Jewish community, playing the antisemitic card may be doing more harm than good. While White is correct in pushing back against Belgium’s behavior, the time has come to limit cries of antisemitism to when its presence is undisputedly clear.
Demands for regulation on circumcision are unfortunately becoming more present throughout Europe. These attacks, if successful, could make life impossible for the Jewish communities in those regions. But the source of the movement against circumcision comes from and is also directed at the Muslim community—and the Jewish community inevitably got caught in the crossfire.
One of the most recent calls for regulation was in London, after a six-month-old boy died in February 2023 at the hands of an unlicensed Muslim practitioner. Although the Jewish community may disagree with the proposed solutions, the attempts to protect the lives of children cannot be dismissed as inherently antisemitic.
It’s important for those defending the practice to push back in the strongest way possible. But wielding the charge of Jew-hatred, especially in cases where the state is acting on genuine health concerns, increases vulnerability in the current debate and in future antisemitic attacks.
Even though the Belgian government has issued reprimands, the U.S. ambassador is worthy of praise because the effects of his actions can already be seen. Israel has also joined the fray in censuring the country for the raids.
More than anything, Jews need allies, especially in modern-day Europe. Antisemitism must be denounced wherever it rears its ugly head. But when the charge is publicly leveled, the cry of extreme prejudice cannot simply be a knee-jerk response.
