A Finnish couple who employed a British rabbi to circumcise their son must pay their child 1,500 Euros in damages after a Helsinki court found them guilty of conspiracy to commit bodily harm.
Couple Fined for Son’s Circumcision by British Rabbi
A Finnish couple who employed a British rabbi to circumcise their son must pay their child 1,500 Euros in damages after a Helsinki court found them guilty of conspiracy to commit bodily harm.
Moshe and Miriam Levi, members of Helsinki Community Synagogue, asked Chabad of Finland, to organise the circumcision for their son Aviv, their first child.
Dan Kantor, executive director of the Jewish community of Helsinki, said the couple were strictly Orthodox and did not want to use the mohel of the Helsinki shul, or a mohel from Sweden.
He said: “Usually circumcision is performed by our mohel, who is a member of our synagogue.”
Chabad arranged for Rabbi Yossi Simon, of Golders Green, a registered member of the Initiation Society, to fly to Helsinki to perform the circumcision, which took place in Finland in April 2008.
In the morning after the circumcision, Rabbi Simon checked the baby to make sure all was well. He was satisfied the circumcision was fine and returned to London.
But that afternoon the baby was rushed to hospital with excessive bleeding. The boy was treated by Dr Harry Lindahl at Helsinki University hospital and kept in overnight.
Dr Lindahl is a well-known campaigner in the Finnish press against circumcision. He was later called as an expert witness in the case.
Helsinki prosecutors decided to take up the case to attempt to set a legal precedent that circumcision can only be performed by a doctor, not a lay mohel.
Mr and Mrs Levi have now been found guilty of conspiracy to commit bodily harm by Helsinki District Court and must pay Aviv 1,500 Euros for pain and suffering.
The court ruling hinged on the fact that Rabbi Simon did not use an anaesthetic when performing the circumcision. The court did not rule that only doctors can perform circumcision.
A spokesman for the Initiation Society said that their mohelim rarely use anaesthetic when performing circumcisions as using a pain relief cream can cause inflammation, which can cause pain and inhibit the procedure. A pain relief injection could cause more pain to the baby than the procedure itself.
Nevertheless, anaesthetics can be used if parents request it.
Circumcision has already been put on trial in Finland. The Supreme Court in August 2008 ruled in the case of a Muslim boy that circumcision carried out for religious reasons in a medical manner was not a criminal offence, as long as pain relief is used.
But as the brit took place in April 2008, the precedent to use anaesthetic for circumcisions had not yet been set by the Supreme Court case.
The prosecutor is expected to appeal against the decision by the court not to specify that the mohel must be doctor.
Rabbi Simon was unwilling to comment. Helsinki prosecutors attempted to get co-operation with London authorities to prosecute the rabbi in Helsinki but no further action has been taken against him in the UK.
Finland’s Jewish community is made up of approximately 1,600 Jews, with 1,200 living in the capital.
The country has two Orthodox synagogues, one in Helsinki and one in the western city of Turku, where around 200 Jews live. Helsinki Synagogue has recently celebrated its centenary.
Despite fighting alongside the Nazis in World War Two, the Finnish government never actively persecuted Jews after pressure by Lutheran ministers, Finnish bishops and the Social Democratic Party.
Chana
The last paragraph is the one that tells the tale — the Finnish government fought alongside the Nazis, a little-known fact. Does it then surprise anyone when it actively pursues an opportunity to persecute its Jewish citzens today?
kristal V M
“Despite fighting alongside the Nazis in World War Two, the Finnish government never actively persecuted Jew” helping a nazi is persecuting jews.
AD MOSAI !!!!!!!!!!!!!
mey g-d have pity on us all
Mazal Tov
Kinda stupid – all they had to do was give a 1,500 Euro gift to their son as a present. Mazal tov.
Please Hashem, a windfall for them
B“H
May this couple and their son, and the Chabad House in Helsinki, AND the British Mohel (Rabbi Simon) be gebentsht with many many times the fine that the family was charged for the ”crime” of simply being Yidden!
Mesiras nefesh!!!
CH
Rabbi Yossi Simon is one of the best moalim in the world. he flys all over the world for shluchim to do brisim. and is really amazing about it. Kol Hakavod Rabbi Simon
Milhouse
The first two commenters are very very stupid. Finland was very good to the Jews. Why should it not have allied with Germany? We allied with the USSR. Was that any better? Was Stalin less evil than Hitler? In war you take your help where you can find it. Finland needed help and Germany offered it; what were the Finns supposed to do? Turn Germany down and be defeated by the Soviets?!
Helsingin Kyrpa
Please do not buy Finlandia vodka. It is produced by a Finnish government company and we should not support that government and its absurd policies.
yoske yidels
does everyone see mshiach is coming we gotta wake up the Rebbes message is coming hopefully it shouldn’t come in a negative way -lets do tshva and greet mshiach
Engage your brain before writing
To Chana and other such intellectuals,
Finland, as well as the other Scandinavian countries, is generally known as a peace-loving country, with a favourable human-rights record. If you have a knowledge of pre-WWll history, you might understand why some countries allied themselves with the Nazis yemach shemom. Some countries were indeed Jew-haters and agreed with Nazi propaganda and Nazi policy, while others aligned themselves to throw off the yoke of a different oppressor. In Finland’s case, they wanted to rid themselves of the Soviets and for this reason they sided with the Nazis.
While it is regrettable that they acted so, no matter what the reason, it is wrong to give a simplistic brush-off of a whole country without having a better understanding of world events.
Milhouse
“Engage your brain”, I don’t find it at all regrettable that the Finns decided to accept German help against the USSR, any more than I find it regrettable that the USA allied itself with the USSR against Germany. Morally there was no difference between the Nazis and the Communists. And in a war morality shouldn’t be a factor in choosing allies anyway; you go with whichever allies you can find, because all that matters is winning the war. But given that the Finns did accept Germany’s help, it would have been only natural that they should accede to Hitler’s request about the Jews; so it’s “vegam charvoinoh zochur latoiv” that they refused, and they made the Nazis serve together with Jews.