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This policy change, which is still in the works, would not require a mohel who tested positive for different herpes strain to stop using oral suction during circumcision on other babies; he would still be able to infect another child, in other words. The new regulation would also only take effect after a baby is found to have contracted the incurable, potentially life-threatening disease, and while the mohel in that case would theoretically be prohibited from infecting other babies, it would be a measure after the fact for that one particular infant. Nevertheless, ultra-Orthodox groups are already lauding the change, with one rabbi telling The New York Times that, “It is to Mayor de Blasio’s eternal credit that he recognized how profoundly offensive the regulation was to our community.”

The issue, thus, is of competing notions of offensiveness. On the one hand, there’s the affront to religious freedom carried out by municipal interference in a centuries-old custom. On the other, there’s the profound offensiveness of unnecessarily exposing infants to disease, never mind the moral indecency of a grown man putting his lips to an infant’s penis. One might think the outrage bred from the latter offence would trump the religious indignation from the former. Evidently, in New York and elsewhere, it does not.

The implication is that ultra-Orthodox communities are generally left to police themselves, lest politicians face repercussions of too much interference at the polls

There are two reasons for that. The first, fairly obvious reason is the political power conferred through support from the Jewish community, especially from the highly organized ultra-Orthodox community, which comes out to vote in droves and often as a united bloc. A lengthy feature published in the November issue of the New Yorker described how political support from the Hasidic community in Brooklyn’s Borough Park ultimately led the elected district attorney to drop the ball — to put it mildly — on allegations of serial sexual abuse launched against a prominent cantor in the community. The implication is that ultra-Orthodox communities are generally left to police themselves, lest politicians face repercussions of too much interference at the polls.