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My buddy, Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen, has written this column about a controversial November ballot measure in San Francisco that would ban circumcision for males under 18.

A bill to ban circumcision of all males under the age of 18 will be on the ballot in San Francisco this November. This is alarming because circumcision of all males is the single most basic ritual of Judaism. Banning circumcision is a direct attack on the practice of Judaism, even if it is presented as having other motives. In fact, history shows us that viral anti-Semitism always comes to town in disguise, usually portraying its motives as a need to protect innocent victims from demonic Jews.

In the past, violent lynch mob pogrom attacks on Jews and Judaism were launched to protect the peasants and townsfolk from Jews who had “poisoned the wells.” The Nazis were just trying to protect racial purity. More recently, Jew-hatred has been packaged as an attempt to protect the “Palestinian” natives from the evil colonialist Jewish State, and now, in 21st century California, the attack on Judaism is being promoted as protecting Jewish babies from their demonic Jewish parents.

A second characteristic of the behavioral virus we call anti-Semitism is its compulsive use of cartoons in spreading its libels. Anti-Semitic movements from Nazism to Fascism to Stalinism to contemporary Islamism all share a surprisingly intensive use of anti-Semitic cartoons in their campaigns. And so it is with the framers of the anti-circumcision bill.

The bill was written by a private non-profit organization based in San Diego, California with chapters in sixteen states. It is led by someone named Matthew Hess. Their goal is a nation-wide ban on the practice of circumcision and, sure enough, Matthew just could not resist the compulsion to draw

those standard Nazi blood-libel caricatures of fiendish Rabbis sacrificing innocent babies. Hess, to push his campaign for the anti-circumcision bill, wrote and edited a propagandizing comic book called “Foreskinman.” The work is incredibly rich in Nazi ideology and filled with vile anti-Semitic imagery. The shockingly blatant anti-Semitism of the piece was so obvious that, in response, the woman who had been a proponent of putting the same bill onto the ballot in Santa Monica has now withdrawn the measure from consideration.

The comic book stars a blond, Aryan-looking superhero that interrupts a circumcision ceremony, beats up the fiendish, grinning Rabbi (named Monster Mohel), thrashes the Rabbi’s machine gun-toting Jewish accomplices, and takes the Jewish baby from his Jewish father. The child’s father shouts “Give me back my son” but our Nordic hero flies the terrified baby off to safety.

The baby, now rescued from the Jews, is taken on a two-day trip to a group of beach-dwelling pagans… and given to them. As the pagan woman who has been given the stolen Jewish baby announces at the end of this touching saga, she is now free to “raise him as one of our own.”

The history of the attempts to destroy Judaism is punctuated with anti-circumcision laws. In 167 BC the Syrian Greek occupiers of the Land of Israel banned circumcision. A few hundred years after that the Romans occupiers of the Land of Israel banned circumcision in their attempt to destroy Judaism. The Nazis banned circumcision, as did the Stalinists. Banning circumcision is simply a synonym for banning Judaism.

And while we’re at it, here’s a question for you. Why does the Christian calendar start on Jan. 1? Shouldn’t the Christian calendar start on Dec. 25? … the day of Jesus’ birth? What made Jan.1 so important? It’s simple. Jan. 1 (when baby Jesus was 8 days old) was the day of his circumcision.

Yaakov Kirschen is a political cartoonist and columnist for Cagle Cartoons Inc. Read more of Kirschen’s columns here, and check out his cartoons here.