Community navigates pandemic regulations to import mohel from Israel
Eleven-year old Avraham joined four Hong Kong families as they celebrated the long-awaited brit of their babies on Monday. With no resident mohel, families usually fly a mohel in from Israel when the need arises, but all four boys, aged one- to four-months were born during the pandemic lockdown while Hong Kong’s skies were firmly shut.
Rabbi Mordechai and Goldie Avtzon, with the assistance of Rabbi Yaakov Herzog of Brit Yosef Yitzchak in Israel, secured the services of Dr. Binyamin Raskin, a mohel and surgeon in Israel. Members of the Hong Kong Jewish community lent their medical, legal and political experience to the efforts and, with the help of the Consulate of Israel and the Interior Ministry, they obtained a visa for the doctor who quarantined for two weeks before performing the circumcisions.
Avraham, a Jewish child born in Hong Kong first learned about the mitzvah of Brit Milah when he attended Camp Chabad in June. He elected to have a brit and take the Jewish name Avraham, after the first Jewish patriarch with whom the mitzvah of Brit Milah originated.
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Rivka Malka
Baruch Adonai Haolam amen ve amen
Ben Moshe
Lovely story, but what about social distance, masks?
Jay E.
Mind your own business. You don’t know the circumstances. Maybe they took off their masks to take the beautiful picture. Maybe they were recently tested negative for the virus. A picture is a snapshot in time…don’t make assumptions especially when it comes to other families.