Brit milah Jew trained in the practice of "brit milah", the "covenant of circumcision." According to traditional Jewish law, in the absence of a grown free Jewish male expert, anyone who has the required skills is also authorized to perform the circumcision, provided that they are Jewish. However, most streams of non-Orthodox Judaism allow female mohels, called "mohalot" (, plural of "mohelet", feminine of "mohel"), without restriction. In 1984, Deborah Cohen became the first certified Reform mohelet; she was certified by the Berit Mila program of Reform Judaism. It is customary for the brit to be held in a synagogue, but it
If This Is a Man (German for "sub-humans"), and to Levi's examination of the degree to which it was possible for a prisoner in Auschwitz to retain his or her humanity. The poem explains the title and sets the theme of the book: humanity in the midst of inhumanity. The last part of the poem, beginning "meditate", explains Levi's purpose in having written it: to record what happened so that later generations will ponder (a more literal translation of "meditare") the significance of the events he lived through. It also parallels the language of the "V'ahavta", the Jewish prayer that commands followers to remember and