‘So what does he do with all those foreskins?’

Talk about lines you never expected to see in a daily newspaper ... In an article in the Houston Chronicle about a retired doctor now working as a mohel, Uriel Heilman writes about the common questions Max Mintz hears and says this: “So what does he do with all those foreskins?”

Even in writing last summer about The Circumcision Wars, I didn’t come across that question. Here’s the answer:

It depends, he says, on what the parents want.

Some ask that it be buried, in accordance with Jewish tradition, and it ends up in a pot of soil or in the backyard. Others want to keep it, and Mintz hands it over wrapped in a piece of aluminum foil. Most parents forget about it, though, and Mintz simply disposes of it.

“According to Jewish religious tradition, if you cut your arm off, you bury it so it comes back to you during the resurrection of the dead,” Mintz says. “But you don’t need your foreskin back. You can just throw it away. But if they want me to bury it - no problem, I have plenty of places to put it.”

Read the rest here.