Jewish Women Move Into a Male Domain: Ritual Circumcision
The New York Times featured Emily in a February 28, 2020 article titled, “Jewish Women Move Into a Male Domain: Ritual Circumcision. Female mohels are in high demand.”
"Dr. Emily Blake, a mohel in Rockland County, is often asked how long women have been in the bris business. “The honest answer is we’ve been doing this for thousands of years.” In the Old Testament, she pointed out, Moses’s wife Zipporah circumcised his son.
The job these days does come with occasional harassment, Dr. Blake said. It’s “anti-Semitism merged with anti-circumcision,” she explained. “It’s, ‘How could you do this and you are horrible, and I hope every man that you’ve attacked comes back to attack you.’”
But Dr. Blake is committed. She wanted to be a rabbi as a child. When she went to medical school, she studied to be an ob-gyn. But as someone deeply drawn to Judaism, Dr. Blake didn’t understand why she was performing circumcisions in hospitals as part of her residency, but not for Jewish families.
She worked as an ob-gyn for 20 years before turning to her mohel work full time. Now, Dr. Blake averages a bris every other day, sometimes more.
Marie Birman, an administrative director at N.Y.U.’s investment office, appreciated how much time Dr. Blake spent with her family during her son’s bris in 2019. “We had food after, a nice spread,” Ms. Birman said. “She stuck around and hung out with us and engaged with my family. It wasn’t just business.”
