Mohel

A mohel performs brit milah, the ritual circumcision of a Jewish boy on the eighth day of his life, a rite understood in Jewish tradition as fulfilling the covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 17 and observed, with only narrow exceptions for medical necessity, across the great majority of Jewish religious practice regardless of denominational affiliation, making it one of the most widely retained ritual observances even among otherwise largely secular Jewish families. Training for the role traditionally combines apprenticeship under an experienced mohel with instruction in the specific religious laws governing the rite's timing, method and the accompanying blessings and ceremony, and many contemporary mohalim, particularly in North America, also hold formal medical credentials as physicians, reflecting an increasing expectation, though not a universal requirement, that the practitioner combine religious authorization with recognized surgical competence.

The practice has drawn periodic public health scrutiny and, in some jurisdictions, regulatory attention, particularly regarding metzitzah b'peh, a traditional practice among some Orthodox communities involving direct oral suction as part of the rite, which health authorities in several cities have linked to rare cases of neonatal herpes infection, producing an ongoing and sometimes contentious negotiation between religious practice, parental choice and public health regulation that has played out most visibly in New York City health department rules adopted and revised over the 2010s.

A mohel's training today generally follows one of two overlapping tracks rather than a single fixed path. Some mohalim are physicians who add specific training in the ritual, halakhic, and traditional surgical requirements of brit milah to their existing medical qualification, a route that has become more common as some Jewish communities place growing weight on formal medical credentials alongside religious ones. Others train through a dedicated apprenticeship under an experienced, certified mohel, learning the surgical technique hands on over an extended period without necessarily holding a separate medical degree, a route with a much older pedigree within Jewish communal practice. Certifying bodies, generally organized denominationally or regionally, oversee both routes and issue the certification that allows a mohel to perform the rite professionally within a given community's recognized standards.

Non Orthodox Jewish movements have in recent decades also certified women as mohalot, reflecting those movements' broader approach to gender and religious office, a development not accepted within Orthodox practice, where the role remains understood as reserved to men in keeping with Orthodox interpretation of the relevant Jewish legal sources.