The Chabad movement is sending emissaries, a rabbi and his wife, to Iceland, an island nation with 250 Jews where ritual slaughter of animals is illegal and circumcision is poised to be outlawed as well.
Rabbi Avi Feldman, 27, of Brooklyn, New York and his Sweden-born wife Mushky are slated to settle with their two daughters in Reykjavík, the world’s northernmost capital city and Europe's only capital without a synagogue, later this year, the couple told JTA last week.
The announcement closely followed news last month that lawmakers from four political parties in Iceland submitted a bill proposing to outlaw non-medical circumcision of boys younger than 18 and equates that practice, common among Jews and Muslims, with female genital mutilation – the custom of removing parts of a girl’s clitoris, which is common in some African Muslim communities. [...]
The absence of infrastructure for Jewish communities can be seen as “a challenge,” the rabbi said, “but it’s also a tremendous opportunity, to set up a living breathing community,” he said. Notwithstanding, local Jews have celebrated holidays in Iceland also without a resident rabbi, often with help from yeshiva students and Chabad rabbis who came there especially to celebrate the dates, Rabbi Feldman said, calling this “inspiring and very special.”
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