JTA: Leading House members urge Iceland to back down on circumcision ban

The leading Republican and Democrat in the House on foreign policy joined to urge Iceland to stand down from a proposed bill to ban circumcision.

“While Jewish and Muslim populations in Iceland may be small, your country’s ban could be exploited by those who stoke xenophobia and anti-Semitism in countries with more diverse populations,” said the letter sent April 5 to the embassy of Iceland in Washington, D.C., by Reps. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., its top Democrat.