Although some Jewish people throughout history have chosen not to circumcise, the idea of a replacement ceremony for the traditional bris is relatively new. One of the first known rabbi-led brit shalom ceremonies took place in the mid-1980s and was officiated by Rabbi Nathan Segal (1949-2019). In addition to being a non-circumcising Jew, Rabbi Nathan was also a musician and singer, and performed Jewish folk music at the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969.
Early on, it could be difficult or even impossible for parents to find a rabbi to perform a brit shalom; it was just too new and outside of mainstream Jewish practice. So parents had to get inventive. An underground grassroots movement was born: parents passed along the names of willing officiants, and officiants shared newly-created rituals. Before the publication of Celebrating Brit Shalom, photocopied pages of brit shalom liturgy were passed along parent-to-parent and rabbi-to-rabbi. These stapled copies — some of them in Bruchim’s archives — are among the first examples of family- and rabbi-led brit shalom ceremonies.
