Now that many brises have to be celebrated over Zoom, Emily Blake, Somerstein’s 64-year-old veteran mohel who has dedicated more than three decades of her life to this work, likes to begin the ceremony with a pun: they’re doing this “chai-tech” (“chai” means life in Hebrew). 

“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.”

“I am not a cut-and-run. I’m touchy feely. I do a lot of talking to the family. I customize the service. I have a lot of alternative readings I offer that run the gamut from traditional Jewish all the way through Buddhist poems or Native American poems. I want the family to tell me what’s authentic to who they are.”