German silver circumcision medal

This commemorative medal was struck on the occasion of a circumcision (brit mila), the rite by which a Jewish boy enters, on the eighth day, into the covenant of Abraham. An object of family Memory rather than ritual use, it often depicts the scene of the ceremony, with the mohel (circumciser), the godfather and the child, accompanied by a blessing inscription and the date. The art of the Jewish medal flourished in Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where engravers produced these silver pieces for wealthy families. It belongs to Jewish numismatics and attests to the importance accorded to the event of entry into the covenant.