In 1864, Rabbi Bernard Illowy of New Orleans write a letter to Der Israelit asking for assistance on the
following issue. A Jewish man married a non-Jewish woman and they had a son. The boy was not Jewish but
the parents wanted to have the son circumcized in infancy to facilitate a possible conversion when he reaches maturity.
Rabbi Illowy forbade this practice. The rabbinic community in Germany disagreed whether to circumcize the boy.
This issue reflected both a halakhic disagreement and two view son the best way to preserve the vitality of Orthodoxy in
Germany at the time.
