Armed with only a scalpel, a clamp and a metal probe, Philip L. Sherman would routinely carry out his surgical mission in about 15 seconds, leave in as little as 10 minutes and hotfoot it to his car, which was probably parked illegally but perhaps spared a ticket by the inspired placard on his windshield: “Mazel Tov! Bris in progress. Please don’t ticket.”Mr. Sherman, whose website (as well as his vanity license plate) was emoil.com =, claimed to have performed some 26,000 ritual circumcisions, mostly in the New York metropolitan area, during his 45-year career. He was trained in the Jewish religious practice of brit milah — a profession generally spelled “mohel” in English and pronounced “moil.”His record, he said, was 11 in a single day, including two pairs of twins — a considerable scheduling feat, considering that the ritual is to be performed on the eighth day of the baby’s life and during daylight. Mr. Sherman also performed ritual circumcisions on Muslim and Christian infant boys, as well as the son of a man he had circumcised as an infant and the grandsons of two Israeli prime ministers, and in all kinds of places, including Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands and a bar on Third Avenue (for a family who lived upstairs).

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Persons: Philip L, Sherman, Mr, brit milah —, ”, —, Hong Kong Locations: New York, Hong, Cayman Islands