# Jacob Snowman

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{{Short description|British doctor and mohel}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
'''Jacob Snowman''' (24 November 1871&nbsp;– 28 February 1959)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.geni.com/people/Jacob-Snowman-M-D-M-R-C-S/6000000081968152154 |title=Dr. Jacob Snowman, M.D., M.R.C.S. |date=24 November 1871 |publisher=GENi |accessdate=April 28, 2020}}</ref> was a British doctor and [mohel](/source/mohel),<ref name=Rashty25Jul>{{cite news|work=The Jewish Chronicle|url=http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/109723/bring-me-royal-baby-and-i’ll-give-him-snip-says-top-mohel|title=Bring me the royal baby and I'll give him the snip, says top mohel|date=July 25, 2013|accessdate=December 22, 2015|first=Sandy|last=Rashty}}</ref> notable for having reportedly [circumcise](/source/circumcise)d [King Charles&nbsp;III](/source/King_Charles%26nbsp%3BIII) in December 1948,<ref name=Darby13Oct>{{cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/10049615|title=The British royal family's circumcision tradition: Genesis and evolution of a contemporary legend |first1=Robert|first2=John|last1=Darby|last2=Cozijn|journal=SAGE Open|date=October 13, 2013|volume=3 |issue=4 |doi=10.1177/2158244013508960 |s2cid=146483223 |accessdate=December 22, 2015|doi-access=free}}</ref> and possibly other members of the [British nobility](/source/British_nobility) and [royal family](/source/British_royal_family).<ref name=Isaaman28Aug/>

Snowman was the son of Abraham Snowman (1849–1918), a picture dealer. He was the older brother to both painter [Isaac Snowman](/source/Isaac_Snowman) (1873–1947) and jeweller [Emanuel Snowman](/source/Emanuel_Snowman) (1886–1970), who married into the prominent [Wartski](/source/Wartski) family of jewellers and became the company chairman.<ref name=Isaaman28Aug>{{cite news|url=http://www.thejc.com/arts/books/143258/geoffrey-munn-a-world-authority-faberge-jewellery-and-wartski-dynasty|title=Geoffrey Munn - a world authority on Faberge jewellery and the Wartski dynasty|work=The Jewish Chronicle|first=Gerald|last=Isaaman|date=August 28, 2015|accessdate=December 22, 2015}}</ref> Wartski has enjoyed generations of Royal patronage, supplying the [Welsh gold](/source/Welsh_gold) wedding bands for Charles and [Camilla Parker Bowles](/source/Camilla_Parker_Bowles), as well as the bands worn by [Prince William](/source/Prince_William) and [Catherine Middleton](/source/Catherine_Middleton).<ref name= Isaaman28Aug/>

John Cozijn and Robert Darby, who is an historian of the British circumcision movement (though circumcision is now uncommon in the United Kingdom),<ref>Darby, Robert. ''A Surgical Temptation: The Demonization of the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain'', Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005, pp. 368.</ref> have suggested that the British Royal Family invited Rabbi Snowman ("rabbi" is an honorific commonly afforded to mohels) to circumcise the infant Prince Charles at [Buckingham Palace](/source/Buckingham_Palace) most likely because of his extensive experience with circumcision, and perhaps because non-Jewish family physicians were deemed less familiar or adept with the procedure (which was widely performed on British middle- and upper-class male infants from the 1890s through the 1940s).<ref name=Darby13Oct/> Darby and Cozijn have cast doubt on claims, arising in the 1990s and widely reported after the birth of [Prince George](/source/Prince_George_of_Wales) in 2013, that a royal family "circumcision tradition" extends back to [Queen Victoria](/source/Queen_Victoria)'s era, or even to [George I](/source/George_I_of_Great_Britain) in the early 18th century,<ref name=Rashty25Jul/><ref name=Wallop31Mar>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10201882/Circumcision-is-one-of-the-oddities-of-the-Royal-Family.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130728051107/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10201882/Circumcision-is-one-of-the-oddities-of-the-Royal-Family.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 28, 2013|title='Circumcision is one of the oddities of the Royal Family'|date=March 31, 2015|accessdate=December 22, 2015|work=[The Telegraph](/source/The_Daily_Telegraph)|first=Harry|last=Wallop}}</ref> grounded in secretive [Davidic](/source/Davidic_line) or [British Israelist](/source/British_Israelism) religious tradition.<ref name=Darby13Oct/>

Snowman wrote specialist articles and at least four books, including ''Jewish Law and Sanitary Science'' (1896),[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/320177240] ''Clinical Surgical Diagnosis'' (Second English Edition, 1917),[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/776289786]  ''Lenzmann's Manual of Emergencies, Medical, Surgical and Obstetric: their Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment'' (1919, based upon ''Emergencies in Medical Practice'' by {{Interlanguage link|Richard Lenzmann|de}}),[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9114525] a revised ''Manual of Emergencies, Medical, Surgical, and Obstetric'' (1926),[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/504846706] ''A Short History of Talmudic Medicine'' (with thirteen editions between 1935 and 1974),[https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1205856] and ''The Surgery of Ritual Circumcision'' (1904).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Snowman |first=Jacob |url=http://archive.org/details/b28091504 |title=The Surgery of Ritual Circumcision |date=1904 |publisher=London : published under the auspices of the Medical Board of the Initiation Society |others=Wellcome Library}}</ref> The latter book was published in at least three distinct editions, the last appearing posthumously in 1962 under the co-authorship of his son Leonard Snowman (1900–1976).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Snowman |first=Jacob |date=1962 |title=The Surgery of Ritual Circumcision |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/504846719 |access-date=2022-09-10 |website=www.worldcat.org}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Jacob Snowman |birth=1871 |death=1959}}
{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Snowman, Jacob}}
Category:20th-century British medical doctors
Category:Circumcision
Category:English people of Polish-Jewish descent
Category:Jewish English writers
Category:Mohalim
Category:1871 births
Category:1959 deaths
Jacob

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Jacob Snowman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Snowman) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Snowman?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.