[Note: As this article is reconstructed from a copy some content/layout may vary from the original posting.]
Jewish cannibals - They fought over who ate the babies' freshly severed foreskin
Professor Ariel Toaff, the son of Rome's former chief rabbi wrote about cannibalism in Judaism in his 2007 book, Blood Passover:
One form of magical cannibalism related to circumcision, may be found in a custom highly widespread among both the Ashkenazi Jewish communities of the Mediterranean region. The women present at the circumcision ceremony but not yet blessed with progeny of the male sex, anxiously awaited the cutting of the foreskin of the child. At this point, throwing inhibition to the winds, as if at a pre-established signal, the women hurled themselves upon that piece of bloody flesh. The luckiest woman is alleged to have snatched it up and gulped it down immediately, before she could be mobbed by the competing females, who must have been no less hardened and highly motivated. The triumphant winner was in no doubt whatever that the proud tit-bit would be infallibly useful in causing the much-coveted virile member to germinate inside the impregnated abdomen through sympathetic medicine. The struggle for the foreskin among women without male progeny appears in some ways similar to today's competition among spinsters and nubile for the conquest of the bride’s bouquet after the wedding ceremony.
Giulio Morosini, alias Shemuel Nahmias, remembered with much annoyance this repellent custom, which he had seen rather in vogue among the young Jewish women of Venice: "The superstition of the women is remarkable in this regard. If sterile women wishing to become pregnant happened, as they frequently did, to be present [at the circumcision ceremony], not a single one of them would hesitate to fight off the others and steal the foreskin; and the first one to grab it never hesitates to fling it in her mouth and swallow it as a sympathetic remedy of extremely great effectiveness in causing her to be fruitful."
Rabbi Shabbatai Lipshütz confirmed this extraordinary custom "of the struggle amongst the women to swallow the foreskin after the cutting of the foreskin, as a wonderful secret (segullah) in the production of male children". He added there were rabbis who permitted it, such as the famous North African cabbalist Chaim Yosef David Azulay, known as the Chidah (the Enigma), and the rabbi from Salonica, Chaim Abraham Miranda, while others energetically prohibited it, considering it a scandalous and impermissible practice (24). But the cabbalistic herb alchemist (Rafael Ohana), expert in the secrets of procreation, although he possessed little skill in gynecological sciences, referred with satisfaction to the results obtained from women having swallowed the foreskin of a circumcised boy, even in recent times. In his guide, intended for women wishing to have children and entitled Mar'eh ha-yaladim ("He Who Shows the Children"), the expert North African rabbi advised that, to make it more appetizing, the unusual dish be covered with honey, like a home-made sweet. The magical and empirical tradition linked to the foreskin of circumcision as a fecundating element was not lost over the course of the centuries, but was protected by the secrets of the practical Cabbalah despite the disdainful opposition of rationalistic rabbis."
Other sources
"Among the Jews of Turkey, a woman who had given birth to one child and then could not conceive again would swallow a prepuce. Several Hebrew books of charms refer to this method of obtaining fertility "For a barren woman, so that she conceive, let her swallow the foreskin of a circumcised child.""
On Jewish Folklore, by Raphael Patai (1983)
"In some Jewish North African and Sephardic communities, barren women swallowed foreskins, sometimes dipped in honey, to promote pregnancy and the birth of sons"
From Abraham to America: A History of Jewish Circumcision, by Eric Kline Silverman (2006)
------------------------------