Hundreds of Jews and Muslims marched in Berlin on Sunday to demand an explicit right to circumcision, enshrined in law.
The protest was prompted by a Cologne regional court's ruling that the circumcision of young boys constituted bodily harm and reports that a rabbi in Bavaria was being investigated over the practice.
The German government has since announced it will legislate to make sure the practice is legal.
A protester wears a t-shirt with the slogan 'Circumcised and you know it' at Bebelplatz in Berlin
Christians, Muslims and Jews, religious and secular, joined the protest, some wearing tongue-in-cheek t-shirts declaring 'Circumcised...And You Know It'.
The protest was supported by more than 50 organizations and institutions, including the German Protestant Church, the Turkish Community chair and the Berlin archbishopric, according the German newspaper Deutsche Welle.
President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, called it "unbearable that we Jews are being branded as child tormenters and that Jewish life is being presented as illegitimate in some way."
Berlin has imposed new legal conditions on parents who have their young boys circumcised.
Both parents must give written permission after being informed of the risks of the procedure, and provide proof of the "religious motivation and religious necessity of the circumcision" before the child is old enough to take the decision himself.