Eliot Spitzer’s transition team has yet to decide a single appointee. But speculation that the Democratic governor-elect may tap New York City health commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden for the state’s top medical post has some Orthodox activists worried.

“It would alienate a very large faction of our community,” said Rabbi Jacob Spitzer, a Borough Park activist on health-related issues who has met with Frieden to discuss the city’s investigation of fatal neonatal herpes believed to have been transmitted through a controversial circumcision procedure. “I would strongly advise the Spitzer administration to look for another candidate.”

Rabbi Spitzer, who is not related to the governor-elect, described as “adverse” his experience with the commissioner, who has worked to strongly discourage, if not ban, the procedure, known as metzitza b’peh, adding “he has never been accommodating to our community, especially lately, and has some very serious issues about the circumcision practices in our community. We found him to be extremely intolerant and unreasonable.”

Perhaps the most activist health commissioner in city history, Frieden is the architect of the smoking ban championed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and current efforts to ban trans-fats from restaurants.

Crain’s New York Business reported last month that Frieden’s efforts seem to have caught the eye of the reform-minded Spitzer, listing him among potential appointees. Spokeswomen for both Frieden and Spitzer had no comment.

Placing Frieden at the helm of the state health department would likely signal an end to the state’s relatively passive approach to the metzitza b’peh controversy. Earlier this year the state’s current health commissioner, Dr. Antonia Novella, met with Orthodox leaders and announced a set of guidelines that practitioners of metzitza b’peh should use to avoid the transmission of herpes to infants. Those nonbinding guidelines were rejected by Frieden.

Another Orthodox activist who has had meetings with Frieden about the circumcision controversy, but asked to remain anonymous because he deals with the city and state on other matters, said “I’d be very curious, if he did assume that role, if he would reverse the position the state health department has taken with respect to metzitza b’peh.”

One Bloomberg insider speculated that Frieden, out of loyalty to the mayor, would not leave his post with three years remaining of the term.

Rabbi David Niederman of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, a Satmar leader who has attended meetings with city and state officials to discuss metzitza b’peh, said he was confident, based on comments Spitzer made in a Jewish Week interview, that the new governor felt the matter was being handled by the city and did not require state action.

“My sense is the city was dealing with it so the state doesn’t need to get involved,” Spitzer said then.

Although metzitza b’peh is practiced in Orthodox communities throughout the state, the cases of infection under investigation occurred in New York City. Rabbi Niederman said that in nearly a year since the city required that any suspected cases of neonatal herpes transmitted by metzitza b’peh be reported to health authorities, none has.

TJW