Posted on 06/26/2018 12:12:24 PM PDT by Simon Green
The national flag carrier for Israel, El Al, is in hot water again for moving women passengers on a flight to accommodate ultra-orthodox Jewish men.
El Al flouted a 2017 court ruling that, on the grounds of discrimination against women, bans the practice of moving female passengers for the Jewish men who refuse to sit next to them because of their beliefs.
A witness, Khen Rotem, posted on Facebook that El Al flight 2 departing New York (JFK) for Tel Aviv (TLV) on Friday night was delayed for more than an hour after four ultra-orthodox men refused to take their seats because they were next to women. Rotem wrote that the men would only speak to male flight attendants, who reportedly were trying to persuade them to take their seats but in the end, asked two women passengers to move to accommodate the men.
One of the male passengers in question was so strict in his beliefs that he kept his eyes closed during boarding and during the flight so as not to look at a woman, according to Rotem.
Now, one of the largest tech firms in Israel, NICE Systems, is boycotting El Al after the discriminatory move. NICE Systems CEO Barak Eilam wrote on LinkedIn that his 4,900 employees would not fly with the carrier until it fixed its “practice and actions discriminating [against] women.”
“At NICE we don’t do business with companies that discriminate against race, gender or religion,” Eilam’s post continued.
El Al on Monday took a firmer stance on the issue. The airline’s CEO Gonen Usishkin said in a statement that “any traveler who refuses to sit next to another traveler will be immediately removed from the flight.”
The Jerusalem Magistrates Court ruled almost exactly one year ago that El Al had to set up a different procedure in such instances that did not include moving women passengers after a woman in a similar situation on a 2015 flight sued the carrier.
And they write this like it’s a bad thing.
overly religious people come off like crackpots.
The airlines force men to move around just for being men, all the time.
Fuch that, women, be a man. Be equals.
i try very very hard to respect these religious men
and i do respect them a lot
a great deal, actually
but.. this is beyond reasonableness, imho ..
(and for all its religious basis, it still shames the Jewish people... something these men should seriously consider)
if they sign up for a seat on a public conveyance, they have to expect there’s a 50/50 chance they’ll be sitting next to a female... hey guys, get used to it!
respectfully submitted
Why not a $100 surcharge to specify the sex of the person next to you (only for religious reasons, sorry Laz!)? If it’s already a woman, she gets the $100 for moving (or someone sitting next to a man gets it for taking your seat). If it’s a man, the airline gets the extra profit.
ML/NJ
I thought all airlines call security to evict any passenger who refuses to take their assigned seats for any reason. If they did this consistently the issue would not persist long
Good post. I agree. As a Jewish woman I did not like having to breastfeed a baby on a transatlantic flight in a man’s face. He didn’t either and we were able to switch.
As you well know, some Orthodox people go past the law into superstition. I tend to revere the way many frum orthodox people attempt to keep all the commandments (better than I do), but I’ve been inside the community enough to know that there is a special sin in overfocusing and leaving the spirit of the law while putting haughtiness higher than yiddishkeit. There are sins for everybody!
Yeah, it’s the Shane fur die goyim thing.
Shande
In my experience Hasids are complete rude assholes.
Well, as a man I very much appreciated a young woman next to me on a plane breastfeeding her baby, because I caught a glimpse of tit.
It was a big day for me, almost worthy of a diary entry.
You know, “Dear Diary, today something wonderful happened...”
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