Israeli wearing tefillin on NZ ferry causes panic

Jerusalem Post ^ | 12-12-10

[SJackson]

An Israeli tourist visiting New Zealand caused a minor panic on a New Zealand ferry on Sunday after the captain reported to police that a passenger was carrying a "suspicious article," NZTV reported.

Some media in New Zealand even reported a hostage situation aboard the ferry, even though the passenger was cooperative with police, according to the report.

The man was described as wearing what appeared to be "boxes" with "wires taped" to his body. "One individuals had two boxes attached, one box taped to his leg and one box seemingly taped to his forehead," a transportation services spokesman was quoted as saying in the report.

Jewish websites described the man as having worn his tefillin (phylacteries) on the morning ferry voyage.

He was stopped by police at the ferry's destination after it finished crossing the Cook Strait and was released by the police without being charged

[James C. Bennett]

Tefillin are a set of small cubic leather boxes painted black, containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah, with leather straps dyed black on one side, and worn by observant Jews during weekday morning prayers. Although "tefillin" is technically the plural form (the singular being "tefillah"), it is loosely used as a singular as well. The hand-tefillin, or shel yad, is placed on the upper arm, and the strap wrapped around the arm, hand and fingers; while the head-tefillin, or shel rosh, is placed above the forehead, with the strap going around the head and over the shoulders. The Torah commands that they should be worn to serve as a "sign" and "remembrance" that God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

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[TexasGreg]

How sad ... a man is praying and because these idiots don’t now anything about Judaism they think he’s some kind of threat. Ugh.

[blam]

Tefillin

[blam]

"How sad ... a man is praying and because these idiots don’t now anything about Judaism they think he’s some kind of threat. Ugh."

Idiots?

Frankly, I wonder what's wrong with you?

[mountn man]

[Hildy]

I’m Jewish and I understand it. If you’re not familiar with it, and you’re living in today’s crazy world, and a middle eastern man is visibly wearing it..well...you do the math.

[Gondring]

Well, we all know that because of taqiyya, he might have been a terrorist and should have been shot on sight. </sarc>

[bigbob]

Be darned, first I’ve seen or heard of this, so I learned something. Never having lived in an area where there is a big Jewish population I have to admit if I’d seen this in an airport or somewhere, I would be curious to say the least.

[JOHN ADAMS]

As someone who puts these things on every morning except the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, I still agree with the poster who said that in our crazy world, where most people are not familiar with this custom, it’s not surprising that people would be at least interested and maybe frightened.

I do think it’s also worth noting, though, that the fellow who had these on in the news story was completely cooperative, and didn’t get angry our threaten to sue anybody or cut anybody’s head off.

The same thing happened a number of months ago in the U.S., on a USAIR flight from New York to one of the southern U.S. states — a young man, 17 years old, traveling with his sister to visit their grandmother on a morning flight, put on his tefillin while on the airplane so he could say his morning prayers, and was thought to be donning a bomb. He (and his little sister, I believe) were both arrested. But he never lost his temper or threatened to sue anybody, and the whole thing was straightened out after a few hours.

Can anyone imagine what would happen if the adherents of the Religion of Peace were menaced in this unconscionable way??

[Ronin]

Having never seen one before, that if I was on a public transport of some sort and I had seen a guy wearing one of those, I’d probably freak a bit too.

[TexasGreg]

Yes, idiots. Thankfully, the police there knew something about Judaism because they realized that he wasn’t a threat.

Everybody should know a little bit about other religions; ignorance of other people and their practices isn’t a good thing.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I've never seen a person wearing tefillin, nor even a picture of such a person (until 5 minutes ago). If I saw him in a pulic conveyance I would... wonder... uneasily...

A little stranger than scapulars, you must admit, though perhaps not so strange as a Carmelite nun in full habit

Though you hardly see full habits anymore except in mocking parody, worn by Halloweeners or Gay Pride pervs or something even worse, Lord have mercy. :o/

[PLMerite]

You gotta admit, it would be a convenient way to move a nice little chunk of C-4.

[MrEdd]

You’ll have to excuse Gregg...

He’s guilty of education regarding religions, and actually distinguishes between different ones.
He might be guilty of profiling against muslims.

[TexasGreg]

Never take an airplane flight to Israel. Toward morning each male Hasidic Jew gets up, prepares for prayer by donning their Phylacteries and their prayer tallit, and they gather in the bulkhead space near the mid-plane bathrooms facing toward Jerusalem and they pray.

[naturalized]

Goodness. Does anybody even read their bibles anymore? Come on, folks, Jesus wore these.

[TexasGreg]

You’ll have to excuse Gregg...

He’s guilty of education regarding religions, and actually distinguishes between different ones.
He might be guilty of profiling against muslims.

Imagine that!

[Ronin]

Now that I know, it won’t bother me. Learn something new everyday.