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Passengers aboard an El Al flight from New York's JFK airport to Israel claim that hundreds of ultra-Orthodox passengers demanded that they trade places with them before takeoff, saying they cannot sit next to women.

 

"It was an 11-hour long nightmare," one of the passengers summed up her experience.

 

On Wednesday morning, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, thousands of Israeli and Jewish passengers landed in Israel, including scores of ultra-Orthodox Jews who decided to celebrate the Jewish New Year in the Holy Land.

 

However, things didn't go so smoothly on one flight carrying a large group of haredim, as well as secular Jews, that departed from New York's JFK and landed in Israel at 5 am Wednesday.

 

According to the passengers who were on the plane, their fellow ultra-Orthodox travelers refused to sit next to women prior to the takeoff, which not only delayed the flight, but caused actual chaos to ensue on the plane.

 

"People stood in the aisles and refused to go forward," said Amit Ben-Natan, a passenger who was on board the plane.

 

"Although everyone had tickets with seat numbers that they purchased in advance, they asked us to trade seats with them, and even offered to pay money, since they cannot sit next to a woman. It was obvious that the plane won't take off as long as they keep standing in the aisles."

 

Passengers claimed that though the El Al flight crew informed them they do not have to agree to a switch, the flight's captain said over the PA system that the flight would not take off as long as people were standing.

 

"This is completely inconsiderate of the non-haredi travelers. I don't know many airlines that would allow their passengers to act like that," said Bar Natan.

 

Galit, another traveler on the flight, said the ultra-orthodox passengers suggested she and her spouse split up to better accommodate their desired seating arrangements: "Why should I agree to switch places?" she said with anger.

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Had the exact same thing happen to me on a New York to London flight many years ago. I actually think it was an age thing on my flight. But the bigger problem was when they all decided to partake in prayer time at the back of the plane so nobody could use the bathrooms

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I am a strong supporter of Israel, and I have no negative feelings toward people of Jewish faith.

 

However, I am deeply negative toward ALL religious fundamentalist extremists who insist on imposing 7th Century practices upon the modern people around them. Muslims are the worst, then the ultra-orthodox Haredi, then the Hassdics, then the Christian fundamentalists.

 

They all deserve to spent eternity chained together in a box - to enjoy one anothers' company - fed only BLT sandwiches..

 

SS

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Never come across anything this before and looked up the reasoning behind this custom. Apparently it's " to stop the man from being distracted by a woman, when they should be spending time in prayer and HaShem."

 

Not sure what HaShem was so looked it up and " it is a periphrastic way of referring to God in contexts other than prayer, scriptural reading, etc because the name itself is considered too holy for such use."

 

Not my day as I did not know the meaning of periphrastic so looked it up

 

" A construction of two or more words having the same syntactic function as an inflected word, as of Mr. Smith in the son of Mr. Smith, which is equivalent to Mr. Smith's in Mr. Smith's son."

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El Al is Israel's national airline so they seem to respect ultra-orthodox passengers' demands. El Al doesn't fly on the Jewish Sabbath and only serves kosher food onboard.

 

Many other airlines fly to the Jewish state, but I don't believe they tolerate this type of behavior. I bet if this stunt was tried on United, the passengers would have found themselves off the plane or placed under arrest.

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I had friends who worked in Iran in the days of the Shah. They told me how about an hour before the planes would land in Iran, all the westernised Iranian women returning from the US or Europe would go to the hong nam and change into more modest clothing. Being a woman in the Middle East mustn't be a lot of fun. :(

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