Ynet published a story I cannot qualify as anything but scandalous:
Rabbis get woman-free flight
Two leading rabbis buy all first class tickets, ask El Al to only post male stewards on flight so they do not have to see women on way to America.
A modest first class flight: Two leading rabbis set to fly to the United States concluded an agreement with El Al that would see them enjoy a woman-free and movie-free flight.
The Gerrer Rebbe, a Hassidic leader who will fly abroad on Sunday, asked El Al that no air stewardesses be aboard the flight. El Al complied with the rabbi’s request and on Sunday’s flight to the United States only males will look after passengers.
The Gerrer Rebbe and Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman, 93, another leading rabbi, will fly in a historic journey to visit American Jewish communities.
During the visit the rabbis will seek to raise funds for married yeshiva students attending advanced Judaic studies programs.
The rabbis bought all first class tickets on the flight to make sure no businesswomen are on board. It was also decided that no films will be screened during the flight. Moreover, the backs of first class seats will be covered with plastic so that the rabbis won’t even have to see the television screens.
That’s one historic journey indeed. A few questions (asked in a vacuum for sure):
- The rabbis spent a 6-digits amount for a flight which goal, between others, is to raise funds. Kinda contradictory, isn’t it, unless they know in advance that this is a good investment?
- That money for the tickets: who, exactly, coughed it up, if not the two usual groups of suckers: the marks in US and the taxpayers in Israel?
- Do other passengers on this flight agree to the no movies proviso?
- How does a national carrier like El-Al agree to conditions that are a) insulting to women b) discriminatory to other passengers and c) most probably are in violation of a lot of laws in this country (which is not yet, as far as I know, under Halachic regime)?
And a main question to El-AL and related miscellaneous bodies: how exactly does this act provide support to the claim, made by our politicians and assorted motormouths, that Israel is one of the very few enlightened democracies in the area? (As a case of the opposite usually pointing to Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.)
Feh.
1&2: As far as I have been able to discern, the first-class tickets were purchased by wealthy Chassidim to honor their rabbis; they purchased a total of eight seats (the entire first-class section)
3: I rather suspect that the ‘no movies’ claim is mistaken; given that the first-class screens will be covered (presumably because of concern that the women featured in announcements or various programming would not be dressed to Orthodox standards of modesty), there is no gain whatsoever of stopping the movies themselves.
4: I don’t see how you get this as being insulting to women or discriminatory; however, the story was likely intended to paint these rabbis in the worst possible light.
Bottom line: this was done out of private funds by people who could afford it (and presumably also donated to the fund-raising campaign); it should not affect anyone, except for the female flight attendants who had to switch to another flight.
There is an important principle in Judaism that says that we should judge favorably. Please consider that you may not have done so in this case.
Sorry, but I’m squarely on Snoopy’s side in this one. It makes Jews look as backwards and benighted as the Saudis, who also demanded — and got — no female flight controllers.
Russ, you really don’t get how insulting and discriminatory towards women these actions are? Excuse me? Not allowing female flight attendants to be in your presence? How is this not insulting and discriminatory?
This is what kept me out of Orthodox Judaism. That, and having to sit behind a screen at my brothers’ bar mitzvahs.
It is privately owned.
It is still our national carrier, Cynic, and the formal ownership does not change a lot in this respect.
Russ, you are absolutely right – we should judge the people favorably.
In the light of this I am ready to concede the ‘no movies’ item, since the vagueness in the original article allows for misinterpretation.
However, the way you used when trying to ajudge favorably item 1 just does not compute. OK, maybe there were only 8 seats in the 1st class (strange, usually it is a Jumbo or 777, but OK), so the amount is in mid 5 digits. Does it change the fact that the difference (6 tickets’ price) does NOT get to the people in whose name the rabbis are raising the money?
And let’s agree to disagree on item 4: Meryl have covered it, at least the insult to women part. Re the anti-discriminatory laws and internal El-Al regulations – aw, forget it…
I am assuming, as noted above, that the issue of female flight attendants is modesty. I don’t know what the flight attendant uniforms are like, but I doubt that they include floor-level skirts, full sleeves, and high collars, which would be the standard of modesty kept by most Chassidim. Would it have been better, do you think, to have mandated that the female flight attendants wear a special uniform of this nature? Or would you have found that insulting to women as well?
As far as the funding is concerned, if this is paid from private funds by people who specifically wished to honor their rabbis, how is that taking away from the fundraising? Why would you assume that these funds would otherwise have gone to the cause? Don’t private individuals have a right to spend their money any way they wish? How do you know that those purchasing this tickets have not already reached their tzedaka limit?
There is a better response. This is a shnurring expedition to support families whose men will not work to support them, but instead choose to sit in the kollels all day. Not all of them are Talmud chachams. If no one gives a dime to these two rabbis’ communities, then those communities must confront modern realities. At the least, they will have to kick the least promising scholars out into the working world. Moreover, if these men work at jobs with the same discipline they once applied to Torah study, then they should be successful. In turn, if they are charitable within their own communities, then there would be no need for future shnurring trips.
chsw
My Israeli relatives always fly Continental on Friday night when they come to America to avoid the overly obnoxious orthodox Jews. And make no mistake about it obnoxious is the operative word.
Here is a clear difference between Jews and Muslims, We have no problem calling bullshit to our religous extremists. It does probably help that they won’t strap on some C4 and blow us up.
This is merely an extension of the strict separation of the sexes that one finds in the Haredi world, particularly here in Israel. On Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) bus lines, women must sit in the back. (The idea of sitting in the back of the bus does not necessarily elicit the same negative reactions among Israelis as it does among Americans.) The Monsey-New York City “kosher bus,” by contrast, has a heavy plastic curtain down the center aisle with men and women sitting on opposite sides. This has a practical use, since commuters recite the morning prayers as they ride the bus on their way to work.
At least twice, I have been asked by ultra-Orthodox men to move to the back of the bus or taxi van in which I was traveling so that they could have woman-free space. I refused both times. It is very sad that in that world, holiness is defined — among other things — by the distance men keep from women.
But then, it isn’t really about holiness or modesty. If it were, the two men who asked me to move would not have remained where they were when I refused to go to the back of the bus. It is about power and control.
Suggested reading: “Egged and the Taliban” by Naomi Ragen, about her experience on a public, non-Haredi bus line. Her site is at http://naomiragen.com/.
Unfortunately, “calling bullshit to our religious extremists” has the adverse effect of making Jews look bad in general. it would be nice if we could somehow regard these as family fights, to be done only in private.
Russ, with all due respect – I do not want to hurt anyone’s feeling any more than necessary, but you are catching straws now. Modesty is in the eye of the beholder, and whoever can’t abide a sight of a bare female ankle or whatever could close his eyes or put a bag over his head or… there are several techniques to deal with the issue without forcing an airline to its knees and insulting the feelings of many people to boot.
And you are right – I do not know whether those purchasing the tickets have or have not already reached their tzedaka limit? I only know that the act feels bad, looks bad and smells bad. It must be bad. Sorry.
And I do not mean the two rabbis flying first class. This I can live with, it is all the rest that makes me feel bad.
“it would be nice if we could somehow regard these as family fights, to be done only in private.”
Aha. I see. The problem these days, Russ, is that you cannot hide things like these anymore. Not that you should, far from it.
There is no more private in the life of two high profile religious clerics than in the life of any celebrity. Which is both good and bad. I hope I do not have to preach democracy on these pages?
If these clowns are in their 90s they hardly are likely to react lasciviously to normally dressed women. In any case an adult is supposed to be able to conrol his impulses, and these guys SUPPOSEDLY learned to tell right from wrong by the time they were 13 years of age. Time to stop acting like idiots.
We’d hardly give a Muslim a pass for acting like a jerk, I don’t see why we should give a couple of Haredi a pass for actinbg like jerks.
hi guys,
just to let all of you know, i work at LAX international and the Rabbis arrived on a BA flight…not even EL AL !!!
they flew ELAL from TLV to London on Sunday on an aircraft that doesn’t even have First Class Seating !
and from London they cam in with British Airways
I suggest that from now on everyone should double-check their sources before slandering others.
Hi Mark.
I do not have any special reason to disbelieve you, since working at LAX you must know better than Ynet.
Only a small question: why do you post via Belgacom, which is, you know, in Belgium?
Which is a long way from LAX…
hi snoopy
answer is that i work for a Belgian company and everything goes through their servers.
BTW i have seen pictures from the flight from TLV and it sure dont look like F Class !