Three men praying on an arriving Alaska Airlines flight sparked security concerns on the plane and at Los Angeles International Airport, but authorities say there was no threat and no arrests were made.
Airline spokeswoman Bobbie Egan says flight attendants on Flight 241 from Mexico City became alarmed Sunday morning after the three passengers began an elaborate orthodox Jewish prayer ritual, which involves tying leather straps and small wooden boxes to the body.
The pilots locked down the cockpit and FBI and customs agents, along with police and fire crews, met the plane at the gate.
LAX police say two or three men were escorted off the plane, briefly questioned by the FBI, and released. There were no arrests.
In January 2010, YWN reported that a US Airways flight was diverted and made an emergency landing, after a boy put on his Tefillin to Daven. He was detained along with his 16-year-old sister.
(Source: SVMN)
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14 Responses
If you dont like it when the muslims pray in public, then dont do it either. The idiots should be locked up.
I wish the airline officials would stop being so ignorant. After the January 2010 incident, everyone in the industry should know what Tefillin are.
Shev143,
I disagree. There is no problem with using tefillin on the plane. All you need to do is go over to the flight attendents and tell them what you are doing. Then you will have no problem
Once again although they did NOTHING wrong, the prudent thing would have been to let the flight attendants know about it.
To #1, I will bet had these been yishmaelim pullingout their magic carpets on a plane you would bee kewl with it?!? So why not yiddin who DON’T blow themselves up or kill peoples based on religious dogma? Something is missing in your Yiddishkeit.
shev,
are you crazy?
muslims blow up planes not jews! (btw no one says that they don’t like it when muslims blow up planes, people just get antsy around muslims because they are the reliugion that goes around blowing up planes!)
good.jew,
good point (if I ever have to do that I always ask if I can pray in the back and they’re usually cool with it)
shev comment#1: no one stops muslims from praying, why would you stop jews? are you jewish?
shev,
the better question is are you JOSEPH (no moderator help on these comments so technially would and should be safe here)
It would be best to let the flight attendant know first and ask if it’s okay. But you would think the whole industry already knows by now.
There have been terrorist attacks by people dressed up to look like Charedi Jews. I do not fault anyone for extra diligence — particularly with what happened this past shabat.
What we should do is when we board the plane, tell the flight attendent, I’m going to being using these. there are only used for prayer and that’s it
I have never seen a Mulim use a prayer rug on a plane.
As for tefillin, one would think that most airline crews would knoe ehat they are. Nevertheless, it cannot hurt to alert the cabin crew before davening.
Not that it makes any difference at all, but they are not ‘wooden boxes’, they are completely of animal origin.
The Gemara darshens a posuk that (if we are Zoiche,) foreigners that see our Tefillin on our head will be afraid. Somehow though this is not what it means. They will fear us, not try to arrest us! So I guess these people were not quite zoche to that madreiga.
There is a story about a Godol (possibly the Pnei Yehosuha) who was able to safely chase a stray lion out of town by uncovering his Tefillin Shebirosh in front of the lion.
Some meforshim explain that the Gemara calls it Tefillin Shebirosh instead Shel Rosh, because it matters more what is INSIDE the head, than what is ON TOP!
After 9/11, people on planes are very concerned about terrrorism. The vast majority of people in the United States have no idea what tefillin are. They appear to be boxes connected with black wires. I think it’s very natural for someone to be very concerned when they see something like that on a plane. I think that putting on tefillin on a plane should be avoided as much as possible.