A non-religious man threatened to kill a Chabad photographer on the first evacuation flight of Israelis from New York back to Israel on Monday. The photographer, Chaim Tweeto, was standing in the aisle near the non-religious passenger.
According to testimonies from other passengers that were published by BeChadrei Charedim, the non-religious passenger sat in the back of the plane and began antagonizing a number of Chabad men who were sitting in their seats, even before the plane took off.
The passenger told the Chabad Chassidim that they weren’t sitting 2 meters away from one another. They responded and said that they had been together for the past month, and there was no issue with them sitting close together on the flight as well. The man began to yell at them to get away. The Chassidim did not want to cause a story so they moved further away, and things calmed down.
However, as the flight neared its culmination, the man began to scream at Chaim Tweeto, who had gotten up to go to the back of the plane to get a drink. At the same time, a woman, who was connected to the aggressive man, needed medical care and Chaim ran to alert one of the flight attendants. The man, perhaps out of distress, began to scream at the group of Charedim: “You’ve overrun this space. Because of you, she fainted. You are guilty because you are standing so close together.”
The flight attendant asked Tweeto what happened, and he said that the aggressive man was blaming the Chareidi students for the woman’s developing medical condition. “Don’t react and don’t pay attention to him. Remain calm,” the attendant reportedly told Tweeto and the group.
The aggressive man heard what was said and became enraged. “I will kill you once we land in Ben Gurion Airport. Just wait, I will beat you to a pulp,” the man told Tweeto. He then attempted to attack Tweeto in the airplane, but the flight attendants intervened.
Tweeto did not file a complaint on the plane as there was a lot of pressure from other passengers to deplane.
After the flight, Tweeto told Bechadrei, “It is appalling to see how far the seeds of anti-Charedi slander by the media spread.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
20 Responses
The pilot should have activated the ducts they use for dumping fuel and dumped tweeto from the plane, for the sake of everyone’s safety because הבא להרגו השכם להרגו
Do you mean the other fellow?
To 147: You seem to propose the killing of wrongdoers, even when the death penalty is not authorized by Halachah or secular law. I don’t have a list of all the times you have said this, but I find it disturbing.
And isn’t anyone proposing murder irreligious, at least for the moment?
147:
Tweeto is the Chabad photographer who was attacked…
Articles like this truly bother me because they try to generalize an entire population based upon the behavior of the few. Having loved on Eretz Yisroel for a few years now, I find that 90% of the people are basically OK and 10% could use a lot of work on their Ahavas Yisroel. This cuts across all Hidden and includes the Chareii sector. Would the author like the Chilonim to judge all Charedim by what the 11 people on the El Al rescue flight did? I think not and we should not judge all our non religious brothers by the behavior of a minority.
Has El Al adopted any seat separation on these “evacuation” flights?? Would seem they would want to fill as many seats as possible.
@147: Why Tweeto?
” dumped tweeto from the plane”
Tweeto is the victim and you want to kill him?
147; Reread the story. Tweeto was a victim! You owe him an apology.
@147. Why Tweeto? You mean dump the angry old man?
Who’s tweeto? The chassid? The irreligious? So confusing!
For context, see the article on this page, about an El Al flight: 11 People On New York To Israel “Rescue Flight” Tested Positive for COVID.
Especially read the part about Charedi passengers bragging about having forged their vaccination / neg for Corona documents and making other passengers uncomfortable due to their behavior.
You think it was only on the El Al plane that this went on?
No, 147. That would have been very unfair to the people below on the ground…
147, are you insane? Was that some kind of sick joke? The victim should have been murdered?! And in an impossible way (how exactly should they have stuffed him into the fuel tank?)
@147,
What do you want from him? He was attacked by this wacko!
@147 “dumped tweeto”
!?
He’s the victim here. Ad the hero – he’s the one who alerted the staff the the women’s medical episode.
the anti religious press is very active in Israel in spreading hatred against religious Jews. It is a disgust that antisemitic newspapers exist in Israel, like Haaretz, Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post.
“The passenger told..that they weren’t sitting 2 meters away from one another.” ” from New York back to Israel”
I guess this guy is new here, but no one social distances in the United States. And looking at the weekly “protests” aka lockdown violations in Israel, I don’t think they do there either.
And if you think people are distancing or doing anything, leave New York. I forget there’s even a pandemic going on.
Someone should release him back to middle America and lets see how he reacts then.
There is, without doubt, a lot of unfair and untrue reporting of what goes on in the Haredi community in Israel. However, a lot of what goes on is unreported and simply disgusting. For example, I was at a megilla reading in one of the Jerusalem hospitals on Thursday night. I was in the hospital visiting and helping a relative. There were about 70 males crowded together on an outside balcony. Almost all had masks on that covered their mouth and nose. There was one young chossid who refused to raise the mask he had keeping his chin warm. A nearby patient who had come to hear megilla begged him to put on his mask. The patient was in a wheelchair and connected to several IV bags and was obviously a sick man. He begged the youngster to behave appropriately. The tzaddik replied that he found the mask restrictive and refused. But I am sick the elderly patient replied. The young chossid simply shrugged his shoulders. Hospital security did nothing. True story. Now ask why people hate Charedim, and by extension Jews.