Last week Yeshivaworld posted an article regarding the announcement by Israir Airline, that they now have a Sefer Torah (“Sky Torah”) on one of their planes. YW also posted an article about an israir flight which made an emergency landing in Paris.
Aside from the fact that the Israir flight that emergency landed in Athens was a Mechalel Shabbos flight to Paris, the new 767 with the Sefer Torah is utilized on Friday/Shabbos for the run to Paris and/or London. Fact. Look at the timetable.
Does that mean that the new Sefer Torah is Mechalel Shabbos? Does that mean that the reform and masorti Jews flying Shabbos morning to Paris can have a Kriyas Hatorah en route since they can drive to shul anyway?
Does anyone care about this Chilul Hashem, or is everyone too preoccupied berating an airline that has tried not to fly on Shabbos in 50 years at enormous financial cost?
Just look up the timetable yourselves on the Israir website. The two 767s are being used on Shabbos for a quick round trip to Paris and London respectively, but no one wants to see what is an inconvenient truth.
[NOTE: This story was only meant to bring this Chillul Hashem to the attention of the Klal, and not Chas V’shalom to question what our Gedoley Yisroel have said or done.]
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25 Responses
I think that it is dangers to have a Sefr Torah on a air plan ( Skuna)
this dos not mean our fight with el al has to stop if anything if elal will real be shomer shabosthen our sucsses will have an efect on israair
“or is everyone too preoccupied berating an airline that has tried not to fly on Shabbos in 50 years at enormous financial cost?”
The above comment was inappropriate. It insinuates that you are referring to the Gedoilei HaDor involved in the El Al fiasco. Regarding El Al’s “enormous financial cost,” it is well known that when El Al stopped flying on Shabbos, their revenue actually increased!
what a disgrace. we should make our own unofficial boycott of this airline
Shea, what does “Skuna” mean?
Do you mean to say sakonoh? (Danger)?
I must be missing something here I didn’t see that it said that it flew on Shabbos but from what I understand what you are all saying it did.
Up front, I’m saddened to see that YW has chosen to align himself with those who are brighter and more insightful than the Gedolei Yisroel who he has been quoting for the past several weeks. Unvarnished and unedited reports from non-political people who spoke to Rav Eliyashiv, Rav Steinman, and Rav Chaim Kanievsky all tell us that these Gedolei Yisroel are opposed to people flying El Al.
As for the facts:
1. “or is everyone too preoccupied berating an airline that has tried not to fly on Shabbos in 50 years at enormous financial cost?”
Not quite. To be accurate, that sentence shoud read “that for years was running an operating loss, propped up by government subsidies, until it was forced to stop opertaing on Shabbos some 24 years ago, at which time it finally realized profitablity.”
2. There always was — and it seems that “ad bias goel” there will continue to be — Chillul Shabbos going on at El Al. The point is that having “The National Airline of Israel” flying planes “b’reish g’li” is a different story. That is why the Gedolei Yisroel of decades past tried so hard to stop that level of trampling Shabbos. B’siata d’Shmaya in 1982 they succeeded.
3. There is a vast difference between someone who was never Shomer Shabbos and someone who was, yet who then took liberties and refuses to commit to Shemiras Shabbos.
4. This maarachah is being led by the Gedolei Yisroel. When an “indepent / connected” Rav tried to reach a settlement a few weeks ago he ended up with egg all on his face.
This story was only meant to bring this Chillul Hashem to the attention of the Klal, and not Chas V’shalom to question what our Gedoley Yisroel have said or done.
“This story was only meant to bring this Chillul Hashem to the attention of the Klal, and not Chas V’shalom to question what our Gedoley Yisroel have said or done.”
No. Of course not. Chas Vesholom.
I knew all along that the Sky Torah was a commercial gimmick on the part of Israir to take advantage of the El Al situation and try to attract us to their equally mechalel Shabbos airline.
My flight to EY this past Shvat was a stopover flight with a US/European carrier. I’m not planning on going during 5767 except al kanfei nesharim with Moshiach (if I have time to travel this year it will be to the mekoimois hakedoishim in Ukraine), but when I do fly to EY again it will be with a non-Israeli airline once again unless there is a clear return to full shmiras Shabbos on the part of El Al. And that means no Sun D’Or nonsense.
The aveirah with ELAL is that they are GOVERNMENT owned and operated . Who are the owners of Israir? Why would they be different than Air France or Delta?
Israir is a Jewish owned Israeli company as far as I know. The employees who work on Shabbos are most probably Jewish as well.
In fact El Al is now privatized, and in any case unless you hold that the government of Israel has some sort of kedusha, it hardly matters who owns it.
The problem is Jews working on Shabbos (and all the more so in EY), plain and simple.
Mr YW Editor,
I agree with you. I’ve been telling my friends this all along. I think the Kavanah of the boycott is “a show of strength” by the chareidi world, similarly to the Arab riots in France.
Why we are picking on ELAL over the numerous jewish owned mechalel shabbos companies, I don’t know. One thing I believe is that the rabbonim on their own didn’t concoct the boycott, rather there must be someone else behind it who’s gathering signatures (similar to Slifkin boycott). I wonder what this person’s motivations are. I don’t think it’s Kedushas Shabbos. Perhaps this person is connected someway to Israir, Elal’s main competition.
One important note is that Rabbonim pasken based on information given them. If the person giving information has ulteriour motives or is not ehrlich, the Rabbonim need alot of siyata dishmaya in their psak.
I am not Chas vShalom questioning the Gedoile Hador
My Response to Smart,
ELAL is no longer GOVERNMENT owned. It’s not majority owner by the private sector.
To BLOGGER:
No you are not agreeing with me at all.
I don’t have the issues that you are bringing up.
I trust the Gedolim in WHATEVER they say.
I have “emunas chachomim” to the 100th degree.
I only am exposing the massive Chillul Hashem that they are causing by flying all around the world on Shabbos and proudly announcing that they have a Sefer Torah on board.
NOONE is “hiding” ANYTHING from Maran Eliyashiv.
Trust me.
And your also DEAD WRONG.
The one who instigated this was Maran Rav Eliyashiv HIMSELF together with Rav A.L. Shteinman and Chacham Ovadia.
See ya.
Actually, I believe the Gerrer Rebbe was the one who started it.
FYI: To those who say Israir is behind this as they are a competitor-
Israir has a mere 3 flights a week to the US.
Continental has 14
ELAL between 15-20 flights a week- Now who is really the competitor.
YW editor
I believe you when you tell us you do not question the Gedolim
nevertheless, your statement and tone erroneously suggested otherwise:
“Does anyone care about this Chilul Hashem, or is everyone too preoccupied berating an airline that has tried not to fly on Shabbos in 50 years at enormous financial cost?”
There will probably be a remnant of distrust of your beliefs among your subscribers at this point, whatever you say. I hope this distrust will fade very rapidly to non-existence, and that we will all be zocheh to m’kayem:
B’Tzedek tishpot es amisechah.
I also hope you will, in the future, be more careful in your choice of words, as to reflect your true meaning.
regards,
feivel
what ever happened with boycotting elal ?????????? can you still fly with them ??????? what’s the update ?? and by the way the same time were thinking about boycotting elal we should do the same with israir………..
Israir should be confronted and told that a Sefer Torah does not and never did belong on an Airplane.
It is a tactic trying to get frum yidden to like them and book tickets on them since they are servicing the frum oylom.
Elal has been the Official airline for eretz yisroel and that is the only realistic reason that the gedolim had a contract with them that they were to never be Mechalel Shabbos Be’fehessyer.
The rates on Israir or ELAL should not be the factor when gedolim say do not fly on an airline, then we have to be thankful that we have gedolim with true Daas Torah to tell us what to do. As far as a cry should go out to Israir about bing Mechalel Shabbos , if and when we populate the airline enough, then we can have them do for us their customers as we like.
Feivel, well put I guess that this can act as a lesson to us all to try to pay more attention to what we write and say.
Blogger:
How can you be medameh an economic boycott to arabishe beheimos rioting and destroying entire sections of a city?
The big question is: What happens when Israir and Continental get banned. How will anyone get to Israel?
Don’t be that bothered – they are working on plans for a bridge from Alaska to Russia…..
Midwester:
Please don’t take me out of context. It’s just a dimyon. All I was saying is that at times different sectors need to make “a show of strength” for the rest of the population to see (lmaa”n yishmeu vYirou) that they are not a group to be ignored. I certsinly didn’t mean it in a negative way. I was just explaining why there is no boycott over other jewish owned michallei shabbos. After all the companies see what happened to Elal, most will be sure to accomadate chareidim, lest they be next.
That was the last comment.
The moderation panel is just tired of deleting HUNDREDS of comments which are bashing Gedoley Yisroel, and then having email correspondence with people explaining WHY we chose not to publish them.
Thanks.
The rules were spelled out clearly over here http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/?p=4467