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The first two links below tell the story of a teenaged Jewish boy who created great anxiety on the part of a flight crew when he strapped on his tefillin (also called phylacteries--See Matthewe 23:5)during an airline flight yesterday. Tefillin are small squarish black boxes with small scrolls containing passages from the Torah (first 5 books of the Old Testament).

The teenager was attaching the tefillin to his head and arm in the approved manner when the flight crew became concerned:

"The pilot decided to divert the Kentucky-bound plane to Philadelphia. In less than 30 minutes it was on the ground, police officers were swarming through the passenger cabin, and the Transportation Security Administration was using terms like “disruptive passenger” and “suspicious passenger” to describe the boy.

An hour or so after that, Lt. Frank Vanore, a spokesman for the Philadelphia police, had another explanation.

'It was unfamiliarity that caused this,' he said.

He said the flight crew had never seen tefillin, small leather boxes attached to leather straps that observant Jews wear during morning prayers. The flight crew “didn’t understand what it was,” he said, and the pilot 'erred on the side of caution and decided to radio that in and to divert the flight.'"


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01...html?ref=todayspaper

http://www.nydailynews.com/new..._flight_from_la.html

Did it make sense to divert the flight? A rabbi familiar with this kind of issue had this,among other things, to say:

>>>>“To facilitate training and awareness, we recently created a brochure explaining Orthodox customs for individual airlines, and are happy to share this brochure with other airlines,” said Rabbi A. D. Motzen, the Ohio regional director of Agudath Israel of America, in a statement issued by the haredi group on Thursday.

Agudath Israel said it has worked closely with the Transportation Security Administration, an arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to "sensitize the agency to the various religious objects and practices of Orthodox Jews," in addition to reaching out to U.S. and foreign airlines.

“At the same time,” said Rabbi Mark Kalish, Agudath Israel's national director of government affairs, “we have also cautioned members of our own community to understand that many citizens may not be familiar with Jewish prayer rituals, and that they might consider explaining the practice to individuals in authority before boarding planes, buses, trains, and other forms of public transit.”>>>>

http://jta.org/news/article/20...p-calls-for-training

What with shoe bombers and underpants bombers and the like, it might have not have been all that prudent for the teenager to have taken out his tefillin and strapped them on while in mid-air. The public--as well as airline staff--could panic and jump to conclusions about what is going on. But it seems to me that a truly professional and intelligent flight attendant could have rather easily determined the facts of the case and avoided all the panic and hoopla, not to mention the delay and flight diversion.

Any opinions out there?
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He was very foolish , It reminds me of those who must make an issue of praying before meals when eating in public when a mere silent prayer, perhaps with a nod, would get throught to God just as well. Ultra orthodoxy can prove a problem no matter what religion. I also am becoming suspicous of some situations being set-ups for whatever reason!

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