Followup – The Great ‘Religious Device’ Scare of ‘10
We did want to followup on last week’s story, where a religious Jewish teen caused a plane to be diverted by praying using his tefillin. In case you missed it the first time, the above is an Associated Press video of the initial announcement. Note the police referring to the device as an “Olfactory.”
The teen, Caleb Leibowitz of White Plains, NY, and his 16 year old sister were two of only fifteen passengers on the flight from LaGuardia to Louisville. Republic Airways Holdings, which owns Chautauqua, the airline that operated the flight, claims that they “did not receive a clear response” when they talked to the 17 year old, and that is why they decided to land. Yet, on the ground, Lt. Frank Vanore of the Philadelphia Police described the teen as very cooperative.
We wanted to link to an official statement from Republic Airways or US Airways(under whose name the flight operated). However, neither airline offered an official written press release, which is a telling sign of how seriously they aren’t taking this incident. Either way, the boy’s father, Glen, does not believe their explanations. “I’m appalled that they hide behind ‘the child was creating a disturbance. There was no disturbance. He was praying. They may have felt disturbed, but he wasn’t creating a disturbance.”
Joe Satterly, a passenger on the plane, said that no announcements had been made by the pilot, and many passengers were unsure of what was happening. When the plane landed, according to Satterly, Caleb was questioned, and then removed from the plane in handcuffs before it was allowed to go to a gate.
The Leibowitz kids were put on a later flight to Louisville.
We present a Youtube video by Shmuel Tennenhaus, on how to hide your tefillin to avoid suspicion. Shmuel’s summation is that the best solution to avoid suspicion by using tefillin is to pray at home before. However, in Caleb’s defense, as morning prayers are to be said after sunrise. As the teen’s father commented, “Putting on tefillin is difficult to do in airport lines and with all the security checks there was no time to do it before the flight boarded.”
We continue to find this whole situation ridiculous. Has the world come to such a state that anyone doing anything outside the comfort zone of someone in authority produces this sort of response? An abundance of caution is one thing, but an excess of overreaction is another.
But, in all fairness, in researching this, we learned of a story that the tefillin frightened the Syrians during the Six-Day-War, when they spied an IDF unit with strange black boxes on their heads. Certain that the boxes were receiving signals that gave the Israelis the upper hand, the Syrians quickly retreated. Of course, that was in 1967.
Followup – The Great ‘Religious Device’ Scare of ‘10 http://bit.ly/7ZhFYq
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
@piboeing Mr. Tannenbaum may have been amusing, but the teen couldn’t pray beforehand. http://bit.ly/7ZhFYq
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Give me a break. What has our society come to when a 17 year old kid is so stupid and out of touch that he would do this on a plane? He could have prayed after they landed as it would have been before sunset. Some far out societies/tribes use penis sheaths in their religious ceremonies. Are all people to have knowledge of every religions ridiculous looking ceremonial devices? And do you think if some dark skinned tribesman stood up in a plane and began to reach into his underwear today that we should all be cool with it? Anyone in the Jewish community outraged at this is silly.
We don’t expect people to have knowledge of every religious object. We expect people to use common sense. Why is it stupid to assume in the United States, a country in which we have religious freedom, that quietly expressing one’s religion is suddenly wrong because some religious extremists committed acts of terrorism? Anyone, Jewish or otherwise, should be outraged because a plane was diverted, and someone was taken off the plane in handcuffs because he acted in…not a threatening way, but a way that made someone uncomfortable because it was different.
We could go back to the policy they had after last month’s bomb incident. Make everyone sit quietly with their hands folded n their lap and no carry-on items. Then everyone will be exactly the same and no one’s individuality could possibly scare anyone.