If you're going to Jordan, leave your yarmulka at home
If you're going to Jordan, be prepared to have your yarmulka impounded at the border. It's a 'security concern.' A., an Israeli businessman who visits Jordan often was amazed when he was asked to leave his yarmulkes in a safe on his most recent visit to the country. "We know tefillin are confiscated and we recently heard brimmed hats were being taken, so we came with regular hats," he told Ynet.I've never been to Jordan and I have no desire to go there. But this really is absurd.
"The man in the counter asked us to take off our hats and we thought it was standard procedure for passport control. But when the man saw the yarmulkes, he took us to the tourism police. The officer there said that the ban to wear yarmulkes was 'for our own benefit,' put it in the safe and gave us a form with which to receive the yarmulkes when we return."
...
A. said that in light of such limitations he makes a point of not staying in Jordan for more than a day in each visit. "I don’t carry tefillin so I can't stay the night," he said. "What's really annoying about the whole thing is that together with us at the border crossing was a group of post-army youngsters with IDF training t-shirts who were so obviously Israeli citizens. They didn't give them any hard time, while with us they insisted."
Yossi Levy, director of Israeli communications at the Foreign Ministry confirmed there were "disagreements with our Jordanian counterparts in regards to Jewish religious objects entering the Hashemite Kingdom".
"We receive a growing number of complaints by Israeli visitors who report of religious items being confiscated at the border crossing 'for security reasons.' They explain this by the need to protect visitors carrying 'obvious Israeli identification means.'"
Levy said that the Jordanians have been told that Israel objects to the singling out of religious Israeli tourists as opposed to other Israelis. He noted that "we continue our dialogue with candidness and trust."
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:48 AM
2 Comments:
I think Arab tunics, kafiyyas, burqas, purses, bags, backpacks, suitcases, baby carriages, guitar cases, bicycles, fridges, cars, buses and trucks are a security threat and should be banned in Israel.
Please don't hold it against me if I left some things out.
98% of Jordanians hate the Jews.
And this is a country Israel has a peace treaty with.
Only more Egyptians hate the Jews than Jordanians.
If this is the state of affairs with those Arab countries, one can only imagine what Israel's relations would look like with a future Palestinian state.
What could go wrong indeed
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