Israel Matzav

Those funny people with those funny boxes and straps

For the second time in 15 months, there was panic Sunday on a North American flight as three Jews - gulp - put on Tefillin in midair.

Pilots on an Alaska Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles locked down the cockpit and alerted authorities Sunday when a flight crew grew alarmed at the behavior of three men who turned out to be conducting an elaborate orthodox Jewish prayer ritual, officials said.

The men, all Mexican nationals, began the ritual that involves tying leather straps and small wooden boxes to the body, and the crew of Flight 241 alerted the cockpit, airline spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said.

"Shortly after takeoff, a flight attendant saw what she believed was unusual behavior from three passengers on board," Egan said in a statement. "The three passengers were praying aloud in Hebrew and were wearing what appeared to be leather straps on their foreheads and arms."

The cockpit was placed on a security lockdown for the rest of the flight - meaning the door couldn't be opened even for pilots to leave briefly. Normal protocol calls for the cockpit to be locked, but on longer flights the pilots will leave and return from the flight deck.

FBI and customs agents along with police and a full assignment of fire trucks met the plane at the gate at Los Angeles International Airport, and the men were escorted off.

After questioning from the FBI, the men were released without being arrested. They continued in their travel which took them overseas, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told City News Service. Eimiller said she could release no further information because the men were not charged with anything.

Egan said airline officials later learned from law enforcement the men were performing the ritual known as tefillin.

These morons cannot get anything straight, can they?

The ritual isn't called Tefillin - the object is called Tefillin. The boxes aren't made out of wood - they are made out of leather. So are the straps. The ritual is quite simple and not at all elaborate - you put one box on your bicep, wind the straps around your forearm seven times. Then you place the second box in the center of the top front of your head, so that the front of the box coincides with your hairline (or where your hairline used to be if you no longer have one) so that you could draw two straight lines from its end that would be between your eyes. And then you wind the arm one three times around your middle finger and then you wind what is left around the back of your hand.

The boxes have parchments inside with sacred scriptures written on them. Even the morons from TSA don't usually bother to take them out of my carry-on bag anymore. You would think that the flight crews would be at least as smart.

You mean to tell me no Orthodox Jews have ever flown this airline?

Good grief!

P.S. One of my most amazing travel moments was putting on Tefillin in the business class section of a Lufthansa flight from Tel Aviv to Frankurt. The Nazis were rolling over in their graves.

Labels: Tefillin, TSA

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:16 PM