A Flight Is Diverted by a Prayer Seen as Ominous
Last week a flight attendant on a US Airways Express Flight traveling from La Guardia to Kentucky alerted the cockpit of a suspicious passenger. A 17-year-old observant Jewish boy was beginning the ritual of morning prayer and putting on tefillin—“small leather boxes attached to leather straps that observant Jews wear during morning prayers;” to the flight attendant, however, the tefillin “looked ominous, as if the young man were wrapping himself in cables or wires” the New York Times reports. The flight was quickly diverted to Philadelphia, where it was met by police officers who went into the cabin to find the boy that the Transportation Security Administration had described as a “disruptive passenger” and a “suspicious passenger.” According to Lt. Frank Vanore, a Philadelphia police spokesman, “ ‘It was unfamiliarity that caused
this.’ ” The flight crew, never having seen tefillin, erred on the side of caution.
- How do you learn about other people’s religious customs and traditions? Why did the flight attendant alert the cockpit about a “disruptive” or “suspicious” passenger?
- Philadelphia police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said, “ ‘It was unfamiliarity that caused this.’ ” If the flight attendant had known what the boy was doing, do you think she would have been frightened? Do you think the religion of someone praying makes a difference in how others would respond?
- The boy’s rabbi, Rabbi Greenberg, said, “You can’t expect the whole world to know what this ritual is all about . . . in today’s environment, I guess everything creates panic.’ ” Rabbi Greenberg said that in future flights, “ ‘I would suggest, pray on the plane and put the tefillin on later on.’ ” Do you agree with the rabbi? Should the boy alter his religious prayer ritual because others who are not aware of the ritual might become frightened?
- Do you think we have an obligation to know other people’s religions and rituals?
