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Court: El Al Airlines Not Allowed to Ask Women to Re-Seat for Religious Reasons
Ryan Boyd June 22, 2017
An Israeli court decision on Wednesday mandated that national carrier El Al is not legally allowed to ask female flyers to move seats in order to accommodate ultra-Orthodox men who refuse to sit next to women due to religious reasons. The landmark decision came as a result of 82-year-old passenger Renee Rabinowitz who brought a case again El Al after being re-seated for a 12-hour flight, lest she risk further unpleasantness from the man who asked her to move.
“As it would be unthinkable to move an Arab passenger at the request of a Jewish passenger, a female passenger cannot be moved at the request of a Haredi passenger,” said Rabinowitz’s lawyer, Anat Hoffman.
To read more on this story, go to NBC News.
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Court: El Al Airlines Not Allowed to Ask Women to Re-Seat for Religious Reasons
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If the writer's quote from the case is accurate this wording is interesting: "Not allowed." The court apparently did not leave any interpretation open. Nor did it list exceptions (unless these are not included in this story). "Not allowed" is pretty open and shut. It gives El Al the legal back up they need to enforce that law without worry about legal repercussions? Sounds like a strong legal finding.
Bravo to the court for an excellent decision. If you want to live like in the middle ages, stay home. The rest of us don't have to accomodate your barbaric preferences.
I am sick of this crap. If your religion doesn't allow you to sit next a certain person, don't take any type of public transportation. Fly on a private jet or just stay home!
This sort of thing seems to happen quite a bit. There was a report in the UK press when a group of Jewish men on an Easyjet flight got escorted off by the police because they tried to insist that women passengers that were already seated should be moved. This is from the Jewish Chronicle:- https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/easyjet-1.432766
Ksandness, that's not true. Orthodox Judaism does not allow for physical contact between men and women, unless it's a spouse or close relative or a doctor, for example. Nothing to do with menstrual cycles. For what it's worth, it could have been an orthodox woman refusing to sit next to a man (but that wouldn't make the news of course).