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El Al under fire for allowing ultra-Orthodox to 'bully' female passengers

A petition has been organized to urge the airline to modify its policy.

By Ed Adamczyk

NEW YORK, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- El Al, Israel's national airline, has come under fire for permitting ultra-Orthodox Jews to disrupt flights by demanding they are not seated next to women.

A flight from New York to Tel Aviv last week became chaotic, passengers claimed, when a group of haredim, or ultra-Orthodox, Jews honored their religious tradition by refusing to be seated next to women. The plane's takeoff was delayed after the men demanded the women be moved, said passenger Amit Ben-Natan.

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"People stood in the aisles and refused to go forward. Although everyone had tickets with seat numbers that they purchased in advance, they asked us to trade seats with them, and even offered to pay money, since they cannot sit next to a woman. It was obvious that the plane won't take off as long as keep standing in the aisles," she wrote on the website Ynet.

An online petition, at change.org, to demand El Al resolve the issue while respecting both the rights of women and those of the religious group, has attracted 1,000 signatories, said petition organizer Sharon Shapiro.

Shapiro said it was "not right that female passengers are being intimidated or harassed. It's one thing to ask nicely, but if someone says no, they should not be put under pressure."

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The petition reads, in part:

"If a passenger was openly engaging in racial or religious discrimination against another passenger or flight attendant, they would immediately be removed from the plane. Why then, does El Al Airlines allow gender discrimination against women? Why does El Al Airlines permit female passengers to be bullied, harassed, and intimidated into switching seats which they rightfully paid for and were assigned to by El Al Airlines? One person's religious rights does not trump another person's civil rights."

El Al officials thus far have offered no response.

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