El-Al must not allow segregation on planes!

Hiddush successfully petitions El Al Airlines not to tolerate segregation on board

29/02/2012 21:59

Tags: Gender segregation · social media · Uri Regev

El Al Plane, Photographer: Drewski2112, Fotopedia

Last week, Channel 2 reported an amazing incident upon an El Al flight. It was reported that a group of ultra-Orthodox passengers created a “mehitza”, a barrier to avert the eyes and typically separate genders, by placing folded up cartons between their seats in order to separate them from other passengers. The flight crew did not wake them and the mehitza remained in place until landing.

Hiddush successfully petitioned representatives of El-Al Airlines, calling their attention to ultra-Orthodox airline passengers who were trying to establish gender segregation on this flight from Brussels to Israel and asking them to refuse such behavior aboard their flights. In response, El-Al made it clear that they are working to eradicate the phenomenon.

In another successful usage of pressure through social media, Hiddush turned to El Al by asking Hiddush followers to speak out against the phenomenon on the Facebook page of the company. El Al representatives responded: “We are speaking of a unique situation which is not the normal operating procedure of the airline. Following this incident an internal investigation was conducted and our procedures have been reviewed – our teams were asked to insure such incidents do not occur in the future.”

Hiddush Director, Rabbi Uri Regev: Anyone who wants to avoid seeing women and movies on airplanes should cover their own eyes rather than inconveniencing others and creating safety hazards.

Hiddush Director, Rabbi Uri Regev, praised El Al’s decision to prevent gender segregation on their planes: “It’s good that El Al acted even after the fact, and understood that there are red lines that must be drawn on ultra-Orthodox “modesty”. Anyone who wants to avoid seeing women and movies on airplanes should cover their own eyes rather than inconveniencing others and creating safety hazards.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened,” said one passenger. Eyal Shegev, who was on the same flight said: “The ideas was to block the ultra-Orthodox passengers from seeing the movie that was showing on the plane and perhaps also to separate between men and women. It prevented some of the passengers from seeing the screens so they couldn’t enjoy the in-flight entertainment. It blocked the side-view of the place. It was also impossible to see the direction to the fire exit.”