After tefillin flight flap, Orthodox urge training

An Orthodox group is calling for better training after a commercial flight was diverted when a passenger’s tefillin were mistaken for a bomb.

“To facilitate training and awareness, we recently created a brochure explaining Orthodox customs for individual airlines,” said Rabbi A. D. Motzen, the Ohio regional director of Agudath Israel of America, in a Jan. 21 statement.

“At the same time,” noted Rabbi Mark Kalish, Agudath Israel’s national director of government affairs, “we have also cautioned members of our own community to understand that many citizens may not be familiar with Jewish prayer rituals, and that they might consider explaining the practice to individuals in authority before boarding planes, buses, trains and other forms of public transit.”

On Jan. 21, a flight attendant on a US Airways flight from New York to Louisville mistook the religious prayer article for a bomb after the Jewish passenger, Caleb Leibowitz, 17, had put them on to pray, according to reports.

The passengers and crew were taken off the plane in Philadelphia. Fire trucks and police met the plane on the runway.

Leibowitz was questioned and released. No one was arrested in the incident.  — jta