One person's requirement for religious accommodation can seem all-too-much like discrimination to another.
An El Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv last week encountered delays when several ultra-orthodox Jewish men refused to take their seats next to women over religious objections.
Ultra-orthodox Judaism forbids physical contact between men and women unless they are first-degree relatives or married to one another. In an airplane with close quarters, maintaining such separation is not easy.
As orthodox and secular Jewish passengers boarded the flight scheduled to arrive at Ben Gurion airport on the morning of Rosh Hashanah, the men began asking women seated next to them to move, sometimes even offering compensation for seat changes, Ynet News reports.
One passenger, identified as Galit, was sitting next to her husband when an ultra-orthodox, or haredi, man asked her to move. But she refused to change seats, Galittold Ynet:
"I ended up sitting next to a haredi man who jumped out of his seat the moment we had finished taking off and proceeded to stand in the aisle."
Some of the haredi men spent much of the eleven-hour flight standing and praying in the aisle, which caused general commotion and made it difficult to reach the restroom, Galit said.
More: Orthodox Jewish Men Cause Flight Delay By Refusing To Sit Next To Women
Absolutely bizarre!
