And people claim Jews control the news!

Some inside information. There are spots where Jews do not interrupt their prayers. The stewardess may have tried to talk to this person and he would not respond likely until after the prayer known as the Shemonah Essray or amidah.

This is an over reaction

Unless, that is, you want to consider a Muslims terrorist act as an act of religion, protected by the United States constitution.

It is possible that I have over-reacted, and dramatized. Obviously possible. But, the logic remains the same. The difficulties in the story are the key facts which we are denied:

1) did the boy put on the tefillin before or after flight was in progress?
2) the ethnicity, national origin, training, experience, of the woman flight attendant.

Has no Jew in the modern history ever worn the phylacteries on a plain before? (Of course they have.)

Everything, on the boy, or in his carryon, had already been checked and scanned.. Therefore, this suspicion is inexcusable. It isn’t error on the side of caution. It is religious prejudice and hysteria, with a nasty tint to it. That’s what it seems like to me, given what we DO know, as well as what we don’t.

Would it have been unthinkable for the stewardess to have kindly ask the boy about the tefillin, if she actually didn’t know? And what’s the point of “diverting” the plane? If the boy was going to blow something up, he would have blown it up!

The more I think about this story, the more ridiculous it is, even it it is not anti-semitic. It is blazoned ignorance and stupidity, from any angle you look at it.

The person was praying silently and in his seat.
These objects are well known to people who travel on public transportation in NYC.

The person is owed an immediate apology.

Airline passengers since 9/11 have been subjected to every knee-jerk security response imaginable. We remove our shoes, bag our shampoo, we are frisked, we are wanded, we have our bodies scanned and we don’t complain (because the TSA will view you with even more suspicion!). But that’s the way things are in an airport in 2010. Most passengers have come to accept these procedures as the facts of life for air travelers.

Now most of these Orthodox Jews are just like you. They may live in Williamsburg but they might as well live in Israel. They live in their own separate communities which they rarely leave except to commute to work or travel to some other Orthodox community. Their contact with the greater population of these United States is confined to “only when necessary”.

So it’s no wonder that some teenage Hasid thinks nothing of strapping on his Teffilin and praying on a packed plane. I’m pretty sure he’s clueless to any news of underwear bombers or terrorist alerts. And I’m also pretty sure he’s used to having everyone around him know what he’s doing.

But what he doesn’t know is that most of his fellow plane travelers couldn’t tell a schmata from schmutz. In other words, this kid is flat out culturally ignorant. He grew up like a Jewish veal.

So here’s the solution: Huge signs at airline terminals declaring absolutely no religious activity of any kind allowed on any domestic US airline. I don’t need Jews dovenning, Jehovah’s Witnesses passing out Watchtowers or Muslims on prayer rugs while I’m trying to sleep on the plane. That includes the guy next to me who keeps trying to get me to listen to his Jesus spiel.

And the only reason to get up from your seat is to go to the bathroom or to try an walk your crying kid back to sleep.

“A flight originating in NYC should have more than enough people familiar with that item. The airline should apologize to the passengers for its stupidity.”

Faulty, unrealistic, logic with regard to the human condition. The flight attendant could have easily been from Wyoming. And the very few other New York attendants that she has ever come in contact with, that knew about Orthodox Jewish rituals may have never schooled her.

Are you saying that Orthodox Jewish folks should be exempted from the personal judgement calls of the security forces in America?

Do you have any idea how much high powered plastic explosives an Islamic terrorist that looks Jewish could fit into a little box?

The demanding of an apology is exactly what the terrorists want. The demanding of an apology will set the stage for the security forces of America to second guess the inspection of any religious paraphernalia. This same kind of faulty logic was the very thing that allowed the Fort Hood terrorist to move under the radar screen for so long . . . Muslims demanding apologies to satisfy their irrational, illogical sensitivities.

I can assure you that El Al thoroughly inspects all phylacteries. And if a passenger took one out of his pocket and placed it on his head in flight, and the air marshal wasn’t absolutely convinced it was cleared . . . he or she would react physically and quickly for the common good of all.

El Al’s Secrets To Thwarting Airliner Terrorism

You get some really p****ed off Arab and get him a Jewish identity and papers and all. One who speaks good Hebrew. Shouldn’t be hard.

Then you put him on a plane to New York and come prayer time he starts strapping on the C4. Anybody objects and he starts calling them anti-semites. Backs the suckers down in a New York minute.

Then boom. Now I’ve notified Homeland Security that the dolts at BadEagle.com have made this idea available to our enemies. Disgraceful. Start using your head, Yeagley.