By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
When three observant Jewish men on a flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles in March alarmed the flight crew by standing, wrapping black leather straps to their arms, binding small black boxes to their heads, and praying loudly in Hebrew, they were removed from the flight. A day after that event, Seattle-based carrier Alaska Airlines quickly reached out to the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle for a crash course in Jewish religious practice.
In a series of ongoing meetings between the airline, the Jewish Federation and the Va’ad HaRabanim of Greater Seattle, Alaska Airlines hopes to learn about Judaism, and has already taken action by creating an internal website and related written documents for its top-level staff so they may more easily recognize the sights and sounds of common Jewish practices, as well as those of other religious groups.
“We took this very seriously,” said Bobbie Egan, media-relations manager for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, Alaska’s partner airline, speaking with JTNews. “We had a lot of employees who said they wanted to be a part of this.”
Several of Alaska’s senior staff attended the April meeting, including directors from the flight department, which oversees flight attendants, representatives from diversity training, in-flight crew training and crew selection. Employee resource groups, which include diversity groups and the human resources department, attended as well.
“We’ve launched a computer-based training [program] for our 2,600 flight attendants,” Egan said. “In addition, we are finalizing our new employee orientation and will have a handout focusing primarily on the most popular religious practices for the regions we serve.”
Immediately after the incident, Alaska Airlines issued a swift apology and offered to reimburse the passengers’ airfares once it learned that the small black boxes with leather straps, known as tefillin, was a part of daily morning prayer rituals for observant Jews.
“We are including a model of training on non-verbal communication and what different behaviors could mean,” Egan said. “In addition, we’re producing another document that highlights some common prayer rituals.”
The incident was resolved once the FBI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and airport police met the plane, questioned the menand searched their bags.
According to Egan, an internal company review determined that the flight crew acted appropriately, but she could not recall, at this time, whether the three passengers involved have taken any formal action against the airline.
While attempting to refund the men’s airfares, Alaska Airlines found disconnected or incorrect phone numbers, which made subsequent attempts to contact the men, reported by the Jerusalem Post as Mexican nationals, difficult but still ongoing, Egan said.
The Jewish Federation’s CEO Richard Fruchter and its director of marketing and communications, Wendy Dore, along with Seattle Va’ad representatives, interim director Al Maimon and Rabbi Simon Benzaquen, collaborated with the airline to help them become more sensitive to Jewish religious rituals.
In a statement on the Federation’s website, Fruchter praised Alaska Airlines for its concern and attention to the matter, while acknowledging that security is the priority, even as all of the parties involved strive to build understanding.
“They contacted us to learn what this particular ritual is and what is involved so that they could learn what is acceptable, and what might be normal behavior, versus behaviors that they might be on alert for,” Dore told JTNews. “We’ve already provided them with photos and articles about tefillin, what they look like, and we had a demonstration by a local Va’ad rabbi.”
Although the Seattle Va’ad makes Jewish religious rulings on almost any issue, including kosher regulations, divorces, marriages, conversions, and more, Maimon told JTNews that the Va’ad has never been called on to help an airline become more religiously savvy, but they are happy to help in any way they can.
“We don’t have an agenda here,” said Maimon. “But if you know you’re going to be doing something that’s out of the norm, let the staff know what’s coming and make sure that they agree to the time and the place that it could be done so that it’s not disruptive.”
Benzaquen agreed and said he believed that the altercation probably had something to do with the passengers’ personalities as much as it did with Jewish law.
“There are certain rules on the plane because of safety and you have to be sensitive to that,” the rabbi told JTNews and Alaska Airlines executives at the meeting, reaffirming the Jewish law on the subject. “If you are already on the plane, and you didn’t take the tefillin [out], and you are already sitting down, you have to talk first to the flight attendant.”
At the same time, knowledge is power, he said. Once educated on the subject, the plane’s crew can handle this situation with calm and ease the next time.
“If somebody asks if they can do their prayers, [flight attendants] can know what it is instead of being panicky,” Benzaquen said.
While he had the airline’s attention on the subject of Jewish religious habits, Maimon said he took the opportunity to lobby, in a friendly way, for more explicit kosher certification symbols to be printed on the snacks it sells so those who observe Jewish kosher laws can more easily see them.
However, he did not lose sight of the issue that brought the group together and he offered his thoughts on the matter.
“There should be no one feeling entitlement to do what they need to do regardless of the environment or the authority of the people where they are,” he said.
The group plans to meet again at the end of May.