Plane diverted by tefillin

Northstarmom
Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:49:10 +0000

“I saw it that the crew was alarmed by the sight of the tefillin itself --being bound to him–it looks like wires and a box containing something that can be ignited. If the boy explained that what he had with him was teffillin then it could have been confirmed as sometihng that is used in Jewish ritual. But I guess they were mostly suspicious of him because he was praying, not just his paraphernalia.”

It’s not just the praying, it’s also the paraphernalia, especially his tying the tefillin to himself. His holding the odd looking object wouldn’t have drawn my attention, but his tying it to his arm would have gotten my attention and concern.

However, as I mentioned before, someone doing some kind of prayer ritual such as rolling out a prayer rug and then kneeling and bowing at the back of the plane would be behaving in such an odd way as to be suspicious.

“. If the boy explained that what he had with him was teffillin then it could have been confirmed as sometihng that is used in Jewish ritual.”

That still wouldn’t have been enough to have allayed my concerns. People normally don’t use things involving Jewish ritual on planes. People also normally don’t tie ritualistic things to themselves on planes.