I am sure that by now you have heard about the incident on the United Airlines flight in which a female reporter was asked to move by a religious male and she threw a fit and everything went public. She She publicized her side of the story and then an independent reporter interviewed him and published his side of the story.
The story has basically become a "he said, she said" story and nobody really has any way to determine which side is more correct (of course taking into account the old adage of their being three sides to every story - my side, your side and the truth). Despite not being able to determine the accuracy of either side's story, some have jumped n her story to bash the Haredim and others have jumped on his side to bash the journalist who hates Haredim.
I get that if she fabricated the story she put him in a bad light, that is a personal issue and she should apologize to him. And if he fabricated his description of the incident, he has made her look bad so he should apologize to her.
The fascination with finding out the truth of this story doesn't seem to be to defend him or her but to defend or attack the entire scenario. Whether it happened this way or that is not really all that important (except to the two of them specifically).
This actually happens all the time. Who has flown a flight between Israel and USA in recent years and didn't experience some men on the flight refusing to sit next to a woman and causing delays? Sometimes these incidents get resolved fairly quickly and quietly, with people politely asking others to switch and some agree (I have agreed in the past even though I dont care who I am sitting next to), and sometimes it becomes more of an issue with people running up and down the aisles looking for someone to arrange a switch of some sort and not enough people are willing, and a ruckus sometimes might ensue.
Whether it happened with these two people on this specific flight does not make the general phenomenon any better. Suddenly the entire scenario is a fabrication? Besides for defending him or her personally, the story is bigger than that and it happens on multiple flights every single day. Saying it did or didnt happen on this one flight does not change the fact that it happens all the time and we can all do our part to try to be more gracious, more accommodating, more accepting, of others.
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At least they didn’t ask her to open the aluminum stamped-cap grape juice for them!
ReplyDeleteIf you saw the news about bus drivers themselves in cities like Ashdod running the gamut of acting like Islamic mutawas for the sake of the Haredi passengers this past week, it's offensive how even they seem to subscribe to a mindset that "all faiths are equal" at the expense of innocent girls and women, which hurts their self-confidence. It was said that 2 drivers were suspended from their jobs over that. I certainly hope so, because one really came off sounding stupefyingly crude and lecturing.
ReplyDeleteI've sat next to plenty of women throughout my life on public transportation, and if I don't have a problem with that, I can't understand why any ultra-Orthodox do. What their "leaders" have indoctrinated has doubtless caused untold damage, and I'm sure plenty of women who could've made perfect representatives for Judaism were understandably alienated. All these sex-negative "customs" have only led to stunning hysteria and gender bigotry that could've been avoided. The worst part is that it takes away attention from more serious issues like Islamic terrorism, and MSM sources milk the Haredi antics for all they're worth.
The reporter named Kraus later posted a video where it sounded like United Airlines staffers stated there was some form of discrimination that went on. If that video's factual, and the 2 boys refused to sit next to the woman in any way, then they're huge disappointments for providing ammunition to anybody disturbed by Haredi gender discrimination.
I did see it but I didnt want to get involved in the argument of who is right because I dont think it matters (except regarding who needs to apologize to whom, but not regarding does the Haredi community, or some of it, do this regularly or not)
DeleteThe video she posted to back up her claim was very strange. She interviewed a different flight attendant (not the one who told her in Hebrew to sit down as her actions were delaying takeoff). The attendant she videoed said that he does not speak Hebrew and did not understand what was being said, but if there was discrimination, that is unacceptable on a United flight.
DeleteHardly an endorsement of her position.
There is a huge difference. If you look at the people involved, they aren't the demographic that will stop a flight from taking off and making a scene. The reporter stereotyped ALL men who wear black yarmulkes, or maybe all men who wear any type of yarmulke. So just because one demographic in the yarmulke wearing world does that (sometimes) it doesn't mean all do. She, since she is a reporter, needs to understand that.
ReplyDeleteMaybe instead fly out of Toronto. I've never seen this happen on a Canada-Tel Aviv flight.
ReplyDelete