It’s an Airplane, Not a Shul

A Tale of Flying While Female

So a man boards his El Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv, but when he sees that Elana Sztokman is in the seat adjacent to his, he refuses to sit next to her.

Did she have a hacking cough? Covid?

No. The problem, simply, was that she was a she.

The man, an ultra-religious Orthodox Jew, was so certain that God didn’t want him to sit beside a woman that he demanded a seat change. Other Orthodox men onboard took up his cause, and the ensuing brouhaha delayed take-off until, finally, another seat could be found for him.

Sztokman just happens to be the author of The War On Women In Israel: A Story of Religious Radicalism and the Women Fighting For Freedom in which she calls for an end to “the religious extremism that is hurting women” in that country.

Proving? God has a sense of humor. Or, at the very least, a sense of irony.

The outraged essay that Sztokman wrote about the incident quickly went viral.

Will this help Sztokman sell books?

I certainly hope so.

Seating flaps like this aren’t unusual for El Al. It happens often enough that instituting gender-segregated seating on their planes has been discussed. (And dismissed as being unworkable.)

Of course, playing musical chairs with airplane seats is nothing new.

I’ve quietly asked the flight attendant for a seat change when seated too close to a bathroom, or in front of a child who kept kicking my seatback. Flight attendants, I’ve found, will try to accommodate you if you’ve got a reasonable request.

But was this man’s request reasonable?

Sztokman didn’t think so. “What offends me,” she wrote, “is the premise that sitting next to me is a problem…and the way women [in such a situations] are made to feel like second-class citizens.”

My Facebook pals agreed, based on their comments when I shared her essay:

He should have been shown the door and told he can fly when he grows up.

He needs a private jet to control his flying environment but I guess it’s easier to try to control women.

Let him sit in the bathroom where he can be alone with his deep thoughts.

Make him walk.

It’s an airplane, not a shul!

So where does it end? A special section or religious men and another special section for religious women?

How about another section for secular humanist Jews like me, where we can nosh non-kosher snacks and read the New York Times in peace?

What about a section for anybody traveling with a howling baby?

Or a really bad cold?

A section for introverts only, to ensure that we won’t have to make small talk with our seat mates?

And why not a section for white-knuckled flyers, with special “This Plane Is Perfectly Safe And Will Not Crash” affirmations printed on the seat-back cards?

All joking aside, supporting a male passenger’s refusal to sit next to a woman is a serious attack on women’s hard-won right to equality in public accommodations and should not be tolerated.

El Al, I hope, will eventually get this all sorted out.

In the meantime, I’ve got an idea. Feminist airlines! The very first airline to fly in accordance with feminist values. Every passenger will be considered equal and worthy, and all will be expected to treat each other with consideration and kindness. (And, of course, Gloria Steinem always flies for free.)

Fly the feminist skies with me, Elana! I’ll see you at the airport.

Writing Coach and editor-for-hire Roz Warren, who writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times, can help you improve and publish your work. Drop her a line at [email protected]. (That’s Ros with an “s,” not a “z.”)