Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Woman Sues El Al Over Gender Segregation

A Florida woman reportedly is suing El Al for gender discrimination after she was forced to change seats to accommodate a haredi Orthodox man.

Debra Ryder charged that a flight steward moved her to a seat in the back without her prior consent, Israeli media reported. The haredi Orthodox man had refused to sit next to her and then moved into her aisle seat.

Ryder reportedly filed a lawsuit on Aug. 9 seeking some $12,500 in compensation, including for distress. She had obtained an aisle seat for medical reasons, she told Israel Army Radio.

Ryder’s attorney, Orly Erez-Likhovsky of the Israel Religious Action Center, also has sent a letter to El Al demanding that it set and distribute specific instructions to employees on how to act when confronted with such cases, Globes reported.

“Flight attendants are at the service of passengers, they are faced with different requests and they try to help as much as possible,” El Al said in a statement. “The passenger’s complaint will be looked into and dealt with accordingly.”

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.