Jewish Family Of 5 Booted From JetBlue Flight After Baby Kicks Seat
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — A family of five from Brooklyn was sent off a JetBlue flight in Florida, with the reason in dispute.
Tamir Raanan and his wife, Mandy Ifrah, were ready to fly home with their three children from Fort Lauderdale last month when their 1-year-old daughter kicked the seat of the passenger in front of her.
Ifrah told the New York Daily News that she apologized to the woman and then set about calming her child. She also told other news outlets and airport security that the woman told her she should tie her child’s feet down before switching seats.
The airline asserted that after “a verbal altercation that included physical threats,” the family was asked to deplane.
A video of the encounter with airline security taken on Raanan’s cellphone shows Ifrah speaking to her husband in Hebrew at one point. The family is Jewish and the couple are expatriate Israelis.
The airplane returned to the gate and the family was asked to leave the plane. A member of the JetBlue staff told the couple that they would receive a refund for the flight.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
