Is El Al Breaking U.S. Law With Gender Segregation?
Image by wikipedia
Following the delay of several El Al flights after haredi Orthodox men refused to sit next to women, a New York rabbi and attorney claims that some of the airline’s policies may violate U.S. law.
Rabbi Iris Richman, posting on the Facebook page, Jewish Voices Together, cites “49 U.S. Code § 40127 – Prohibitions on discrimination,” which states: “An air carrier or foreign air carrier may not subject a person in air transportation to discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, or ancestry.”
Richman told Haaretz that she called the U.S. Department of Transportation, Aviation Consumer Protection Division, who informed her that the department was “willing to investigate any situation where any employee of a carrier, i.e steward/ess participated in asking someone to change a seat because of their gender.”
Rabbi Richman’s post comes in the wake of the establishment of an online petition launched Sunday, which calls on the airline to provide a small section of gender-segregated seats for an extra fee. The petition further charges that the Israeli airline permits “female passengers to be bullied, harassed and intimidated into switching seats which they rightfully paid for and were assigned to.” Over 3,000 people have signed the petition online.
El Al maintains that it does not discriminates against passengers. A spokeswoman for the company, which is represented by the Israeli public relations firm Ran Rahav Communications, told Haaretz, “Our policy in general is to try to accommodate any customer request.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
