Posted on 12/05/21
| News Source: MATZAV
NYC Mayor de Blasio has weighed in on a report first appearing on Matzav.com about an elderly Brooklyn couple was kicked off an American Airlines flight for refusing to drop a bag holding tallis and tefillin on the floor. Roberto and Elana Birman were returning home from Miami in August aboard Flight 322, when the incident occurred.
On Twitter, De Blasio remarked, “This an outrageous insult. Just tremendous disrespect to our entire Jewish community. @AmericanAir, you owe the Birmans a real apology and you need to change this policy. Now.”
Roberto, 76, and Elana, 71, boarded the plane with only a briefcase, a handbag, and his tallis bag — a small, 8.5-inch-by-8.5-inch clear plastic carrier. They sat across from one another in aisle seats. Prior to takeoff, a flight attendant began searching overhead bins, removed the tallis bag from one, and said, “Who is this?”
When Roberto claimed it, she allegedly tossed the bag on his lap and instructed him that it needed to go under his seat, according to the pair.
“It’s a religious object; it cannot go beneath the seat,” Roberto remarked, taking off his baseball cap to display his yarmulka and explaining that as an Orthodox Jew, he is not permitted to place the tashmishei kedusha on the floor.