Eighteen Orthodox Jewish teenage girls were kicked off a flight from Kiev, Ukraine to New York after allegedly violating COVID-19 protocols, although their rabbi is claiming that they were targeted with antisemitism.
The 18 girls were part of a 55-member group that was visiting Jewish holy sites throughout Europe. The first leg of their flight home was an August 5 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight from Kiev to Amsterdam; on this flight, KLM crew members allegedly chastised the girls for eating Kosher food with their masks down, telling them: “You can’t eat now, it isn’t meal time,” the UK Daily Mail reported.
The girls then spent 24 hours at an Amsterdam airport before Delta offered them a flight back to New York for free before Shabbat after Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) office intervened. However, the girls were then kicked off the connecting flight because another passenger had asked one of the girls to switch seats so she could sit next to her son.
“The minute they made the swap, a stewardess made a beeline to the girl and said, ‘You’re misbehaving, you’re kind of on thin ice to begin with, get off the plane,’” Rabbi Yisroel Kahan, who heads the Oizrim Jewish Council, told Business Insider. An anonymous passenger similarly told Fox News that he saw the seat swap occur, and that the flight attendants asked the girls on the loudspeaker to “come down” despite them switching back to their original seats. “The girls started to cry. They didn’t feel they did anything wrong here. Why are they so nasty to them?”
The flight crew called Dutch police to force the girls off the plane, but the girls refused to leave their seats at the advice of their attorney, prompting the flight crew to force everyone off the plane and then preventing the 18 girls from getting on the plane. The girls weren’t able to fly home until August 8 because Delta couldn’t get them another flight until after Shabbat.
Kahan alleged that the treatment of the girls was due to antisemitism. “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck,” he told Fox News. “I’m highly suspicious of the motives.” A passenger also alleged that a security guard on the flight mocked the girls.
The United Jewish Organizations (UJO) of Williamsburg and New Brooklyn tweeted that they “can’t shrug away this incident,” noting that KLM doesn’t have any “posted policies” about specific mealtimes and that “there is no explanation on the collective punishment of the entire group together both times. The circumstances points that @klm (which is sharing flights with @Delta) employee/s decided to block this group from flying and it’s likely that antisemitism played a role.”
They called the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to investigate the matter. “We all know the importance of compliance and enforcement of the rules, but this can’t be a pretext of unchecked punitive actions whiles flying.”
We're happy they are finally home, but can't shrug away this incident. The reason these girls were barred from flying and then deplaned is evolving. From mask violations; to agreeing to a stranger's request to switch seats, and switching back when told its against airline policy;
— UJO of Williamsburg (@UnitedJewish) August 8, 2021
and now @klm claims it was cuz they weren't served kosher food and removed their own own outside mealtimes, while there is no posted policies re mealtime. Its clear this was a well-behaved group desperate to return home and definitely didn't wantonly violate airlines rules.
— UJO of Williamsburg (@UnitedJewish) August 8, 2021
Also, there is no explanation on the collective punishment of the entire group together both times. The circumstances points that @klm (which is sharing flights with @Delta) employee/s decided to block this group from flying and it's likely that antisemitism played a role.
— UJO of Williamsburg (@UnitedJewish) August 8, 2021
We ask & hope that airlines w @FAANews and other relevant agencies will thoroughly investigate this matter and get to the bottom of it. We all know the importance of compliance and enforcement of the rules, but this can't be a pretext of unchecked punitive actions whiles flying.
— UJO of Williamsburg (@UnitedJewish) August 8, 2021
The Simon Wiesenthal Center tweeted that KLM and Delta “owe these girls, their families, our community full explanation. If #Antisemitism is a factor we expect those individuals to be held accountable [and] airlines to see to it no one is targeted unfairly because of their religion or creed.”
.@KLM + @Delta owe these girls, their families, our community full explanation. If #Antisemitism is a factor we expect those individuals to be held accountable + airlines to see to it no one is targeted unfairly because of their religion or creed. https://t.co/iHen5GA8GQ
— SimonWiesenthalCntr (@simonwiesenthal) August 9, 2021
A spokesperson for KLM told The Daily Mail that the girls had been “unruly” on their July 20 flight to Europe and continued to be “unruly” on the August 5 flight despite being warned. Kahan told Fox News that that the girls didn’t know of any incidents that occurred on the July 20 flight that would have been considered unruly.
A spokesperson for Delta told Business Insider, “We apologize to our customers on Delta Flight 47, Amsterdam to New York-JFK, who were delayed and inconvenienced to remove a group of passengers who refused to comply with crew instructions. The flight departed approximately two hours after its originally scheduled time.”
