"Retired lawyer sues Israeli airline after she was asked to move seat"

Retired lawyer sues Israeli airline after she was asked to move seat The Guardian, 2 April 2016

The 81-year-old lady, Renee Rabinowitz, who fled the Nazis as a child, was asked to move seats by El Al staff after an Orthodox man objected to sitting next to her on a plane.

A very similar thing happened on my Virgin Atlantic flight from Heathrow to New York in 2013. My seat was at the back of the plane, a left-hand aisle seat in the middle. Almost the last people to embark were a family, three generations by the look of them, dressed as orthodox Jews, and with the hair-dos, hats etc. Most of the family were seated towards the middle of the plane but one man came to the back and stood in the right-hand aisle but did not sit down.

He called a flight attendant and spoke to her but would not sit. She disappeared and another attendant came and spoke to him but he remained standing.

By now we are all ready to take off but it is pretty clear that we won't be going anywhere with him standing there.

I have an inkling that he doesn't want to sit next to a non-familial woman. I resent both the fact that he is probably delaying our take-off and the implication that he has a religious objection to sitting next to a woman. Maybe there is some reason other than that he feels she is somehow inferior company. But it is difficult to escape the conclusion that his religion makes him feel that way. Is the problem based on some arcane (I am tempted to say Neanderthal) fear of menstruation? Or a belief that all daughters of Eve are agents of Satan? Whatever the reason his behaviour is simply bloody rude.

(According to Ms Rabinowitz the "the Torah says nothing about a man sitting next to a woman" - and her objector on the plane agreed.)

I'm now in a dilemma. I am seated next to two women so there is no point the air crew giving him my seat. But I could conceivable be asked to swop with the woman in the seat next to his. This I am not inclined to agree to. For one thing I'm happy where I am. For another I do not wish to be compliant in an act of blatant sexual discrimination. Also I have no desire to spend the next 7 hours sitting next to a religious bigot. On the other hand nobody wants to sit on the tarmac waiting to take off longer than necessary. Nevertheless I steel myself for a confrontation with anyone who wants me to move.

Thankfully I don't need to. There was an Virgin employee in a cut-price or freebie seat somewhere else and the Jewish guy is taken away to another part of the plane where, presumably, he is less likely to be corrupted, polluted, seduced or compromised in some other way.

I was really angry when I read this piece in the Guardian. But then a few pages on I read an article on FGM, e.g. in Somalia 98% of women and girls have been cut. Kind of puts a minor hassle over an airline seat into perspective. I hope Rabinowitz wins her case, though.