{"id":2592,"date":"2011-03-16T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2011\/03\/alaska-airlines-apologizes-for.php"},"modified":"2011-03-16T12:00:59","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T12:00:59","slug":"alaska-airlines-apologizes-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/alaska-airlines-apologizes-for","title":{"rendered":"Alaska Airlines Apologizes for Jewish Prayer Mix-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SEATTLE (RNS) Alaska Airlines has issued an apology for misinterpreting the devotional behavior of three Orthodox Jewish men on a flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles on Sunday (March 13).<br \/>\nThe men had strapped on tefillin &#8212; black leather bindings and boxes worn on arms and heads during ritual prayer by some Jews &#8212; and were praying in Hebrew, ignoring requests from crew to remain seated during turbulence.<br \/>\nTwo of them visited the bathroom while the third seemed to be &#8220;standing guard&#8221; in the aisle during the four-hour flight, which appeared suspicious, according to the Seattle-based airline&#8217;s statement.<br \/>\nFlight attendants locked down the cockpit and radioed a security alert to the Los Angeles airport, where the plane was met by emergency personnel and law enforcement. The three men were questioned, then released with no charges filed.<br \/>\nTefillin have been mistaken for bombs on other flights recently, including a January 2010 U.S. Airways flight from New York to Louisville, Ky., which was diverted to Philadelphia in response to a Jewish passenger&#8217;s prayer ritual.<br \/>\n&#8220;While our flight crews must be vigilant in watching for suspicious behavior, they are also trained to be aware and recognize the personalities and practices of a very broad and diverse group of travelers,&#8221; said Bobbie Egan, Alaska Airlines spokeswoman, in the statement.<br \/>\nAlaska Airlines said it will incorporate Orthodox Jewish practices into its diversity training and work with the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle to avoid such misunderstandings in the future.<br \/>\n<strong>&#8211; NICOLE NEROULIAS<\/strong>, <em>Religion News Service<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SEATTLE (RNS) Alaska Airlines has issued an apology for misinterpreting the devotional behavior of three Orthodox Jewish men on a flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles on Sunday (March 13). The men had strapped on tefillin &#8212; black leather bindings and boxes worn on arms and heads during ritual prayer by some Jews &#8212;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":264,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-news","category-rns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Alaska Airlines Apologizes for Jewish Prayer Mix-Up<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/alaska-airlines-apologizes-for\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alaska Airlines Apologizes for Jewish Prayer Mix-Up\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"SEATTLE (RNS) Alaska Airlines has issued an apology for misinterpreting the devotional behavior of three Orthodox Jewish men on a flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles on Sunday (March 13). The men had strapped on tefillin &#8212; black leather bindings and boxes worn on arms and heads during ritual prayer by some Jews &#8212;&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/alaska-airlines-apologizes-for\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-16T12:00:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Alaska Airlines Apologizes for Jewish Prayer Mix-Up","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/alaska-airlines-apologizes-for","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Alaska Airlines Apologizes for Jewish Prayer Mix-Up","og_description":"SEATTLE (RNS) Alaska Airlines has issued an apology for misinterpreting the devotional behavior of three Orthodox Jewish men on a flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles on Sunday (March 13). The men had strapped on tefillin &#8212; black leather bindings and boxes worn on arms and heads during ritual prayer by some Jews &#8212;&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/alaska-airlines-apologizes-for","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-03-16T12:00:59+00:00","author":"editor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/alaska-airlines-apologizes-for","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/alaska-airlines-apologizes-for","name":"Alaska Airlines Apologizes for Jewish Prayer Mix-Up","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-03-16T12:00:59+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-16T12:00:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58d12601cbe230a61e6f2ea91d341249"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/alaska-airlines-apologizes-for#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/alaska-airlines-apologizes-for"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/alaska-airlines-apologizes-for#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Alaska Airlines Apologizes for Jewish Prayer Mix-Up"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58d12601cbe230a61e6f2ea91d341249","name":"editor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dfc\/dfcc0838a84dd70003db24678b13c234x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dfc\/dfcc0838a84dd70003db24678b13c234x96.jpg","caption":"editor"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/editor"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/264"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}