A group of Jews visiting Ukraine was removed from flights to New York twice

According to their rabbi, a group of Jewish girls of Orthodox faith were twice removed from flights to New York - they returned home to the Big Apple after visiting shrines in Ukraine. The story was told by the publication Yahoo News.

18 girls were part of a group of Jews who visited religious sites in Ukraine. On August 5, they lost the opportunity to fly home due to a dispute over the COVID-19 protocols on a KLM-operated flight from Kiev to Amsterdam, from where they were supposed to fly to New York.

They eventually made it to Amsterdam later, and the Delta flight they were supposed to take to New York had already departed.

The girls had to sleep on benches at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. During this time, Kahan and another escort were trying to arrange for them to travel home on another flight.

Kahan said he and another rabbi began calling US lawmakers from New York. Including Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to contact Delta to rectify the situation.

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Sumer reportedly intervened. Delta executives personally called the parents of the stranded girls and arranged a Delta flight from Amsterdam to New York on the morning of August 6.

Removed from the second flight

On August 6, the girls boarded a Delta flight from Amsterdam to New York. But soon after landing, according to Kahan, the girls were asked to leave the plane to exchange seats.

The rabbi claims that one of the girls was asked to change places by a mother who wanted to sit next to her son.

“The moment they changed, the stewardess ran up to the girl and said: 'You are misbehaving, you are joking with fire, so first get off the plane,” Kahan said.

The woman confirmed that it was she who asked the girl to change places, and that this ultimately led to the girls being asked to leave the flight. Despite the fact that the girl returned to her seat after the flight attendant's remarks, the entire group of teenagers was ordered to leave the flight. Kahan said the woman was allowed to stay on the plane because it was her "first offense."

The rabbi said that he thought these incidents smelled of anti-Semitism. Although he hates "touching on this topic." Kahan suspects that Delta's decision was tied to anti-Semitism.

“Anti-Semitism is simple. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck, ”he said.

The girls were booked for a Delta flight at a later date. But they gave up the trip because it would have meant returning to New York after the start of Shabbat, a Jewish day of rest in which believers are not allowed to travel by car or plane.

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Instead, the girls spent the night in Antwerp, Belgium. And on Sunday morning we went home to New York on a United Airlines flight.

A Delta spokesman commented on the situation: “We apologize to our customers on Delta Flight 47 from Amsterdam to New York. They were detained and experienced inconvenience during the removal from the flight of a group of passengers who refused to follow the instructions of the crew. The flight departed approximately two hours later than the scheduled time. ”