If I was Al Queda, I'm pretty sure of how I would next try to attack an American airplane.I would do it with Tefillin.
If September 11th taught us anything, it taught us that the enemies of freedom would attack America at its point of greatest weakness: its desire for fairness, honesty and openness. Americans still refuse to profile people based on ethnicity and appearance, instead choosing to scan old ladies in wheelchairs with the same intensity and scrutiny as a Middle-Eastern man in his twenties purchasing a ticket for cash with no luggage. (Did the airlines learn nothing at all during the past eight years?)
The brilliance (if you can call it that) of September 11th was the knowledge that during a hijacking, Americans would herd in the back of the plane and hope for the best. That's no longer the case, which is good.
But Americans are still not only good-hearted, but naively so. It's easy for me to imagine that following the recent Tefillin scare, the TSA sent out a bulletin to its thousands of employees about Tefillin, explaining that they are items of a religious nature that pose no threat to fellow passengers.
Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein wrote on his blog,
Mark Weitzman of the New York office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (my employer) had the conversation with an official of Homeland Security three or four years ago. He spoke of the need of a manual about America’s different religious communities, and what they might be bringing on planes at different times of the year. We offered to provide the Jewish content. They were receptive, but there was no follow-up that we are aware of. (On a different occasion, I wrote such a piece for TSA, which has been more than cooperative each year in assuring that frum passengers will not be detonated for carrying their lulavim around Sukkos time.) At this point, Homeland Security will hopefully swing into action, and find a way to share the information with the airlines.That's just the kind of thing that Al Queda is looking for. Can a TSA employee in Des Moines tell the difference between a Jewish Middle Eastern looking man carrying Tefillin, and a non-Jewish one? You or I could just by looking - but could they? Would they know the difference between a kosher pair of Tefillin filled with klaf, or a fake pair filled with C4?
I doubt it. Only now, with newly issued instructions, American openness, and a desire to avoid another international incident, I fear that the TSA might be all too happy to let the "Tefillin" through without the proper scrutiny.
Which is just what America's enemies are hoping.
Oh, come on, that's silly. They should scan the tefillin - and everything else you bring on board - with the same scrutiny as before. You just don't ground a plane when someone PUTS ON tefillin because that's where you cross the line between cautious and idiotic.
ReplyDeleteI should note that I'm writing this at 35,000 feet on Gogo. I never put on tefillin on a plane. Ever. Just because I think I ought to be able to do so doesn't mean I'm dumb enough to try.* I would also strongly encourage my fellow Muslim passengers to refrain from laying down a prayer mat. Or my Sikh friends from wearing a turban. Who knows how the flight attendant will react to these terrible provocations?
* I daven in airports, though. A lot.
Avi,
ReplyDeleteI didn't say that they shouldn't scan the tefillin. All I said was that I didn't think that they would. To the best of my knowledge, they only scan laptops for explosives. When they XRay stuff, can they see what's inside the tefillin, or just that it is tefillin? Big difference.
1) Reuven, at Meah Shearim Airport (MSA), they agents scan the tefillin through the metal detectors to see if you're using Rashi or Rabbeinu Tam.
ReplyDelete2) This is a poem I wrote about the tefillin on the airplane incident based on "Oh! The Places You Will Go!" by Dr. Seuss.
http://blog.rabbijason.com/2010/01/oh-planes-gonna-blow.html
Rabbi Jason Miller
I can assure you that tefillin, along with any other carry-on items, are scanned. Xrays can show any metal bits inside them. Laptops are scanned separately, but it's the same process.
ReplyDeleteSecondary screening for explosives residue (using swabs, not an xray) is also done with laptops and can be done for just about anything else, but that's not routine (at least not in the U.S. and Europe). That's generally done only when there's an issue with the xray or the passenger.