New York to Israel flight delayed 'by Orthodox men’s refusal to sit next to women'

A flight from New York to Israel was delayed for over an hour after four men refused to sit next to women due to their religious beliefs.

The passengers who were Orthodox Jews boarded the EI AI plane but refused to take to their seats after finding they had been placed next to women, according to reports.

Khen Rotem, a passenger on board the flight wrote on Facebook that the men refused to cooperate with the female cabin crew, forcing the male flight attendants to try and rectify the issue.

Eventually two female passengers agreed to move, the passenger claimed.

“At the time the El-Al plane was dealing with matters of practical theology and personal belief against individual rights and civil order,” Mr Rotem said.

The Israeli airline has been known to move passengers to ensure Orthodox men are not sat next to women in the past.

In a statement, El Al said that discriminating against airline passengers is “forbidden” and it does its best to serve a “wide array of populations and travellers.”

Isreal's Supreme Court ruled last year that El Al cannot make female passengers to change seats.

The airline told the Independent: "Any discrimination against passengers is absolutely forbidden. El Al flight attendants do all they can in order to provide service to a wide variety of passengers with different and diverse requests and try to assist to the best of their ability.”

Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers, Community Educator at Reform Judaism told the Standard: "This is not a mainstream issue and one that would not affect most Jews when travelling, and many jews are horrified by the disrepute this brings on the community.

"For those in the ultra orthodox world this is a way of maintaining strict gender segregation so that grown men would only ever have physical contact with spouses and their own children. For them this preserves modesty and avoids unnecessary contact with non related women."

The Evening Standard has contacted EI AI for comment.