The El Al Epilogue

I was a bit surprised at Rabbi Salomon's approach. While one of his conclusions, i.e., the strength and important of unity, was well taken, the point of departure, i.e., the surprising unity within the (let's just say it) chareidi community (since not all Orthodox Jews subscribed to the ban against El-Al) caught me a bit off-guard. Public discord among mainstream "rank-and-file" chareidim in the face of such a ban is rare, and I'd even go so far as to say virtually unheard of, so I don't understand Rabbi Salomon's surprise.

With the "headline" of the video being about unity, and Rabbi Salomon beginning with the recent boycott against El-Al, I assumed that he was going to decry the mis-unity which ensued when one subset of the Jewish community (i.e., the chareidim) all but declared war on another (El-Al, and all who fly it). I would hardly call El-Al's eventual capitulation (which, by the way, I was happy about) a "victory", since it implies that unity across the entire spectrum of the Jewish people/nation/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is not necessary.

(As a side note, I generally enjoy Rabbi Salomon's broadcasts, and have no personal gripe with him due to this. I was just a little taken aback with what I consider was his not seeing the forest for the trees.)

I have been to Israel couple of weeks ago, and some things are still not making any sense to me: who is going around on Shabbat and check that people at work are the holders of the permit? How much are people paid for it? And how does it make any sense to let fruit go rotten for the sake of Shabbat, but only some kind (other is ok and it's not just decided on the basis of which fruit will get spoiled fast). I think that sometimes we are so preoccupied what is work and what isn't that we forget the right of people to choose. You cannot make people believe, you cannot push anything on people, for it only makes us dislike the changes. I think that it's more important to educate and give free choice. By the way, I'm pretty sure that if I would be caught in the situation and decide not to fly for religious reasons, my needs would be accommodated.
I believe that El Al didn't just fly an d I always thought that been safe and saving someone's life is important and one can violate Shabbat to do so.
It we would remember that we are one we would be more tolerant to each other.
One more thing, if you can please give us your point of view on the things that are happening in Hevron. I think that media did pick only one side of the story. May be if people stop blaming Jews for everything and all of us will be not just saving the world, but understanding and helping fellow Jews we would bring more peace and positivity to the world.

One of the reasons the secular media has not run the story of the victory of El Al Israeli Airlines keeping the Shabbat is because they are afraid...! Afraid that other companies will do the same-keep the Shabbat-and they will lose massive amounts of money they would have made if their companies were open and functioned on Shabbat...!

There really is a wide-spectrum of views in these comments - which highlight's Rabbi Salomon's point: Let's learn from this that we NEED to be more unified and what that can do for all of us.
Thank you Rabbi for putting a positive (not negative) spin on this event!

I agree with the Rabbi- I myself was astounded at the level of unity there was accross the spectrum of Shabbat observing Jews.

Jews who honor and keep Shabbat from many different groups felt as one on the issue of honoring the Shabbat, by doing their part in the effort to have this major symbol of the Jewish state keep their own commitment, which they made in order to get business from the Shabbat observant.

If we can have economic boycotts when companies renege on their pledge to keep green and protect the environment, we can certainly choose, as a community(ies), to refrain from giving business to an airline company that reneged on a pledge to uphold the honor of Shabbat.

hi Rabbi Salomon,
Although a Christian (!)i'm hooked to your little video broadcast and really appreciate your even-handed, sain comments and your humour always makes me smile. I totally agree with what orthodox jews did about El Al's commercial compromise caper. the reason? I guess we don't have to lok any further than lucre : 'money is a root of all kinds of evil'.

Unity? Only the orthodox community boycotted elal

Not being Jewish perhaps I am out of line to comment here but here goes anyway.
The Jews and Fundamental Christians seem to be among the most reviled groups of people in the International Media.
Stories go under reported or not reported at all or are intentionaly misleading. My thanks to the Rabbi for all of his preceding articles.
Blessings to all.

Of course American media barely covered the ElAl debate, it's an Israeli airline. The secular Israeli papers had several front-page headlines about the story.

Personally, I am not haredi, but good job to them for sticking up for Shabbat (I wouldn't have flown El Al during the boycott either, but had no reason to anyway).

El Al was getting preferential treatment from religious Jews--Haredim by and large chose El Al for all of their flights even though it's often more expensive than other airlines--because they are "the Jewish airline." If they want that to continue, they have to act like "the Jewish airline." If they want to be an airline like all the other airlines (fly on Shabbat, non-kosher food, etc), then they should be treated as such. Which in this case would mean ditching them in favor of cheaper tickets.

This isn't forcing El Al to do anything. A consumer boycott is hardly a violent situation, and if secular people hate us for it, they probably would have hated us anyway. It's completely reasonable to expect a company to work to please its customers, and to take our business elsewhere if they don't. Also, if we want people to be able to keep Shabbat, we need to support businesses which keep Shabbat, and therefore don't ask their employees to work on Shabbat.

whats the importance or significance of this? Elal is not government owned any more. Instead people flew on Israir, which openly flies on shabbos (with a sefer torah of course)
alternatvely, people flew on british air (owned in part by the british government, authors of the 3rd crusade, who banished jews for 500 years from their country.)
even if elal was govenment owned, since when is Israel a religious government? The chreidim are the first to say the worst thing about the government and heap insults and titles of the worst type on them.
Truly a bizzare strike which just further increases the hatred of the irreligious to us. elal has historically had a good record of not flying on shabbos, and this vidictave strike for a random event just shows the vituperativeness, or in a best case scenario, the foolishnes nature of the chareidi leaders

Are more chilonim going to embrace the Shabbos b/c El Al gave in to a boycott? Was there any kiruv value in this boycott? No. We flexed our muscles and won. Big Deal.

Skip the conspiracy theories. We should be grateful the secular media missed this one, since it wasn't to the credit of the frum community.

1.It got a lot of media attention from what I read and saw.
2.It was Haredi Jews, not all Orthdox Jews
3. It wasn't a change in El Al's policy, it was caused by specific circumstances
4. The Haredi Jews who boycotted risked that El Al wouldn't give in and then they might be less accomating to Jews in general. It seems to be me it would be worse if El Al stopped serving kosher food on all their flights--there would then be a lot of Jews eating treif because they don't think kosher meals are important.
5. El Al is run by a private person now, not the government.
6. El Al was extremely accomendating for Jews who did not want to fly on Shabbat--and should be commended for that.

Rabbi Salomon, you asked why the media didn't pick up on this story. It's simple: there was nothing to "play up" to show how out-of-step we orthodox are. Normal looking business people, with a quiet boycott that didn't have chanting picketers. Religious people are almost universally depicted as weird in some way - outlandish clothes, shaved heads, vow of poverty - anything but average joe.

rabbi: you wonder why the secular media didn't cover the el al issue; it's because once again jews showed what they can do when they stand up for what is right. this scares the secularists and they don't want be to know we won't lie down as sheep!

we're deceiving ourselves if we think that shabbat is kept to the fullest by el al or by the electric company or many others. we couldn't get on a plane saturday night if people weren't working on shabbat to get it ready.

(1) El Al used to be Israel's official national airline, but that changed a few years ago when it was privatized. In fact, last year the Israeli government asked all its employees who fly on official business to fly, not on El Al, but on Alitalia (because it's cheaper)!

(2) All other airlines fly on Shabbat, davka including Israir, which is chartered in Israel and is -- unlike El Al -- privately owned by Jews! Have they been less "safe" than El Al?

(3) Rabbi Salomon's comments are often reasonable and cogent, but not this time. There may have been "unity" among Chareidim, but the gap between them and all other Jews -- including non-Chareidi Orthodox -- is now even wider than before. Shameful and unnecessary!

Some people commenting where wondering why "pick" on El Al. It is really simple. When El Al was founded, they said they wouldn't fly on Shabbat. Also, the Shabbat protects those who keep her. El Al's safety record is amazing. Think about the close calls you have read about. Many rabbis said that if El Al flies on Shabbat, for SAFETY reasons people shouldn't fly with them.
Although my information is anadotal, most people I spoke to did not fly El Al during this time.

Dear Rabbi;
Sorry that this is not related to this subject but I would like to know how Tehila bat Bracha and Rafeal David ben Bracha are doing. I am sure a lot of people are still praying for them.

I enjoyed listening to this article. I believe that the reason that we didn't hear about this "boycott" is because it had to do with Jewish religion. Jewish and Christian religions are no longer important to the liberal media, so we don't hear about the good things that happen. Only the bad. The boycott of these people encourages me to keep to my principles of not working, or shopping, on the Sabbath. For me, that is on Sunday, but I am also starting to think that maybe I should set aside both Saturday and Sunday, to worship God. Thank you for your up-to-date articles that keep me knowing what it happening.

I don't understand R. Solomon's comments (and didn't understand the boycott of El Al in general.) It wasn't necessary to demonstrate the right of the observant community to keep shabbos -- El Al never questioned observant passengers right to stay home on shabbos. And why is it just, wise, or appropriate to compel El Al, a privately owned company to keep shabos? Would it increase the honor of the shabbos to boycott Tenuva? Bezek? What about boycotting the businesses of all private individuals known to be non shabbos observant? It seems to me these kind of strong-arm techniques drive secular Jews further away from Torah, causing not a kiddush Hashem, but the opposite.

(1) Notice your clever obfuscation -- first you speak about the "Orthodox Chareidi", and refer to them after that simply as "Orthodox". The fact is that the great majority of non-Chareidi Orthodox, in Israel and in the U.S., DIDN'T follow the boycott.

(2) Unlike El Al, Israir is privately held, by Jews, and it always flies on Shabbat! Are you now going to boycott Israir?

Shabbat honors the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The world has yet to acknowledge His sovereignty; the Arabs keep Friday and the majority of
Christians keep Sunday. The Jews should be commended highly for their their choice to honor Him in their steadfast boycott of El Al. My opinion of the media's ignoring this event is that it is a direct denial by them of the sovereignty of Israel's Creator and
G-d and the honor He deserves.