Background and a DansDeals special investigation
On Sunday, I read about an incident on American flight 4447 on the DansDeals Forums that seemed too strange to be true. A veteran poster alleged that his brother was kicked off of an American Airlines flight from Cleveland due to being visibly Jewish.
People often send me stories to write about and I’ve reported on many over the years, though I don’t cover the majority of them. However, this one seemed like it was worth investigating.
Over the past 2 days I’ve spoken with 2 passengers who were removed from the flight, Reuven (Reuvi) Scheinerman and Yehudah Roffman. Reuvi is a minor, so I also spoke with Reuvi’s father Motti.
Were you on AA flight 4447 on 5/5? Please email Dan@DansDeals.com to share what you saw.
Usually, I stick to stories that have video or at least audio evidence, as otherwise it is only a “he said, she said” situation. In this case, the 2 yeshiva students only had kosher flip phones (non-smartphones with only calling and SMS capabilities, which is very common among yeshiva students), so this story is based on their allegations and what Reuvi discussed with his father that evening. Despite the lack of video, I found their testimonies to be credible and compelling.
Reuvi Scheinerman is removed from American flight 4447
On Sunday, May 5th, 17 year old Reuvi Scheinerman was flying back to his yeshiva in Connecticut after Pesach break. There are no nonstop flights between Cleveland and Hartford, so his father booked him on an American flight via Washington DC’s Reagan National Airport.
Cleveland’s TSA lines can run very long these days, especially if you don’t have PreCheck and CLEAR. Reuvi doesn’t drive and has no state ID, which isn’t required if you’re under 18 years old. But that also means he can’t get PreCheck or CLEAR.
American offers unaccompanied minor services for 15-17 year olds, but doesn’t require it. Reuvi is in 11th grade and has flown on his own since 9th grade without incident. This very shy boy was dressed in the yeshiva uniform: a white dress shirt, black pants, suit jacket, and a black fedora. He had the yeshiva-required kosher flip phone, without the ability to record what happened.
He was thankful to make it through security and board the plane just a few minutes before boarding was scheduled to end for AA flight 4447, an Embraer E175 operated by Republic Airways for American Airlines. He stopped to help a thankful passenger put their bag in the overhead compartment and then went straight to his window seat in 23A, the very last row of the plane. He took his seat and was happy to see that 23B was empty as boarding concluded.
That joy would be short-lived. The AA gate agent came over to him, tapped on his shoulder, and told him to grab his carry-on bag and follow him off the plane. The shy boy complied without making a scene, as his father always told him how important it is for Jews to make a Kiddush Hashem. When he was back at the gate he was told to wait while the gate agent closed the doors and sent the flight off. He asked what happened, to which the gate agent replied that he should know what he did wrong. But he had no clue.
Back at the gate he met 21 year old Yehudah Roffman for the first time, who had also been ordered off of the flight.
Yehudah Roffman is removed from American flight 4447
Yehudah is also a yeshiva student and was dressed in the same standard yeshiva uniform: black pants, suit jacket, and a black fedora. He was returning to NYC after spending Pesech break in Cleveland and also had the kosher flip phone instead of a modern smartphone.
Reuvi lives in an older Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in the city of Cleveland Heights, while Yehudah lives in a newer Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in the city of University Heights, and their paths hadn’t previously crossed.
Yehudah was originally booked on American flight 4305 from Cleveland to JFK, but along with several other passengers, missed that flight due to the long security lines. He was rebooked to LaGuardia via Reagan National, departing about 90 minutes later.
Yehudah was waiting in the gate area in Cleveland for flight 4447 to Reagan National and noticed before boarding that the tail of the plane appeared to be dented. He called his mother with his concerns, and she told him to let a flight attendant know what he’d seen. When he boarded, he asked the flight attendant if they noticed the dent in the tail, and sat down in 10D, an aisle seat in the 3rd row of the Main Cabin Extra section. He still felt uneasy, so when the gate agent was onboard he went over and once again asked if they noticed the dent on the tail, and sat back down.
Having not received any validation or even response to his previous inquiries and still feeling extremely uneasy, Yehudah noticed the pilot talking to the gate agent at the front of the plane, and asked about the dented tail. The pilot told him to sit down, but Yehudah wanted reassurance that it had been noticed and inspected, so he asked again, and the pilot told him to sit down. Yehudah asked the pilot if he was listening to his concerns, and the pilot told him for a 3rd time to take his seat. After the gate agent said that federal law required that he listen to crew instructions and that he had to take his seat, Yehudah returned to his seat.
It’s unclear why his concerns were not properly addressed. Perhaps they didn’t want a situation where passengers all ask to be deboarded due to problems with the left phalange? The plane’s tail number is N123HQ and it appears to have operated many flights successfully since AA4447.
5 mintues later, the gate agent went to 10D and told Yehudah to take his carry-ons and leave the plane.
An elderly couple that also missed their flight to JFK and had been rebooked with Yehudah to LaGuardia via Reagan National expressed their surprise as Yehudah was led off the plane.
The crew then pointed out Reuvi in the back and the gate agent walked 13 rows back and told 17 year old Reuvi that he was being ordered to leave the flight as well, despite having zero interaction with Yehudah or any cabin crew.
There were no other visibly religious Jews on the flight.
Questions loomed as to why Reuvi was removed
Back at the podium, Reuvi and Yehudah met each other for the first time. The gate agent sent the plane off just 6 minutes past its scheduled departure time, and it arrived on time into Reagan National.
The gate agent addressed both of them and said, “you know what you did.” The agent then told them that they would be blacklisted from American Airlines, and should find another airline to take them to NYC.
Yehudah never did receive an explanation for what he described was a dent on the plane’s tail. In an era of serious concerns about the safety of planes, that seems quite unfair.
When Reuvi asked the gate agent why he was removed, the response was to please wait while the gate agent figured things out.
Reuvi then gathered to courage to ask point-blank, “Is this anti-Semitism? Why was I removed from this flight?”
The gate agent responded that the pilot asked that he be removed. Reuvi asked for the pilot’s name, but the gate agent wouldn’t tell him that information.
When he asked again what he did wrong, the gate agent said they didn’t know, but when the pilot says he doesn’t want you on his flight, the gate agent has to listen.
While Reuvi is a minor, at no point did American contact Reuvi’s parents to let them know that they had removed him from the flight.
At this point, the gate agent became more compassionate and said they wouldn’t be blacklisted and they were able to be rebooked on American the following day.
Finding another way to Connecticut and New York
Yehudah had no interest in stepping foot onto another American plane, and said he would rent a car. He also felt bad, and offered to drive Reuvi to his Yeshiva in Connecticut and get him there on time for classes to begin Monday morning.
Reuvi called his parents and related that he had been kicked off the flight, despite doing nothing wrong. They said they would pick him up from the airport, but he told them about Yehudah Roffman’s offer. Reuvi’s mother works as a secretary at a religious school in Cleveland that the Roffman children went to and was familiar with the family, so his parents agreed to this arrangement. That kind of kindness and trust is common in the world of religious Jews.
They took the shuttle to the rental car facility, Yehudah rented a car, and they drove through the night to Reuvi’s yeshiva in Connecticut, arriving at 6am, before Yehudah drove to his yeshiva in Far Rockaway, NY.
Ejecting a minor without informing the parents
I also spoke with Reuvi’s father, Motti Scheinerman.
He was shocked at the open anti-Semitism of his son being thrown off the flight, despite doing nothing wrong or even being accused of anything he specifically did that was wrong.
He was even more shocked that American didn’t even think to let the parents of a minor know that they were removing him off of the last flight of the day. Is that really airline protocol?
Collective punishment: Lufthansa Déjà vu
This is a story that’s eerily reminiscent of the infamous May 2022 Lufthansa flight, when all visibly religious Jews on that flight were denied boarding their connecting flight because of a couple Jews on the originating flight failing to comply with mask requirements.
A Lufthansa supervisor in Frankfurt was caught on camera admitting that “Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems, and everyone had to pay for a couple.”
The airline wound up settling the case for nearly $3 million to avoid having it go to court.
Apparently, American Airlines has a cabin crew that also practices collective punishment against visibly religious Jews.
It should have been obvious that despite their similar garb, there was zero interaction between Reuvi and Yehudah. Yehudah boarded early while Reuvi boarded just before boarding was ending. They were seated 13 rows apart and their tickets had no connection to one another. They lived in different cities and were strangers to one another. There should have been no reason to confuse the 2 or lump them together. And yet, the pilot on flight 4447 did exactly that in tossing them off the flight, seemingly because they both looked visibly Jewish.
Scary times for visibly religious Jews
Is this what we have come to in 2024?
Do we need to start flying with body cams? I don’t think we’re there yet, but at the very least, if you do have a smartphone, you should start recording at the first hint of something happening. If you feel uncomfortable holding it up to someone’s face, you can just have it record while in your hand to pick up audio and some video. If you are forced to delete pictures or video, you can typically recover it from your phone’s trash folder.
My brother is a first year Columbia Law Student, where there have been virulently anti-Semitic and dangerous protests. He remains at home, where he has finished this year’s studies remotely and is taking finals remotely, as is required by the school.
There was a rise in anti-Semitism before October 7th, but the most deadly day for Jews since the Holocaust seems to have awoken a whole new level of hatred against Jews.
It is wrong and deeply concerning that today one could be targeted or mistreated just for being visibly Jewish.
These are highly uncomfortable and scary times indeed for visibly religious Jews.
DansDeals reached out to American Airlines yesterday for comment, and while we accepted an off the record phone call from the airline’s media team, we haven’t received an official statement about this incident. This post will be updated if we receive an official statement from the airline.
Were you on AA flight 4447? Please email Dan@DansDeals.com to share what you saw.
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