NEW YORK (VINnews/Sandy Eller) – The owner of a boutique communications and public relations firm has created a stir on Twitter, blasting staff members at John F. Kennedy International Airport for what she describes as a pattern of openly harassing Orthodox Jewish travelers.
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Strategist Liz Mair took to social media on the afternoon of March 8th to describe her experiences at JFK, saying that she had witnessed “major anti-Semitic behavior” from airport workers, with Transportation Security Administration employees displaying particularly offensive behavior.
Mair, whose last name often has her mistakenly assumed to be Jewish, shared that she was among a group of passengers who were singled out for harsh scrutiny based on appearances or having Jewish-sounding names.
According to Mair’s thread, security officials were openly hostile towards those they believed to be Jewish, subjecting them to extensive delays, rudeness and extra security measures.
Since this is the third time in a row that I’ve witnessed major anti-Semitic behavior from @JFKairport staff— especially but not only TSA— I’m going on a rant about it.
— Liz Mair (@LizMair) March 8, 2023
Communicating with VIN News via email while overseas, Mair said she that posted her rant on Twitter from an airport lounge immediately after clearing security at JFK.
Mair explained that she was headed to Cairo with her child, and that there were multiple Orthodox Jews traveling to Europe from JFK’s Terminal1, several of whom she later saw waiting to board a flight to Munich.
“This happening to people flying to Munich strikes me as even more awful,” Mair told VIN News. “You’re flying to a place that really gave rise to Hitler and Naziism and you’re subjected to anti-Semitic harassment and misbehavior on the way out, in America, at the hands of government, and an entity that is supposedly responsible for ‘security.’ That strikes me as adding an extra layer of awfulness.”
Mair reportedly watched Jewish travelers being subjected to excessive scrutiny, with gestures and chatter intimating that one woman was asked to remove her wig, although it was unclear whether that request was ultimately enforced.
A female traveler standing near Mair on the line was instructed to take off all items covering her head, with TSA staffers seemingly surprised to discover that what they reportedly thought was a wig was actually her own hair.
And while TSA screening measures allow those 75 and older to keep their shoes and light jackets on as they pass through security, Mair saw a visibly Orthodox man who appeared to be in his eighties ordered to remove multiple layers of clothing.
“I honestly thought they were going to make him strip down to his undershirt,” noted Mair.
Passing through security, Mair was told to remove her camera from her bag, something she has never been asked to do in her many travels. When TSA officials told her that the only other item she needed to remove was a laptop, if she had one, Mair said they were astonished to see her pull a computer out of her bag.
“Maybe he thought Jews don’t use laptops or something,” observed Mair. “I can’t imagine why else he would have been surprised that I had a laptop.”
Mair was disturbed to see flyers on other lines being treated courteously, while those who were “tagged as Jewish” were subjected to verbal harassment and other objectionable behaviors.
“We were yelled at to back up and I explained we could not because there was a baby behind us,” tweeted Mair. “They did not care. All the blond people magically ended up in the faster moving lane.”
Mair said that the behavior she witnessed in Terminal 1 was not an isolated incident, observing anti-Semitic behavior to a lesser degree on her last two trips out of JFK, flights to Rome and London, which originated in a different terminal.
As a frequent international flyer, she has never seen Jews singled out either of London’s two major airports, nor has she encountered similar behaviors domestially in Reagan National or Dulles when she lived in Washington DC, or on flights out of Westchester County Airport.
“I don’t care about the inconvenience,” tweeted Mair. “I care about the casual hatred and treating people as lesser because they wear a particular hat, or a wig, or dress a certain way, or have the last name Meyer, or Mair, or Klein, or Goldberg. This [obscenity]is absolutely unacceptable.”
With her comments making waves on Twitter, Mair has heard from others who have experienced similar abuse at JFK and LaGuardia Airport.
Her comments caught the attention of Texas Senator Ted Cruz who jumped into the fray on Twitter saying, “Deeply disturbing and totally unacceptable if true. @TSA, please be ready to have some very candid conversations about this in the coming weeks and months.”
Deeply disturbing and totally unacceptable if true. @TSA, please be ready to have some very candid conversations about this in the coming weeks and months. https://t.co/B3w9AUyIP0
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 9, 2023
TSA officials emailed Mair to set up a phone regarding the incident, but she explained that while all the details she had to share were included in her Twitter thread, there were others who were more qualified to provide information on discriminatory behavior at the airport.
“I told them I thought they really needed to talk to leaders and organizations in the ultra-Orthodox and anti-Semitism-fighting communities,” explained Mair. “I’m not the issue here and shouldn’t be. What happened to me was far less bad than what was happening to obviously Jewish people.”
Although Mair’s Twitter thread was viewed more than 370,000 times in just under 40 hours, she hopes it will gain traction in the social media world.
“I was saddened that it wasn’t picked up more,” said Mair. “This is a serious problem and people need to treat it more seriously. I think there’s a lot of ambivalence these days to anti-Semitism and it disgusts me.”
Abselutely true and I guarantee you they’re all from the so-called minority community!
I’ve experienced the same disgusting & discrimanotory behavior from many of NYC’s agency employees all from the same persuasion!
Nobody in the media wants to talk about the tremendous antisemitism from the African American community.Thats why they’ll sweep it under the rug!
2 weeks ago i was on the line for security at jfk. like we’re being crazily mismanaged and we’re tremendously backed up. people are pushing and cutting and being directed the wrong ways etc. i was politely waiting, and since i was at least 30 people back from the conveyor belt and clearly going to be waiting another 10 minutes, i pulled out my phone for a quick phone call. A TSA agent pushing back starts screaming at me – youre the train for delays, put the phone away! She was really losing it. This while literally dozens of people in line had phones out, i was moving along with the line, and nowhere near the front.
Yes, Ms. Mair is absolutely right. They routinely egregiously pick on anyone visibly Jewish in a way I have rarely seen in any other airport. (possible exceptions of munich and Istanbul.)
when i experienced unacceptable behaviour at newark airport, the standard retort, to a huge line waiting for the “not american citizens” desk, was “tell it to your congressman”. translation: we can get away with it.
stop giving morons with lousy attitudes a badge and a gun, and no accountability, unless you want the bad behaviour.
Ms. Mair did not state that the TSA personnel who engaged in such horrible behavior, were members of minority groups, who hate Jews.
Don’t worry!!!
Chuck Schumer is on it.
oy
I am sorry and more than a little surprised that yidden’ve had such experiences. In all my numerous interactions with TSA, customs, and immigration, I’ve always been treated with respect.
Anti semitism is certainly on a rise so is the negative media coverage lately in the NYT. It’s up to the readers to decide if these negative media coverage is gaslighting the anti semitism. Majority of the negative media coverage comes from Yaffed and their cronies. Most recently about how they were smacked in school two decades ago even admitting that this practice is less common now yet they feel besmirching and denigrate the orthodox community is more important to them than the consequences that come out of it. Have you seen any message from that group of people denouncing hate particularly in the Ultra Orthodox Community. True colors prevailing.