The flight was postponed - and Satmar chassidim were 'stuck' in Israel

Dozens of Satmar chassidim who came to Israel with the entourage that accompanied the Rebbe, and were supposed to return to New York for Shabbos Parshat Beshalach, were stuck at the Ben Gurion airport due to a malfunction that occurred on the plane.


Flight 0269 of the Delta airline, was supposed to leave from Ben Gurion Airport on Thursday night, and get to Kennedy Airport in New York on Friday morning. Close to one hundred Satmar chassidim were supposed to be on this flight, but due to a technical problem the flight was delayed, the haredi passengers waited impatiently for the flight to leave, but after a few hours it became clear that the flight will only take off on Friday afternoon, and therefore, in order not to violate Shabbos – the haredi passengers left the flight, and had to stay in Israel over Shabbos.

Yossel Goldberger, an Israeli resident who was also supposed to take that flight to the U.S., for a family celebration in Lakewood, told B'Chadrei Charedim: "We were already sitting on the place, the doors had been closed, suddenly we saw that we aren't taking off, we waited an hour and nothing happened, the clock began to move, the flight attendants did not know what was going on, only after three hours on the plane they told us that there is a failure and it is not known when the flight will leave. It was late at night and all the flights of other companies who left to the U.S. had already taken off."

"I thought about buying tickets for another company, since it was important for us to get to the aufruf of my brother in law," says Goldberger. "Initially we were told that the flight will leave in the morning, and then we were told that the flight will leave on Friday afternoon. About half of the passengers were Satmar chassidim who came with the Rebbe. I had to return home and begin to fight for space on the flight that left on Motzei Shabbos or Sunday. I discovered that the company had made no special effort to slot the passengers on the Motzei Shabbos flight, and those who were slotted - were assigned on the basis of available place, "concludes Goldberger angrily.



A spokesman for Delta, Eitan Loewenstein, said that due to technical problems discovered near the planes take off, and because of the importance of passenger safety, the flight was postponed until the next afternoon. Passengers who for religious reasons could not fly, were assigned residence for Shabbos, a small portion of passengers were assigned to fly out on Motzei Shabbos from the airport, and the others will have to wait until the week to be slotted on other flights. Delta Company operates daily flights every midnight to the U.S.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!